Hissing tracks

08. Okt. 2009

The flowers between the train tracks swished and shuffled, square-dancing swirls, like bright yellow light bulbs against a darkening sky. I like the way the rails hiss, so that I know when the trains are coming before the bells from the closing street-blockers start ringing in the distance. The regional train to Dresden comes into Priestewitz like a bullet that already hit its living target, continued on without exploding: colored red, slightly worn, screeching to a halt.

Today I took a train to Meißen to go to the Ausländerbehörde: I need to register myself as an "alien" living in Germany, so that I am allowed to stay in Germany for the remainder of my grant period. The Ausländerbehörde was closed when I arrived at 12:30. The workers were on their two-hour lunch break. Coming from the United States, one may find two hours excessive, but it seems to be standard practice in Germany, which is pretty amazing. Finally, after 1.5 hours of walking around Meißen, and finishing the book Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) the door opened, allowing the alien to enter (or exit?) the space-capsul. I brought so many forms with me, my pass, some extra pass photos (which I got done for free this morning because the owner of the photo-shop in Großenhain is the grandfather of one of my students). Unfortunately, however, I forgot one, and now I have to go back to Meißen again. This will happen after fall break, which is a comfortable two weeks in length.

This is such a snippet, but I forgot to bring my "notes for blog" with me to Dresden. I will just write a more detailed blog when I get home. At the moment, I am sitting in a cafe in Dresden waiting to go check out a couple apartments. It smells like coffee and bagels. There are clinks of spoons against coffee cups.