ÖPNV (VBB) public transport in Berlin, Photo: www.berlin.de

„Entschuldigung, wo ist die S-Bahn Station?“
„It’s in the other side of the station; here it is the U-Bahn!”
„Oh! It’s not the same, good to know. Thanks”.

Just another example of my experiences in trying to find the right train and going to my destination. My average so far is two to three mistakes in each new journey by train or by any means of public transport in Germany for that matter.

I come from a small village with just around 6,000 residents. It’s located 20 kilometres from Nazareth, and yes it is “the” Nazareth from the Bible, although I’m not really sure exactly how far my village is from Nazareth, although I think about 20-30 minutes by car which seems around 20 kilometers to me.

The word Gleisersatzverkehr is an important word to know in German.  It means “hahahaha, your train’s not coming sucker.”  It also means “there’s construction on the tracks,” “your trip is now going to involve switching between several (slow) buses and trains,” and, literally, “track replacement traffic.” 

I was on my way to Esslingen, a little town (by little I mean approx. 90,000 inhabitants) on the Neckar.  But I was going there via Mannheim, where I could trade in my train seat for a seat in a beat up old police van (no longer owned by the police).  I took the train to Worms, did some transferring and bus riding to circumvent the construction on the tracks, and landed in Mannheim two and a half hours later.