When I wrote “I moved to Berlin: Part One”, I was hoping to document the process of moving to a new country. I thought I would look back at it with fondness one day. Except it turns out that moving to a foreign country where you know a total of exactly 1 person is not as romantic as Netflix would have you believe. Unlike Rani from Queen, I did not, in fact, befriend a cool local in a pub. Neither did I magically find an amazing yet cheap flat (excuse me, The Summer I Turned Pretty S3). I did, however, grow as a person, found a WG, made some friends, broke some bones, got promoted, tried a lot of sports, and am now a permanent resident of Germany.
Since I have lost a lot of the creative writing flair I possessed three years ago, I am just going to document the PR process in this post and not use this space to share life lessons or recap the three years past. January 2025: I started considering applying for a Niederlassungserlaubnis. Until 2024, it was time-consuming but quite straight-forward. But starting 2025, an Einbürgerungstest and a German language certificate became mandatory.
February 2025: I heard stories of how people had to stand in queues for hours to book an Einbürgerungstest appointment and panicked a bit. Then I wrote emails to a bunch of Volkhochschules in and around Berlin, asking if they had any available appointments. Luckily for me, VHS Marzahn responded and said they could book me in for the exam in March.
March 2025: Wrote Einbürgerungstest. I think I got the result after 4 weeks.
April 2025: Wrote the A1 German exam.
May 2025: Received A1 exam result, applied for PR online.
June 2025: Wrote the B1 German exam.
July 2025 (a): Received B1 exam result.
July 2025 (b): My old visa was about to expire (due to my passport expiring), so I did two things - went to my nearest Bürgeramt to apply for visa renewal with my new passport, and emailed LEA Berlin telling them about my visa situation.
July 2025 (c): Received a response to my email. They asked me for a B1 certificate, although technically A1 should have sufficed.
July 2025 (d): Got an appointment at the Landesamt für Einwanderung to verify documents
August 2025: Went to the LEA, paid some money, was told I was now a permanent resident and could collect the card in September.
And that’s it! I get asked often whether I plan to stay in Germany. I don’t know how to answer this. I like Berlin and I don’t regret moving here, impulsive as the decision may have been. But I also miss India, my friends and family, and the sense of natural belonging I felt there. Sometimes I also wonder if I will be confined to living in big cities, if I stay in Germany. Irrespective of whether I stay or go back, I hope that this PR gives me a sense of permanence and the freedom to explore avenues beyond my visa-providing job. If the past three years have taught me anything, it's that you look at life and life choices differently when your right to stay in a given place is dependent on those choices. Now that I'm a visa-independent bird, I'm excited to see what my choices look like.