Punctuality
Will got another free train ride the other day against his will. He’s still pretty pissed off about it, too. It made him look bad in front of one of his girlfriends and he seems to be very sensitive about stuff like that.
He was seeing her off at Bahnhof Zoo and wanted to be a gentleman for once. Her train to Amsterdam had just pulled in and he decided to carry her bags on board for her. What a dolt. Everybody knows that stepping into a native train that you’re not planning to be traveling on is gemein gefährlich (exceedingly dangerous) here and should be avoided at all costs. Especially when something like this has happened to you once before… Like it did last year, Will, remember? Hello??
In this country when it says departure time for train X is 10:32 up on that board-thingy, departure time for train X is 10:32. It’s not going to be 10:31 or 10:33 or 10:34. It’s not even going to be 10:32:30. They mean 10:32. He was still on the train at 10:33 and that was his Verhängnis (fate, as in bad luck kind of fate). It could have been worse, though. This train made a quick stop at Wannsee and he was able to jump off before it left town altogether. Its next stop could just have easily been Magdeburg.
The natives like to moan a lot about how punctuality has gone to pot with die Bahn (their train system) and how everything was better in the past blah, blah, blah, but it simply isn’t true. These folks are über-punctual. And it can really be annoying sometimes.
I was linked to your blog by Bloggers News network and I couldn't help but comment that your observations are really good. Are you writing a sociology thesis on the subject ? (Comment this)