Posts Tagged ‘American’

On Wednesday we opened a bank account at the Bank of America. We decided not to do this online, so we went there in the morning and were actually surprised by how easy it went. You don’t have to be afraid about it, but I still do have a few tips for every Greencard winner that will have to do this soon:

1. What you need to open a bank account is: A Social Security Number, your Greencard and Passport, an american address and an american phone number. For the address and phone number you can use those of friends. Postboxes and foreign phone numbers are not allowed. Also – at the Bank of America – you need a national E-Mail-Address for online banking. Our banker told us to get one at G-Mail oder Yahoo for example.

2. Bring some money! There are minimum amounts that have to stay on your account in order to keep you away from paying a monthly fee.

3. Don’t think that you will get a credit card immediately! In the US you will not get a credit card without a credit history, but you will be able to get a secured credit card. A secured credit card is like a Pre-Paid credit card. You decide on a certain amount – for example $ 1000 – and pay it to the bank as a deposit. For six months you can now use your secured credit card as a normal one. You can buy stuff and have to pay your bills. The only important thing is: Do not buy stuff for more than 1000 bugs monthly and do pay your bills in time. After six months the bank will check if you are on the level to get a “real” credit card.

4. If you like Hello Kitty, do not open a joint bank account with your husband. This is what happened to me and now I am not allowed to get my Hello Kitty checks and cards, because Flo doesn’t want to have them.

For now we are proud owners of our temporary debit cards and checks. In about two weeks our “real” cards with a beach image on them will arrive. But it still feels good to be a little more american after all.

Sometimes I am so afraid that I am gonna miss out on everything important that will happen to my loved ones in the future! Weddings, children, new boy- or girlfriends, new jobs, new flats, new houses, new cars and so much more. That thought sometimes nearly kills me. And in all those moments I am so thankful for the generation I grew up in, the job I am working in and about the web 2.0.

E-Mail, Facebook, Skype – all of those things make it so much easier for me to leave and for me to keep up with everyone I love! I kind of realized it when I called my ex colleague to congratulate her to her birthday and she told me that she got married today. She waited for her boyfriend to ask her for ages and when he finally popped the question they decided to get married alone and not tell anyone before the big day. When I finally got her on the phone today I asked her, if she will post her new status on Facebook and she was like “yes, I already did”. And guess what: I missed out on that, because I wasn’t on Facebook at that moment, but in the kitchen baking cupcakes.

Sometimes it scares me how far our lives are becoming online. But for me as a future american resident, this is kind of the best devolopment ever! If only it weren’t for the time difference. But I will learn how to cope with that, too!

PS: 2011 = 20 + 11 = 31

First of all I wanna wish all my readers everywhere in the world a very, very merry christmas and jolly holiays! I hope you all have a wonderful time with your family and your loved ones!

We actually do have a white christmas this year. As a kid I always wished christmas to be white, but now that I am grown up and that it has been snowing for the last four or six weeks, I am kind of sick of snow. It has been snowing till this morning and now we have some kind of ice rain and I am a bit scared that we might not get to my parents house tonight or even worth that we might not get back to Cologne.

This is our last christmas as real germans and I am pretty excited about how it’s gonna be. We will have a pretty big christmas dinner with my and Flo’s parents, my grandma, my brother and his family first. For some of you this might not sound big at all, but for our family’s it kind of is. I hope that there will not be a lot of tears, but I am afraid that there might be, because Flo and I are giving our parents some very emotional presents.

I will tell you more about how christmas went and about how Flo and I try to get some american spirit into christmas this year in the next couple days!

Merry christmas everyone!!!