Get Well Soon Kotik

[Kotik]

At any rate, I was the only one who didn't have to jump through all the hoops of getting my ID and credit cards replaced. I really felt bad for the other girls, it took them quite a long time to get some things straightened out. It's really hard to get your identification replaced when nearly every other form of ID you have was stolen right along with it!

Got the ID taken care of yesterday. I've got a new ID card, so I can at least prove that I am, who I claim to be. But words fail to describe what it took me to do it

I work in western Germany, 300 miles from my home. In Germany, you can only get an ID card issued in your home county. So I had to go 300 miles, have pictures taken, get a new ID, request a new drivers license and have a new car registration issued and then drive 300 miles back, all in a single day with several broken bones. By the time I was home I was almost weeping in pain. If I ever get hold of the idiots who did that to me, I'm gonna forget that I'm not partial to violence

[Aquarius]

You have to go back to your home county??? OMG Kotik, that sounds like the trip from hell Broken bones and all.

Here, your drivers license/state ID is handled by each individual state. Most states have a Department of Motor Vehicles, but in Michigan it's handled through the Secretary of State, and there are offices in every county, sometimes more than one depending on how population-dense the area is. They've closed a lot of offices due to budgetary cutbacks and the popularity of handling some routine matters online, but you can still go to any office to have things taken care of, it doesn't matter what city or county you were originally from or anything like that.

[justTripn]

300 miles! THAT is criminal!

[Kotik]

You have to go back to your home county??? OMG Kotik, that sounds like the trip from hell Broken bones and all.

Here, your drivers license/state ID is handled by each individual state. Most states have a Department of Motor Vehicles, but in Michigan it's handled through the Secretary of State, and there are offices in every county, sometimes more than one depending on how population-dense the area is. They've closed a lot of offices due to budgetary cutbacks and the popularity of handling some routine matters online, but you can still go to any office to have things taken care of, it doesn't matter what city or county you were originally from or anything like that.

That's the price I pay for German beaurocracy and my own stubborness. There's no work in the region of my birth (western Prussia, now Saxonia-Anhalt in eastern Germany), so I have to work in the west. I never could bring myself to give up my roots That's why I still have a small apartement in my home town, even if I'm in western Germany for most of the year. But that means for any official business, I have to return to my home town, because I'm still registered there.
I could give it up and have myself registered here in the west, but I rather suffer a 300 mile ride with dented bones, rather than giving up my ties with the place I grew up.

[Aquarius]

Oh wow.

We don't have to be registered any particular place. Any Secretary of State office will do, no matter where you live or are registered to vote. Even though I live in Metro Detroit, I'd often wait to take care of things there until I visited my home town, just because the SoS office there is in a less populated area so the lines are much shorter. It doesn't matter to them what part of the state you're from.

[honeybee]

I had German friends as a child, and the mother was wearing a pin one day - it commemorated the 900th anniversary of her village outside of Cologne. She got the pin because hers was one of the families that was documented to have lived there since the founding.

I gather that Germany's system wasn't designed for transitory people the way ours is.

But I am reminded of this:
Franz Kafka International Airport Named Worst

[Alelou]

But I am reminded of this:
Franz Kafka International Airport Named Worst

LOL.

[Thot]

This one is even better.

Although the Airport report is good, too.

The very hard thing is, if you get some cliches proven right, although the bureaucarcy in Germany is already better then years earlier. Well, that might be only my impression...