A trip to the capital

SUNDAY!! According to the plan made by the 'manager' in our group of 6 colleagues, we were to visit Berlin on Sunday. The travel to Berlin from Buxtehude would take around 6 hours and we had planned to leave Pali's place early in the morning and reach the railway station by 6.

Kusum booked a taxi for us the previous night and we reached the railway station at around 6 in the morning. Our route was to reach Hamburg from Buxtehude and then go to Berlin. The herculean task that lay in front of us was purchasing the tickets in the station. Everything here is automated and it feels bad to interact with the machines and not the humans. There is a vending machine in the station where we can purchase the tickets. The system is very different here. We have to choose a 'ring' to which we are going to travel and then purchase the ticket. The whole of German railway system has been divided into rings. Ring 1 would be local to Buxtehude and the neighboring towns. Ring 2, a little bit far and Hamburg is in Ring 4. The division is done based on the distance from the source. They also have this concept of group tickets which are available at a discounted price. A group ticket for 5 people in a weekend costs 17.8 euros. This ticket can be used anywhere in Germany for a period of 9 continuous hours in a weekend. A bit complicated, but that's how it is.

Anyway, we ultimately managed to buy a group ticket for 5 people and a single ticket for the sixth person. The train to Hamburg arrived shortly and the first insight of a train was awesome. The trains here can in no way be compared to our trains in India. There is no outlet from the train in the WC's for the waste to fall down on the track. Hence, no stinking stations. Nobody gets down on the tracks and crosses to reach the opposite platform. Nobody can sleep in the station as the temperature in the night will be less than zero degrees. So, you see why the station is so clean and sparkling. The trains cruise at a speed of 80 to 100 kmph. Thats the normal train with a normal speed. Super fast trains called the ICE trains may go at a speed of 150 kmph I think. We took an S Bahn train and reached Hamburg in 40 minutes. The Hamburg station is very big and one can see only shops everywhere inside the station. Another thing that I noticed was that there no announcements made for the arrival or departure of a train. That is because every 1 or 2 minutes, a train would come or go. They have big LCD screens for each platform where the next train or the information about the train standing will be displayed, in German of course.

We hurriedly marched towards the ticket booking area of the station and our manager purchased the tickets to Berlin. There was no direct train from Hamburg to Berlin. We had to get down at a station named Schewrin and catch another train from that station to reach Berlin. The long distance trains have 2 decks to accommodate more people. We went into the upper deck. The feeling was totally different sitting inside this train. It did not feel as though I was sitting in a train. It felt like sitting inside an aeroplane. The seats are very elegant, every seat has a small trash can beside it, the windows can not be opened, the doors open by themselves. Very sophisticated. No, I really did not feel that I was traveling in a train. Every coach of the train has 2 LCD monitors which keep flashing information about the next station. It displays the next station's name and an estimated time to reach the station. The time displayed is very precise. When the train is nearing a station, there is an automated message that is announced telling the passengers about the station and which exit door they have to use to get down. Then, the driver of the train also makes an announcement in German, I could not understand what it was. Apart from the LCD screens that are visible to every passenger, there is also an LED display giving information about the stations.

Software engineers working in India have clients all over the world. We develop softwares for these LCD displays, a software that opens or shuts the door, a software that makes an automated announcements and so on. The common people in these countries enjoy the facilities while we are very much satisfied traveling in a Lalbagh express or a Kittoor Rani Chenamma express. Such a sad state that we have the brains but not the money. Nothing is going to improve unless we stop corruption.

Sorry, back to my trip to the capital. So, the journey to Schwerin took about an hour in the super-duper hi tech train where we had to wait for about half an hour for the next train. The temperature was really low and it was too windy. Even with the thermals and the jackets, all of us were shivering. Then 3 of us went down into the subway which should be used to change platforms. In this subway is the store Subway! We went there and had a sub and some hot coffee. Our manager was tensed that the 3 of us were missing from the platform as the train would arrive in 10 minutes. We then went to the platform, the train just arrived and we again got into the upper deck of this train. The journey from Schwerin to Berlin took about 3 and half hours. We finally reached Berlin at 12:30 PM.

6 hours of journey in 969 words! Now thats too much, isn't it? Who cares, I'm writing for me to remember.

I thought the Hamburg railway station was 'what a hi-tech station!' The shops inside the station made me feel as though it was a shopping mall. Berlin station-u adr appa! The Berlin station is atleast 2 Forum malls put together. It is Europe's largest railway station. The trains run at two levels from this station. The levels are perpendicular to each other. We got out of our train at the lower level which was a sub way.

The station from outside looked very grand. A huge glass building it is like a big software company in Bangalore. Far across the river, I could see the German flag fluttering and then there was a long tower which is the TV tower of Berlin. Let me tell you just a few facts about Berlin. This city is more than 750 years old! It has a record of being the largest construction site in the world as all the historical monuments are being re-strengthened to stand for few more decades. It was the border for East and West Germanies until 1989. The border was separated by a wall called the Berlin wall. This wall was brought down in 1989 and Germany has been one country since then. See, I have improved my history!

We had only about 5 hours to see Berlin as the journey back would again take 6 hours. So, we decided to take an arranged city tour of Berlin. Just as we decided this, a guy came behind us and told us that his company arranges city tour of Berlin and that we could go in their bus around the city. The offer was nice and we hopped into the yellow bus that would take us around the capital.

During the tour, we saw a lot of historical monuments the names of which are very very difficult to remember. Every seat in this double decker bus had an earphone through which we could hear running commentary about the monuments. But the quality of the equipment inside the bus was not good. There were 15 stops during the tour. We could get down anywhere we wanted and the next bus would come in 10 minutes. This way, we could keep traveling till 5 PM. We got down first near a 13th century church. This church was damaged almost fully during World War II and a new one has been built beside it. We went inside the new church. All the walls in this church have blue colored glass blocks and they were illuminated. There was no other light inside the church. The Brass idol of the God was really very nice to look. After sitting for 2 minutes there, we came out and saw huge buildings everywhere and people busily moving across. Berlin is the largest city of Germany. Due to its size, the number of people in the city is also very high. But, the vehicles on the road are very less when compared to Bangalore's traffic. The local trains and the buses are used to the maximum extent by the people here. We got another yellow bus and continued our tour. We saw the largest palace of Berlin named Schloss Charlottenberg. We could not get down and go inside as we didn't have time. We then saw the Parliament building, the embassies of different countries, a few museums, and a few other monuments whose names I don't remember!

The next stop where we got down was near a museum named Count Charlie near the Wall but none of my colleagues were interested to get in as the entrance fee was close to 14 euros. Losers in life! So, seeing the wall from a moving bus was my haNe baraha

I convinced the people in my group to get down at the Gendermenmarkt square where there is a big auditorium and a German Cathedral. The auditorium was closed as it was a Sunday. But we saw 3 artists playing saxophone and an accordion outside the theater. From there, we again got into next bus and we got down at the Brandenburg Gate. This gate, was once the entrance to Berlin. People with all kinds of costumes were seen waiting for the public to take their photographs and give them some money. For the first time, I saw beggars in Germany here. After clicking photographs of the gate and a few people in the costumes, we got into yet another yellow bus to reach the railway station. We then walked near the banks of river Spree and spent some time in the cool breeze. With another 6 hour journey back to Buxtehude, thus ended our trip to the capital. A tight, jam-packed-scheduled trip!