concerning the return ticket thing:
i too had the same situation when i moved to germany. as i was reading
this post, i was trying to remember what i did. i had applied to a language
course and i think you can apply to get a visa over the school. apparently
whatever it was it worked, because i smuggled myself in. currently, i'm
living in switzerland and my studentvisa ran out in september and the new
visa in still in some sort of bureaucratic paper jam. i just got back from
berlin and at the border (in the berlin schoenefeld airport) they asked me
what i was doing and how long i was staying, but didn't ask for a return
ticket. i would go for the 'traveling through europe, buying return ticket
later' thing if i were you.

for those in berlin at the moment:
there is currently an exhibition at the visual-research gallery
(kastanienalle in prenzlauerberg next to the kwik shop)


maximal reduction, minimal boundaries



some nice bikes. some borrowed from locals, some built up for
the exhibit by visual-research. there is also an exhibition under
the same name by the same people in los angeles at the moment.