Alles ist in Ordnung

Journey five to the visa office is underway and everything is in order, as the title of this post translates. The purpose of this visit is to prove to the Germans that if my life crumbles into a million pieces then they won’t be fiscally responsible for paying my rent – not joking.

To prove this, I had to open a Sperrkonto, a type of savings account with strict limits on how much one can draw from it. It wasn’t enough to show that we had enough money to pay for a year’s worth of rent in Euros in a German bank, but we had to have it in this specific type of account. Ironically, we pay our rent from our US bank and we pay in dollars.

The bank was very confused in general because I didn’t fully understand and accurately articulate my needs, but they were also helpful and set me up with an account. After three periods of waiting in different designated waiting areas, I met in a random empty room the banker who helped me open my new account.

As he explained the terms and conditions, he explained that the account is completely independent from my Visa and its requirements. The money is there forever until we close the account, which, he went on to say, we could do after turning in the proof to the Visa office. Alles in Ordnung.

So here I am waiting in a line to turn in a paper that says I can pay for rent, from an account I created for the sole purpose of obtaining that paper, of which I can freely close later today if I so happened to choose, for rent that I will never pay for in Euros, for a length of time that extends my stay in this country.

Thank heavens, Alles ist in Ordnung.