Thugs On A Tram
The first week I was here, I did a lot of exploring. Fortunately the public transit system here is very convenient--unfortunately, the price is not so convenient. It's €2.15 each way, which, for a student at least, is pretty expensive. I could by five bars of chocolate in the price it costs to travel to the city center and back!
Fortunately I now have my Semesterticket, so I don't have to worry about that (not to mention I can go as far as Hamburg or Hannover for free). But even when I was paying for it, nobody ever checked my ticket. I wondered if the whole thing was based on the honor system. I'm a pretty honorable guy, so I guess it worked for me--not to mention, I didn't want to risk potentially breaking the law, because that's not something you want to do in a foreign country. I don't even know where the nearest embassy is. So as I shelled out Euro after Euro for each trip, a little pang inside me said that I might be wasting my money.
Well, I finally realized how it works. Today I was on the tram, and suddenly everyone reached for their wallets. I looked around, confused, and saw a couple of nondescript people moving through the tram, checking tickets. So I got mine out, and a few seconds later, they were finished. Then when we arrived at the next stop, they got off. I think they must have gotten on, one at each entrance, and moved towards each other. It was very efficient, but the lack of uniforms was kind of confusing. Usually a person doing a public service is easily identifiable. These people were just wearing whatever--jackets, sweaters, dark colors mostly. If they were wearing uniforms, I would have recognized what they were doing faster. But when I see a group of strangers in casual clothing, moving efficiently and with a common purpose, I don't immediately assume they're working in the public interest. :P
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salvar) wrote,
silly
