Ouch. First bad day of the whole trip. Bureaucrats are the same no matter where you go, I think. So here's the deal: Alex and Melanie helped me check into Steingarten today. They're freaking troopers. I need to buy them flowers and chocolate. Two groups of problems: the contract and the place.

The Contract.
At the WG office we met another exchange student, Marie-Claire, from Quebec. She's similar to me in that she barely knows German, she plans to travel a bit at the end of all this, and she's at the same stage in her housing stuff. So when she was about to sign the housing contract and saw that they had converted her "1 Semester" (which is literally what it says on our application) to "1 Year" (except in German, so it's difficult to notice the difference if you aren't a native speaker), she decided not to use the Uni WG and warned me about /my/ contract. So I went in to ask about that and, yes, they also changed /my/ term from one semester to one year without informing me. Nice, eh? Apparently they don't even offer 1-semester terms but they don't know how to change the website.

So I said, "Sorry, that won't work for me." No dice. They claim I've already signed the contract... which isn't true. I've signed ONE contract that exclusively says "Mannheim is allowed to withdraw from this account to pay rent," but I never signed (or even really understood) the other, much more complex, 100% German contract about the location and terms of my lease. So no, I didn't sign that, and that's easily provable because I haven't /been in the country/ so anything I've "signed" has been via e-mail, and my e-mail records show nothing of any contract with dates or locations on it. I asked them to provide me with a copy of the signed contract they claim to have, and they were unable to locate it in their records. She then told me that I should go the Steingarted itself and talk to the housemeister because he should have the contract. So... I made the 40 minute journey (later we found out it can be done in 20) out of Mannheim and into Wohnheim, where Steingarten is hidden in a big forest of nothingness and other apartments that look like mental institutions. The housemeister has no contract from me, either. On the other hand, I don't really have a place to stay right now. I've been sleeping on Alex's couch. So... the housemeister gives me the keys anyway, so now I have a free room. Cool. I'll use this as a home base while I look for an apartment that's actually in the city.

(thumbnail of the one I signed) (thumb of the one I didn't sign)

The Place:
As I mentioned, Steingarten is in a separate place linked by train to Mannheim station, called Wohnheim. Original, yes. So there's absolutely nothing here... every time I mention to a local that I live in Steingarten, they either ask, "Where is Steingarten?" or they suck in their breath, shake their heads, and look at me with pity. There's a park, a bowling alley, a retirement home, and a kindergarten. The train/bus stops coming here at 11. Now I'm doubly glad I didn't sign the contract. There has *got* to be something available in the city.