Zu schlange stehen, oder zu schlange stehen nicht. Das ist die Frage.

Ok, so the external perception of Germany is that it is a very strict and regulated country. All you have to do is picture the "Soup Nazi" in Seinfeld, and you know exactly what I mean.

I some cases this really is true. For example, when we moved here, we were first registered in Bad Homburg. Then we moved to Darmstadt a few days later, so we had to drag ourselves down to the Town Hall and register as living in Darmstadt. Every time you move you must do this.
Another example is with our license. Before we can go for the test we must:
1. Register ourselves with a driving school;
2. Do our eye test;
3. Do our first aid course;
4. Go to the town hall and register as a potential driver, with proof of the above.
Once all this is done, the town hall will eventually process our papers and send a letter to the driving school. When they receive it, then, and only then, can we make an appointment to sit the driving test.

So, will all of these stringent rules in mind, now let's have a look at the town hall. I believe we may have described this before, but I will recap here...
There is a long hallway with many doors down each side (picture Alice in Wonderland...). The doors have signs above them breaking the alphabet up into three parts A-K, K-... Fairly orgainsed so far. Look around for the queue...there isn't one! Everyone just waits in the hallway, and when one of the doors lights up with "Enter" it becomes a shit-fight to see who can get in there first!
It was like this again when we were doing the first aid course. This time it was a little different, because we formed an orderly queue to register for the course and the vision test. Then everyone went back into the hallway and waited. When the vision tests started, so did the shit-fight. Why not just process people in the order they signed up?!?!?!

Two steps left, one step forward, three steps right, one step forward....SHIT FIGHT!!!!

Das ist alles.

Tschüß,
'Brush