Tram Tickets and Blazing Buses | Michael Rodehorst

Today was a particularly interesting day in public transportation for E3. On our way to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp we all got our tickets checked on the train. Now this may seem like a very normal thing, but this was remarkably the first time we had our tickets checked out of the ten plus days of using the public transportation. This was a noteworthy event. The experience itself was a bit exhilarating for me because I thought I had left my ticket in my room. Thankfully, I remembered to put the ticket back in my wallet after a late night outing the night before. I found it quite interesting that the people checking the tickets were strategically dressed like normal people so that they wouldn’t scare off any oncoming passengers who were trying to get a free ride. Luckily, no one on the program had any sort of ticket issues because the fine for an invalid ticket is a steep 60 euros.

As soon as we got off the tram we waited to board a bus that brought us directly to Sachsenhausen. Little did we know, everybody else in Oranienburg was also waiting to get on this same bus. Once everybody boarded, the bus was so packed that we all looked like sardines tightly jammed into a can. It was a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare. It only took a few minutes for the bus to reach uncomfortably hot and sweaty temperatures. On top of this, some of the Europeans that boarded the bus didn’t exactly smell so good. I actually had to resort to smelling a mint flavored gum-wrapper so that I wouldn’t have to smell the foul smells of the bus. In short, the bus ride to Sachsenhausen was 15 minutes of pure grossness, and I think that everybody in E3 who got stuck standing would agree.