Minden Germany for a while

Just wanted to let you know that I'm now in Minden, Germany. I'll be here for around a month to help-out one of our member organizations, Internationaler Versöhnungsbund. I moved into a flat Tues. night, the address is "Steinstraße 26, 32427 Minden," you can find it with Google maps. But no change to my mailing address or anything else. I'm finally able to access my email, have a desk and computer at the office while I'm here.

Considering the software's in German (we haven't been able to change that), the system's quite old, keyboard's laid-out differently and the Internet connection is very slow it's going to take me a while to get up to speed, though, ha!

Minden is very nice and different from Holland, as you probably might expect. There are two large shopping areas mixed into the huge 8th Century old churches and architecture near where I'm staying. The flat's about 3km away from the office, I have been given a bike to get around on. I visited the Stadt Minden Ausländerberhörde (Minden City authority over foreigners) this morning, and was able to get a residency permit for Minden. I had to see the ansprechpartner Herr Hartwick at Büro der öffentlichen Angelegenheiten (the office of public affairs). I was told I needed special passport type photos taken, found a nearby Foto- und Kamerageschäft in the old Minden Marktplatz (Minden Market Square).

Here's a live Webcam of the Minden Market Square, some construction going on in the street.