U-Bahn, S-Bahn, Bus: A Berliner's Means of Transportation

          In order to get around Berlin one must become very comfortable with the transportation system if they wish to go anywhere because the city is so big that walking will honestly get you no where. Now I have used public transportations systems before, both in the U.S. and Europe, but never alone and I got thrown into using them alone real fast here.
            On my first night, I used the S-Bahn, which is an above ground subway, to go to and from a party, but I was with my host sister, Luise, and her friends so I pretty much just followed them around. However, on my second day here, I was not so lucky as to have the comfort of having Luise there to show me around. I had to go to orientation that day at the main campus of Frei Universitat and since I did not know how to get there Luise drove me there. However, we did not know what time it was going to end and I did not have a working phone yet nor did anyone else that I knew so there was no way for me to contact her and it was clear that I was going to have to find my own way back. When she dropped me off she handed me a piece of paper that had directions on how to get back, but when I looked at them I was so intimidated. The idea of me, an American who spoke very little German, trying to find my way around a huge, foreign city without getting lost was so scary, but I knew I had to do it at some point.
             Luckily when I left orientation the other CMU participant, Dan, did not know how to get back to his dorm so we decided it would be best for him to come back with me so my host family could give him directions. Therefore, I was not alone on my first adventure using Berlin’s transportation. After walking for a good 20 minutes and trying to read a map on where the U-Bahn station was, which is the underground subway, we finally spotted it. Surprisingly enough though, once on the U-Bahn it was quite easy to figure out where to go from there. We had to ride the U-Bahn for 4 stops, then hop on a bus and take that for 2 stops, and then walk 10 minutes to my house. I honestly was so relieved and proud of myself when I made it home and my family was too.

            However, that night I was looking at where I had to meet for class and soon realized that it was at a completely different location than where we met for orientation. So once again I started to get nervous because I had little idea on where I was going, but I figured when I woke up I would just ask my family the best way to get there and I would figure it out. Horrible idea though…. When I woke up for class no one was to be seen, so all I could do was just suck it up and attempt to find my way on my own and that’s exactly what I did. It ended up being almost the same route except I had to ride the U-bahn for a few more stops.
            After I found my way those two times I have not had a fear at all of the transportation and am confident in being able to figure out how to get anywhere. If you look at the maps in the S-Bahn and U-Bahn station you can easily pick out where you need to go. The only thing I find kind of confusing is the buses and I don’t really like them, therefore I only end up riding them when completely necessary.
            My commute to class is between 30-40 minutes. I have to walk 10 minutes to the bus stop in Mexikoplatz. From there I ride on the bus for 2 stops to Krumme Lanke where I hop onto the U-Bahn. I then ride that for 6 stops to Bereitenplatz and finally I walk probably about 5 minutes to my classroom. It seems like a lot, but it is really not bad at all. Commuting with public transportation is just a normal aspect of everyday life for a Berliner.

         My one suggestions to people traveling alone and not knowing where your going for the first time, whether being on an airplane or on public transportation, is to stay calm. As nervous as you may be tell yourself you got this, have some fun with it, and know that no matter what at some point you will figure out where you are suppose to be.

Hectic Travel to Berlin

Hallo aus Deutschland!!! I have been in Berlin for the past 4 days and I am loving absolutely every second of it! However, the process of arriving here I did not love so much. What was suppose to be a 14 hour trip from when I left my house turned into a 22 hour trip.

Once Dan and I arrived at the airport, Dan is the other CMU student studying at Freie Universitat with me, and said our goodbyes we were all excited to get our boarding passes and then make it to our terminal. As we were walking to check in the handle on my carry on purse snapped off. I laughed at it and said I would fix it later and said that I hoped this wasn’t a sign of what our trip was going to be like. I think I definitely jinxed us there. When we went to check in we thought this was going to be a simple process, but we soon found out we were mistaken. As we were trying to check in ,it would not let us, so a lady came over to help us. We came to realize that we were not allowed to check in because our flights back in July had been cancelled because the airport we were suppose to be flying out of will not be open by the time we leave. Therefore, we had to book a different flight back before we could get our boarding passes. This process took forever and by the time they had figured this out and printed Dan’s tickets we had less than an hour until our flight and we were informed that there was no way our luggage would make the flight. This was a bummer, but we could deal with it. However, the difficult times still were far from over. When they went to print my ticket off, they realized that I did not check in early enough so my seats for this flight had been given away and thus there was no way I would be getting on this flight. Personally I just laughed because there really was nothing else to do and Dan just sat there all frustrated, which made me laugh harder.

Two hours after we had originally tried checking in we finally got everything figured out and now had tickets for the 9:50 flight out of Detroit to Paris rather than the 6:05 flight to Amsterdam. Once we were on the plane everything was fine and we thought we were good to go. Yet, once it was getting time to land we look at the time and realized that we were landing a half hour later than we were suppose to and therefore we only had an hour to make our connecting flight. Once we got off the plane we were instantly confused on where we were suppose to go. We figured out what gate it was, but we had no idea where that gate was. After asking, we found out that we had to go down the elevator, then walk through the parking garage to the other side of the road where there was another part of the airport, and then go back through baggage checks. So after all of this happened we rushed to our gate and the guy looked at us strange and was like are you guys trying to board? And we said yes and he was like no its too late, but let me call. So he calls and then informs us that yes we had missed the flight…. Of course! So once again I just laughed and Dan got all frustrated. However, as soon as we missed this the other handle on my purse broke! I figured the purse was a bad omen so I just switched everything over to a new bag and threw it away.

So once again we had to go get new tickets. We know had to wait 3-4 hours in the Paris airport for the next flight to Berlin. This was horrible because at this point we both just wanted to be there and we knew we were so close. I felt bad to because I am staying with a host family and the only way I could contact them was email, so I kept emailing them hoping that they received them in time.

I am proud to say though that we did make this flight! Woo! We ended up arriving in Berlin at roughly 5:30 p.m. when we had been thinking for the past month or so we had thought we were going to arrive at 11:20 a.m. We definitely thought wrong. Once we arrived though everything went smoothly. Our luggage was there and once I walked out of the gate my host sister, Luise, and her friend were there waiting for me. From that point on I knew everything was going to be okay.