Anmeldung und Fahrrad

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Last week I accomplished two major milestones, the purchase of a bicycle to increase my exploration radius and my registration with the local town hall. 

One of my colleagues who is a native German recommended ebay-kleinanzeigen as the most reliable craigslist alternative. I'd been keeping an eye on the bikes available over the weekend and on Monday I plucked up the courage to reach out to one of the sellers. He responded promptly so I set off across town to give it a test drive. This was also my first time riding the subway which was uneventful aside from the first ticket machine not taking my money. The seller was about my height which was a positive sign as to the provenance of the bike. I was only able to give it a short test drive since the spokes on the back wheel were shot but he ended up giving me a discount so I took the bike back on the subway. I dropped it off at one of the local bike shops which are thankfully allowed to stay open during the lockdown and by Tuesday lunch time I had a working bike. 


Before picking up my bike on Tuesday I went to the local town hall to register my address.  This is required for everyone in Germany and is the first step to get my residence card. Google works with a consulting company to guide me through the process so I met their representative Markus at the town hall. He explained the process and that the appointment would likely only take 5 minutes since they just look over my passport and a confirmation from my landlady. We ended up spending longer in the waiting room than we did at the appointment. Markus was happy to answer my questions and share his experience navigating the bureaucracy. He said that there is a backlog for most types of appointments due to things being closed for Covid. He is an amateur radio operator and has been unable to get an appointment for in his words 'unlimited power'. 

Once the weekend rolled around I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and my new bike to explore further out. On Saturday I biked north to Fröttmaninger Berg which has a wind turbine on top
 a view of the city,
and is right next door to Allianz Arena home of Bayern Munich.


On Sunday I biked south to the entrance to the Perlacher Forst but the only good picture I took was of the Marienklause which is a small chapel I passed on the way.


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