Renewing a US Passport in Germany

Rain is wet. Fire is hot. Passports expire. 

I had to renew my American passport this year, and since I live in Germany, I had the option of traveling to one of the three locations in Germany: the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, the Consulate General in Frankfurt, the Consulate General in Munich, or the Consular Agency in Bremen.

[Note: US citizens over 16 years old with an undamaged passport that was issued within the last 15 years are able to renew their US passports via mail. However, you have to pay the fee via check in USD or the credit card payment authorization form. Since I didn't have a checkbook and didn't want to fill out this form, I chose to do this process in person.]

I live near Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany. However, there are no U.S. citizen services offered in Hamburg, so I set an entire day aside to take the trip to Bremen, which is 2 hours away by train.

Before I ramble on about my trip to the U.S. Consulate in Bremen, however, let's start with facts of how to renew an American passport in Germany.

WHAT YOU NEED:

• Passport

• Renewal form (DS-81 or DS-11)

• Passport photo (5 cm x 5 cm)

• Application fee payment

• Return envelope for within Germany
• [If you need to change your name due to marriage] International marriage certificate

Note that if you are going to the the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, the Consulate General in Frankfurt, or the Consulate General in Munich, you will need an appointment. The Consular Agency in Bremen, only takes walk-ins (which is where I went).

For specific information, visit the U.S. Embassy website.

Now that the formalities are over with, here is my experience with renewing my passport at the U.S. consulate in Germany.

HOW I DID IT:

To give you a proper idea of what a trek it was for me to renew my U.S. passport in Germany, I let's move through my day by time (and please excuse my potato-quality pictures - I don't have a very nice phone).

8:06

To get to Bremen for free with my student ID (all regional transportation in Lower Saxony is free with my German student ID), I would have to take two trains. To make my first train at 8:32, I got on a bus from my apartment at 8:06.

8:20

I arrived at the train station around 8:20 and walked to the platform. Less than five minutes later, I hear an announcement over the speakers:

"The train you are waiting for is delayed 22 minutes, and since your layover was only 12 minutes, this means you are also going to miss your connecting train to Bremen. Your day is doomed."

Okay, maybe the announcement wasn't that dramatic, but it was not a good start to my day. The train to Bremen ran every hour, but it was January, and I wasn't very keen on waiting outside at a crappy train station for an 52 minutes. After a frantic search on my phone, I found a train that would decrease my layover to 30 minutes.

8:54
The train that was supposed to arrive at 8:32 arrives at 8:54, and I am annoyed.

9:45
I make it to my half-way destination and have to wait for a half hour for my train to Bremen. Still annoyed.

11:05
I get to Bremen 35 minutes later than originally planned, but it's okay. The consulate was open that day until 1:00 p.m. So, everything would be okay. Next step of the plan was to get on a tram that would take me to the Bremen airport (the U.S. consulate is across the street from the airport).

11:30
It takes another 20 minutes to actually get to the consulate from the train station. I was super nervous and also too scared to take a selfie before going in (especially since there was a camera on the doorbell).

Note that it is just a consular agency in Bremen, which means they just offer very limited services for U.S. citizens - basically just passport applications and renewals. When I walked into the office, which is on the fourth floor of the building, there were two armed German police officers waiting to greet me. They asked me why I was there, and I immediately felt like I was doing something illegal and totally stuttered, "I would like to renew my passport..." They then searched my bag (remarking that I had a lot of food with me, hahah), and told me to take a seat.

The U.S. Consular Agency in Bremen is literally just a waiting room with 20 chairs and a single woman sitting behind a bullet-proof glass window. The only other person there was sitting in front of the woman behind the window when I walked in, so I took my seat and waited for my turn.

11:45
When it's my turn, I tell the woman what I need and hand her all of my documents. I hadn't printed/filled out the renewal form ahead of time, so she printed one for me (which I found incredibly considerate after my horrible experiences with German bureaucracy lately). Since some other people were waiting, I filled out the form back in the waiting area while some other people took their turn at the window.

12:30
I finally leave the consulate around 12:30. My meeting was overall pretty successful, except that I made the dumb mistake of bringing what the Germans call a "biometric photo." This is smaller than the passport photos used in American passports, so she couldn't accept it. Luckily, she still took my other documents and agreed to hold on to them until I could mail in a new picture. Here's me looking pleased with the whole experience after leaving:

13:00
I make it back to Bremen's city center and walk around for a bit while I wait for the next train back to Hamburg. If you live somewhere between Bremen and one of the consulates (i.e. Frankfurt or Berlin), then I highly suggest choosing the Bremen consulate for renewing your license. You don't have to make an appointment, it is a (if you ignore the armed German police officers) relaxed environment, and the woman that works there is very sweet.

