Der Zug

The trains in Berlin are just I’d been told – clean, efficient, easy to navigate. Today, I was able to help a man (who asked in German!) find his station with the help of a map. Before I left, Matt gave me a really amazing moleskin journal with a pullout subway map and several small maps of the city. The journal is filled with handy features – a temperature conversion chart, a place to write down restaurants and museums that seem interesting, tracing paper and small tear away pages for notes – but the maps have saved me several times. I like that the book is small and innocent looking; I can be a lost tourist without looking like one, and it fits in my purse.
To enter the train, you buy a ticket at a platform kiosk, then randomly the guards check the cars to make sure all passengers have tickets. It’s basically the honor system, and it seems to work well. What happens when you don’t have a ticket? A friend told me they confiscate your ID and you must then pay a fine at the central station, where the ID is returned. The first few times I rode the train, I didn’t realize you had to validate the ticket at a small machine next to the ticket kiosk; when the patrolman saw that, he asked me to leave the train at the next stop and do so. This week, I bought a 7-day pass for the U-Bahn (subway), which means I can just hop on when a car arrives.
There are electronic signs at each platform which alert you to the next train’s arrival; the stereotype about German trains running on time is true. The L train in Brooklyn has a similar sign, but where the Berlin trains run almost every 10 minutes without fail, it’s not uncommon to see the L train sign say “MANHATTAN – 23 MINUTES” only to switch to “MANHATTAN – 29 minutes” two minutes later.
I’m experimenting with different routes from my apartment to school – right now, it can take up to an hour, though I’ve yet to make it to and from class without getting lost. Today I was so engrossed in my magazine that I missed my stop and rode on for several more stations; by the time I realized and righted myself I missed my conversation class.
And if I keep writing, I’ll miss my intensive class, so I’d best be going.