Going nowhere.
How fast or slow depends on which train you take.
On Monday evening I sat in a dirty yellow and maroon train car, on a seat upholstered in a checkered blue pattern. This chic combo is the trademark of the S-Bahn in Berlin. While bahn means train and is a relatively ubiquitous label when examining German public transport, the S stands for stadt, which means city. This, then, is the intra-city express, and as such, makes a few stops at key points within Berlin, but also extends to hubs (whether neighbouring cities or smaller neighbourhoods) just outside the city limits. As I stared out the window and mused, a brighter yellow train running on a parallel track caught up to and then overtook us. It was an RE, an abbreviation of regional, which translates to—if you can bring yourself to believe it—regional. These trains connect cities, towns and sometimes villages that are significantly further apart. You may travel the better half of the S-Bahn line and find yourself thirty-five kilometres away from home, while the RE will drop you off one-hundred-and-sixty kilometres away and continue chugging on into the sunset. The RE that passed us happened to be going to Magdeburg, and my eyes briefly glazed over as I remembered being on that very train.
It was a public holiday sometime last year, just as summer was turning to winter or the other way around. Though it wassunny, I quickly realised I was underdressed; an extra fleece would have been lovely. I alighted the train and followed some people who looked like they knew which way to walk. I traipsed through a very dreary “high street” and then through quite a lovely, modern mall. I was slightly delayed in the bookshop. After buying my girlfriend a small souvenir, I exited the mall and walked out onto a large swath of grass that overlooked the river that runs through the city. I sort of did nothing all day. I went to a coffee shop and got a piece of chocolate cake named after an historical Austrian Kaiser. I walked past a few city sights, including a convent-turned-art-museum. I was tickled to find that I happened to be in town while the Renaissance fair was on, and took great joy in watching the attendees dressed in eighteenth-century garb throw their Starbucks cups into recycling bins and FaceTime loved ones.
There was nothing especially remarkable about my Magdeburg adventure. I’d happily find myself in the city again, though perhaps not without a particular reason. I remember hopping the train back to Berlin and going back to work the next day and not quite knowing where to file the experience in my memory. It certainly wasn’t a holiday or especially spectacular, and yet, instead of waking up and going to work, I had gone to the labyrinth this city calls a central station and I had boarded a long-distance train to a place I’d never been before. Though not altogether startling, its novelty was not lost on me.
I was on the way to Griebnitzsee when my train was overtaken by the one going to Magdeburg. It’s a lake at the edge of the city limits and, more to the point, is home to one of several campuses belonging to Potsdam University. (Potsdam, though only a few minutes away from Berlin on the S-Bahn, is in a completely different state to Berlin, and is the next largest city in the immediate area). My girlfriend, who is co-editor-in-chief of the university newspaper, had asked me to take some portraits of her team for their website. Never one to refuse the requests of the editor of a major publication, I willingly obliged. The day had been filled with mundanities. As the train bound for Magdeburg passed me, I was grateful to be on a new adventure; even if this one was closer to home and more easily accomplished than ones prior. I realised that I quite miss adventure, a sentiment that ten-year-old Jeremy never would have dreamt to utter. The big ones are fun. I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to travel to many new countries, and I’ll be adding another to the list later this year. The small, funny, individualistic ones, though, are what I’d like to incorporate into my life a little more. Discovering a park hidden in my neighbourhood, walking into a Russian grocery store, finding a new part of the city, hopping on a regional train.
I don’t work my photography job on Mondays. Perhaps it’s an opportunity for an escapade or two …
Two other kinds of trains that you might run into if you ever visit are the U-Bahn and ICE. The untergrundbahn (underground train) and Inter City Express along with a few trams and busses make up the backbone of German public transport. If you enjoyed this journal, please subscribe.