Bremen is also a beautiful city.

13:30
I'm back on the train with another two-hour trip in front of me. You can tell from the state of my hair that it had been a very long day.

Since my new passport will arrive by mail, the woman at the consulate also invalidated my old passport by punching a bunch of holes in it.

This was actually the first passport I ever had. It accompanied on my first trip outside of the U.S., my semester abroad, and my move to Germany. But with four two-page visas and dozens of stamps, it was getting quite full.

Now I just have to sit back, relax, and wait for my new passport to come in the mail. I was told it would take about three weeks.

Have you kept your expired passports?

Job Search Visa for Foreign Graduates in Germany

Whether you are considering getting your degree in Germany, you are currently getting your degree in Germany, or you are just about to graduate, then you have probably wondered: What comes next?

Good news! Foreigners who receive a degree from a German university are allowed to stay in the country after graduation in order to to work. However, if you are not lucky enough to have a job lined up directly after graduation, and your student visa is running out at the end of the semester, then you are eligible for the job search visa (Aufenthaltserlaubnich zur Arbeitsplatzsuche).

To understand the rules regarding German residency permits, it is best to refer to the Residence Act (Aufenthaltsgesetz). The job search visa is covered in §16(4):

Nach erfolgreichem Abschluss des Studiums kann die Aufenthaltserlaubnis bis zu 18 Monaten zur Suche eines diesem Abschluss angemessenen Arbeitsplatzes, sofern er nach den Bestimmungen der §§ 18, 19, 19a und 21 von Ausländern besetzt werden darf, verlängert werden. Die Aufenthaltserlaubnis berechtigt während dieses Zeitraums zur Ausübung einer Erwerbstätigkeit. § 9 findet keine Anwendung.

In case you can't understand German law vocabulary, this says that foreign graduates can receive a residence permit for up to 18 months after graduation to look for a job. Not bad, huh? If this sounds like something for you, then take a look at the facts listed below.

Balls | Mistranslation Monday

After almost a month of internet silence, I am back with everyone's favorite type of post: Mistranslation Monday! Today's Mistranslation Monday is brought to you a single seemingly simple word, balls.

Over Christmas and New Year's, we rented a big house in Germany where both Marco and my families would spend the holidays together. This included both of our parents, both of our brothers, my sister-in-law, and Marco's practically-step-brother. It was a full house, and of the 8 residents...
1 was English/German bilingual
1 could speak German and very limited English
2 could only speak German
and
4 could only speak English.

With such a mix, conversations at the dinner table each evening were... interesting, to say the least. One of the best mistanslations that came out of this linguistic mess occurred on the second day of Christmas (that's right - Germans call December 26th "second Christmas").

On Second Christmas, Marco's practically-step-mother made a traditional Fränkisch meal, including venison with lingonberries, red cabbage, and pretzel dumplings. This story is about those dumplings, which look like this:

Since Marco's step-mother speaks very limited English, the way she translated the various components of this meal to my family was as follows.

Reh = Bambi (yes, she kept telling us throughout the meal that we were eating Bambi)
Blaukraut = Blue cabbage
Brezelknödel = Balls

"Balls" as a translation of Knödel was acceptable at first. She was obviously always referring to the food, and my family was all thankful that she was was putting the effort into speaking English at all. The issue was that Marco's father was picking up on the English that she used and would then repeat her peculiar word choices.

So during our Second Christmas meal, Marco's father was telling us all about how where he comes from (Bodensee-Region), noodles are the standard side dish for meals. Now that he lives in Nuremberg with his Fränkisch partner, however, (and I quote):

"Only balls!"

His delivery of this sentence made me burst out laughing, much to his confusion. And as I kept laughing, poor Marco was left with the task of explaining to his father that "balls" can also refer to a particular male body part.

Why I'm Not Moving Back to the USA

My thesis defense will take place exactly one week from today. As soon as that day is over, there is no longer anything requiring me to stay in this country. Still, I am not moving back to the U.S. and I don't have plans to do in the future.

As anyone that knows me (or reads this blog) would guess, I have long-term plans to stay in Germany. Although I miss my family and friends every day, I truly believe that my quality of life is much higher in Germany than it is in the U.S.

Why? Well, let me list a few reasons!

Employment
Germany's unemployment rate recently hit a record low, and while such figures are difficult to compare internationally, most sources agree that the U.S. market is not doing quite as well. I believe that this is especially true for university graduates.

I have previously written about how too many Americans go to college and how the U.S. could benefit by adopting a more comprehensive apprenticeship system. This is still something I strongly believe in, especially when I see so many of my college-educated friends doing administrative work that shouldn't require a college degree.

