Wronged and Prolonged: Extended travel in the German Republic

Into our third week in Germany, and we’re still spinning our heads trying to navigate the Kafkaesque channels of German bureaucracy. You have to give them credit for their ability to maintain an impressive sense of social order, but the machinery that makes it all happen can be nigh impossible for the footloose family of gypsy travelers to unravel.

All we want to do is get a car and drive around on an extended vacation. We are healthy, respectful and self-sufficient, not trying to take advantage of anyone or anything, but here in Germany (and throughout Europe perhaps), you need documentation. And I should mention that my wife and both of our children are passport-carrying German citizens. But if you want a simple thing like car insurance (which is required BEFORE you can buy a car) or health insurance (which is required by law both in Germany as in the States), you need to have an address.

In the US, when somebody wants your address, you can tell them pretty much anything. Any place where you are able to collect mail will suffice. But here you need to have some proof of address, based on where you are officially registered as living. And you cannot register without a written letter from the landlord attesting to the fact that you do honestly reside at such-and-such an address. (Home ownership is far less common here than in the U.S.—most people, including families, professionals and retirees rent—so finding a cooperative “landlord” to sign your paperwork is no simple matter.)

Our situation is unusual; not everyone has the luxury to take a year off of work to travel with their family. When I say luxury, I use the term loosely. We do plan to work as we go, in exchange for room and board. Currently we sharing a 300 sq ft cabin with outdoor bathroom, intermittent electricity, no hot showers and no internet.

But we are not the only ones having trouble providing an address in order to register as residents. In fact, a whole cottage industry seems to have sprung up in response to this conundrum. Homeowners now advertise online, on eBay and elsewhere, offering the use of their address for your official registration. For a price, ranging between 50 to 200 euros a month, they will sign you off and forward your mail to any address you like. Nice to see this kind of entrepreneurial spirit thriving even under democratic socialism!

Even if we are able to register as residents, which remains to be seen, we would then run into the problem of mandatory schooling (Schulpflicht). Once registered, our six-year-old daughter, who turns seven in September, would be required by law to show up for school beginning in mid-August. Failure to attend would result in a stern letter being mailed to our official residence, followed by fines of indeterminate amount if her truancy continued. Home schooling is not an option in Germany. No exceptions. Even school aged refugees who are seeking (but haven’t yet been granted) asylum are required to show up for school.

As a US citizen, I can travel as a tourist for three months, but eventually I should also register or obtain an extended travel visa. Furthermore, our daughter’s German passport expires in September, and we can’t renew it here without an official address. (She also possesses an American passport, but she entered on her German passport, so it seems important to keep that one valid.)

So our dream vacation is turning out to be rather complicated. We knew it wasn’t going to be simple, and that’s all part of the challenge and adventure, but some days it just feels like a real pain in the neck. Luckily, we have a pretty good support system of relatives here in the Fatherland. They let us sleep in their garden house, they let us use their laundry and their showers, and they frequently have us over for dinner.

But when it comes to carving loopholes in the German paperwork, there’s not much they can do. When we tell them of our hurdles and headaches, we are often greeted with a cool combination of condescendence and Schadenfreude. We should just find an apartment, they say, send our kids to school like everyone else, and spend the rest of our lives working in the factory, until we can retire with a fat German pension. True enough, the part about the fat German pension is something to envy, but we’ve made the informed decision to enjoy ourselves now while we’re young and able. As a self-employed American, I expect to get back to work soon enough, and probably keep on working till I’m too old and weak to hold myself up.

Read on: For more enchanting stories about our adventures in Germany, check out the following articles:

• The best of Thuringia
• Urban Germany: Well-oiled engine of the EU
• Turning leaves in the Fatherland
• Philosophizing in Weimar