Bureaucracy

The past two days of been filled with tons of paperwork and chasing our own administrative tails.  New IDs, new bank accounts, new jobs and new driver's licenses for our new lives here in Garmisch.  I'm happy to be done with the majority of the paperwork.  There is still some, but it will come in smaller loads.


Yesterday after we finished with our days work filling and filing, I and some others walked half way up one of the mountains surround our valley town.  There is a little restaurant at exactly the half way point to the summit.  It was quite the hike and I am not yet acclimatized to the thin mountain air, but I made it without too much trouble. Unfortunately we chose to leave a little too late and we didn't arrive at the restaurant before it closed for the night.  Everything here closes around 5:00pm.  It's a very bizarre thing to walk around a town of 30,000 people at night, and there be hardly anyone out at all.  There are a few business open later into the night, but they are mostly American businesses like McDonald's.  The bars also stay open quite late.  In fact they don't close so long as there are a few drunks willing to stick around and spend some money.  Its like Vegas or New Orleans.

Despite having to be up this morning and ready to start our day at 7:00am, just about everyone in my newbie group went out to Peaches.  They are a restaurant, as I mentioned in my last post, but they are also a bar.  Every Tuesday night they have 'American Night' and they accept dollars for euros exchanged 1 for 1.  It's pretty popular for the workforce down here.  It was a good time.  I had a few beers before calling it a night.  The beer here is great by the way.  The rumors are true.  I don't know how they do it.