In Germany, on the other hand, less people choose to study. This means that the job market is less saturated with college graduates searching for the same kinds of jobs. This also means that I actually stand a chance at finding a job where I will use my Master's-level education and be compensated fairly for my educational background - something I do not think would happen if I were to move back to the U.S.

Health Care
Ever since moving to Germany, I have praised the country's public healthcare system. As a student, I only had to pay about 80€ a month for health insurance with less out-of-pocket fees than any American health insurance I have ever heard of.

When I start a full-time job, my health insurance fee will increase considerably, as it is calculated as a percentage of income. Currently this percentage is around 15% - half of which is paid by the employer and the other half by the employee.

Paid Vacation & Sick Leave
Americans work longer hours, get less paid vacation time, and retire later than Germans. Even though I have only worked part-time jobs in Germany so far, I have received at least 24 days of paid vacation per year at each of my jobs (24 is the legal minimum) and paid sick time (I just had to show a doctor's note if I am sick for over 3 days in a row).

The other important aspect to consider here is that German employers also expect their employees to take all of their vacation time. Nobody gets a bad reputation with the boss for taking a couple weeks off at a time because everyone does it! Meanwhile, due to the work culture in the U.S., over half of Americans don't use all of their vacation time (which is typically only 10 days per year to begin with). Yikes.

Parental Leave
The U.S. has no law guarantees full-time workers paid parental leave. Although I'm not planning on taking advantage of this anytime soon, I am happy knowing that I will never have to make the hard decision between family and career in the future as long as I stay in Germany.

Germany currently provides 12 months of paid parental leave (during which the parent receives about two-thirds of their total income) and this is increased to 14 months if each parent takes at least 2 months. Pretty nice, right?

Politics, public transportation, university tuition, recycling... this list could go on and on. But basically, it all comes down to the fact that I believe my quality of life will be higher in Germany than in the U.S. Will this change in the future? Maybe. But for now, I am very happy with where I am and where my future in Germany is headed.

3 Americans That are Only Famous in Germany

When it comes to fame, Germany has its own set of rules. The Germans have shot lots of foreign-born singers and bands into international stardom throughout the decades - the most famous example being The Beatles.



Even today, there are Americans that can't walk the streets of Germany without being recognized, yet hardly anyone in the U.S. has ever heard of them.

Here are three of such Americans that are more famous, if not only famous, in Germany:


Bruce Darnell

source

It's hard to turn on German TV nowadays without seeing this American man's face. Bruce Darnell is currently famous for serving as a judge on German reality TV competitions, but he actually started out his career as a paratrooper for the U.S. Army. After leaving the army in the 1980s, he came to Germany as a model. Apparently, Bruce rubbed elbows with the right people over the following decades, because he was soon BFF with Heidi Klum and became nationally famous when he served as a judge on Germany's Next Top Model.

If you live(d) in Germany, you may know him for his grammatically-incorrect catchphrase "Das ist der Wahrheit" (it should be die Wahrheit):

Although I usually hate watching talent competitions, I do really enjoy seeing Bruce and hearing his awesome American accent (which my German fiancé tells me I should practice doing because the Germans seem to love it).

Dana Schweiger

Even if you live in Germany, you may have not heard of Dana Schweiger, but you have definitely heard of her ex-husband, Til Schweiger, and at least one of their children (their daughters Emma, Lilli, and Luna have been in quite a few Til Schweiger films).

If you're American, then let me explain: Til Schweiger is a famous German actor, director, producer... blahblahblah. Basically, he has his own production company and loves making movies for himself and his daughters to star in. Also, his facial expression never changes from what you see in the above photo.

Dana and Til have been divorced since 2014, but Dana is still semi-famous in Germany and is currently on the TV show 6 Mütter, where she talks about raising her celebrity kids.

Since Dana has lived in Germany for decades, she can speak German pretty well. However, as you can hear in the video, she does still have a strong American accent.

David Hasselhoff

This list wouldn't be complete without the Hoff! The rest of the world loves to joke about the Germans' obsession with David Hasselhoff, and I am here to conform that these jokes are based on fact.

David Hasselhoff's fame in Germany all stems from the 1980's TV show Knight Rider, which I had actually never heard of until coming to Germany. However, my German fiancé (who was 3 years old when Knight Rider was cancelled), claims that he was obsessed with the show as a kid. So, that should show how popular it is. Also, I regularly see reruns getting aired on TV even today.

It was because of the show's popularity, and the Germans' yearning to see Kitt (his talking car from the show), that David Hasselhoff was invited to play at the Berlin Wall on New Year's Eve in 1989 - a concert that iconified him in German culture for decades to come.

Just look at the reception he got when he appeared on a German late night talk show a couple years ago!

Do you know any other Americans that are only famous outside of the USA?