afraid of the cloud © Lilly Schwartz 2012

Yesterday I had to go through a bureaucratic effort of kafkaesk proportions. I had to collect my new German id card from the Council. Well, of course I’m exaggerating, it only involved seeing one person and signing two documents. Who would have thought bureaucracy would ease up on us Germans so much over the years?

Ok wait, that was actually sarcasm as well. Obviously the whole effort took me more than two documents. Let me tell you the story: I first went to City Hall without an appointment only to see that 10 minutes after opening all the waiting room numbers were gone. After some disgruntled swearing I made an appointment and I had to wait 2 weeks for that. Once I finally managed to see someone about the whole ID thing, I first had to register at my current address, which involved one signature, then I had to provide them with a passport picture – in the photo booth a machine told me not to smile, oh fun, a biometric picture – sign a document that I hadn’t taken on any additional citizenship in the meantime (no dual citizenship in Germany), sign that I have received a certain leaflet and sign that I didn’t want more biometric data included in my ID. Uhm, why on earth would I?! Then finally I was out of there and thought the thing was settled. Well, no. A few days later I received a letter that there was something wrong with the passport picture I provided and that I had to go back to City Hall again. I did that, was sent to a different desk, waited 20 minutes (while a sweating punk was standing uncomfortably close behind me) and then finally it turned out that there was only a blemish on the picture. I gave them another one from the same batch.

Then finally yesterday two more signatures and I had a new ID again. How very uncomplicated! Well, I did mention kafkaesk proportions, didn’t I? Now it’s over and I don’t have to go through this silliness for another 10 years, hooray for that. Did I mention that I hate doing silly administrative stuff like that?

In any case, of course I was taking pictures on the way to City Hall, which is only 2 subway stops from here. The woman with the newspaper was reading an article with the headline “fear of the cloud”. A quick google search and I came upon Fukushima last year, a forest fire in Tschernobyl two years ago and, uhm, cloud computing. Don’t ask me what cloud they were talking about there in that specific newspaper. Also fun: The guy with the sunglasses on the subway. Well, one of these pictures that leaves you with a big “?” over your head.