Bureaucracy for Dummies

The Japanese woman in my class, Yoko, got out of bed at 5am a few days ago, in a temperature of perhaps -3 Celsius, to go and queue at the Ausländersamt (Foreign Office) and apply for a visa. Armed with many, many papers and a strong desire to stay here with her German boyfriend, she succeeded after waiting patiently (she's one of the most patient people I've ever met) for many hours. She can now stay here for two years and study, but only work if she's at university. I don't think she really needs to work though because her husband died in Japan and she receives a widower's pension. Like I said, she's very calm and gentle and serene, but she's also been studying Kendo for 20 years, a martial art where you essentially beat people with a stick. It just goes to show, I think, that everyone has an aggressive side.
Anyway, getting a visa, especially a work visa, can be very tricky in Germany and there are many surly public service workers, Catch-22s and laborious paperwork to encounter along the way. This year I'm lucky because I'm under 30 and was entitled to a Working Holiday Visa for a year, and all I had to do was send a few documents away to the German Consulate in NZ before I came. It only took a few days, unlike when I applied for the same visa for living in England in 2001 and had to ring them repeatedly between 12-2pm, only to be told I was "12th in the priority queue" and then by the time I was first it was 1:59pm and too late. Apparently people are charged for that call too now. Faschists!
In 2000, when I first lived in Germany, there was no such visa for here and I tried, I really did, to set myself up honestly. But advice from all around told me to just forget it, that it was too hard. I even tried calling the Ausländersamt, but they spoke no English! So although I registered with the police, which everyone is meant to do, I had no visa. I was what Germans call a "Schwarzarbeiter". If only I was Catholic and could confess this sin...well, this will have to do.