Your number is 87.
I know I complain all of the time about getting lost, not having enough (useful) information made available to me, and how Germans are just not very quick to help out a floundering person, but today was about as stressful as it's been so far.
I looked in the course catalog to figure out my classes. Not only was it a maze to find the actual classes (one must click through a series of options including but not limited to "what is the main department you wish to choose," "which division do you need?," "Do you want something in the Pre- or Post-Bologna Process offerings?," "Lecture, Seminar, or Discussion Section?," and "Which topic?"), it's apparently a conundrum to discover when the classes actually begin, and apparently, where they will be held.
The semester began on April 19th. Some classes start that week, some the next, others not until June. It makes absolutely no sense. I had a class that said it would start today, but it had two different locations listed. Online listed one building and room, the .pdf version listed an entirely different building. It started at 15:00.
I had to register for my German as a Foreign Language class starting at 14:00. This is where the waiting comes in. I showed up 15 minutes early only to discover a doubled-over line extending down the hallway and into the staircase. I thought "oh, this can't possibly take too long, it's a simple act of showing my grade in the previous class and writing my name down for the next one." Apparently, this was the sequence of actions, only it moved incredibly slowly. Stultifyingly slow. I stood in line for 30 minutes, for only 10 people to be registered. I huffed and puffed, left, ran to the bus stop, waited for way too many jerks to ask the bus driver banal questions such as "do you go to the trainstation?" or "will this bus stop and poawieul;dkf street?" Jerks, I'm in a rush. Look at the map plastered on every bus stop. I digress.
I got to location option 1, the door was locked. Naturally, the first place I try is wrong, but it gets better. The other location was in the large baroque palace in the city center, luckily only about a 5-minute walk. The words "large baroque palace" should strike fear into anybody hoping to find a singular room inside. This turned out to be the case. This building is multi-purpose. It is a museum to the decadence of Franconia's past, a government building, another museum of unknown purpose, home to multiple libraries, several offices, a Herbarium (apparently) housing specimens from the large garden in the back yard, and a few lecture halls and seminar rooms. I had no idea which of the thousands of doors to enter, so I went into the main one, asked the person at the museum desk where the seminar rooms were, got lost, had to ask somebody else, finally found the room. I opened the door and absolutely nobody was there. I didn't think I could take it anymore.
I walked back to the Domerschulstrasse location (location option 1), which is where the department is located, or rather where the professors' offices are. I couldn't find a receptionist (s/he was probably behind an unmarked, closed door, as is customary in Germany), and the professor's e-mail was not listed anywhere on the University's website (that I could find.)
So I hope that the course catalog was wrong (because bureaucracy is there to ensure thoroughness, completeness, and correctness, right?) I hope that the class actually starts next week, because this is one of the few that actually sounded good and manageable.
Bah. Then I had to run back to the other campus and re-join the line for language registration. Joy.
And I just registered for classes at UT. I didn't get into one of the classes I hoped for. It just adds to the fun of registration on both sides of the Atlantic.
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