Berlin U-Bahn
On traveling.
Buying a ticket was as confusing as I remembered. The first time I was in Berlin, in 2015, I just picked whatever and hoped, in the event that someone came to check I’d paid my fare, that I am very stupid I’m sorry Ich spreche kein Deutsch would save me from a fine.
This time, we did it right. My jacket pocket filled with paper stubs—this time, if someone had asked to see my ticket, I’m not sure I would’ve found the right one.
I don’t actually think, despite so much marketing promise, that you can actually get to know a place you’re just traveling through. Even so, it felt nice that so many things were familiar—the station, the bridge over the river, the döner kebab place on the corner. I made a big deal back then about having come to Berlin alone. How when my phone died, I had to find my way back to the hotel by just looking at the map of the U-Bahn and trying to remember the way. It was a dumb story, but I think I liked it because it made me seem capable in a way that I didn’t quite believe that I was.
At some point, we missed the stop we meant to get off at. No matter—the trains are so fast, we wouldn’t have to wait more than a minute or two for one in the other direction. We just hopped off, crossed the platform, and got back on our way.