We had our appointment today to register in Germany. If you are staying in Germany more than three months you are required to register your address (anmelden) with the local office called Bürgeramt. There is a limited amount of time you have to this (14 days from arrival), and is especially important if its needed for the customs clearance of your container, which is our case. Our future house will not be available until November for move in, so we aren’t allowed to use this address until that time. Our current address is that of my parents-in-law, which is not located in the same town as where we will live in the future. To most this wouldn’t seem like a big deal, but this registrations dictates a number of things. Just a few are…

• Address
• Registration for the car and license plate
  • Germany license plates are typically a combination of the city + initials + selected number – which would change when our address changes so we would need to wait for that!
• Where the kids would be required to be in school. Attendance in school is not something that can be taken lightly. As soon as we register, Lainey will be required to be in school. Since the German school year ends middle of July, we just found out that she will need to be in school within a week of registration. This is brand new information to us and has us a little panicked today!
• Registration will also be used to establish tax identifications for us and also enable us to start health insurance locally.

It seems that of the majority of changes happening for us, Lainey is having to be the one to put herself out first. Even Markus is working from home, although it would be easiest for him. When I asked if I could go to classes with her, I was given a side-eye so I assume the answer is no. I know that she will do fabulous. She’s brave and smart and amazing, but this is not only a huge change, she has also been in online classes since March of 2020.

One awesome thing I found out today is that Texas now reciprocates the drivers license with Germany, so I won’t need to go through the long testing process I had previously been afraid of, I will just need to submit a translated copy of my existing license and pay a fee.

Our lives are just getting started here and registration was the very first step! One down, 100’s to go!