Something that was quite new to me personally was the accessibility to public infrastructure. The idea of having so many different routes available to get to places was a complete culture shock. Because I study at a branch campus, I am not too sure what the infrastructure is like in Oakland, but I can’t imagine it being as efficent as in Munchen. Here there are subways, and trains, and buses galore. For our daily commute to the Goethe-Institute, the place where we took our language classes, we ended up finding a route that was quikest and least packed. We took an U-bahn (subway) to a stop called Brudermuhlstrasse, from there we jumped on a public bus to Silberhornstrasse, and then rode a tram to Rosenheimerplatz and walked about six minutes to the building. It all sounds so crazy typing it out, but I promise it was the most effective means of getting to the Goethe.
Here is a map of all of the S-bahn (train) lines. When I first saw this I was totally overwhelmed and was sure that I was going to end up verlaufen( getting myself lost), but after a few days of traveling, it ended up being just fine. During the second half of my travels, I found myself not even needing to use a navigation system; I could look at the map and figure my way out. A slight problem that we ran into on the second week of the program was a major construction project. On the first week of class, we rode the U3 (subway line 3), to Marienplatz, and then switch to any of the S-bahns (above ground rail system) and ride directly to Rosenheimerplatz. Unfortunately it took a little bit of searching for us to figure out the best route possible that was the least jam-packed.
When I say jam-packed, I quite literally mean it. Germans are not afraid to get up and personal with whomever on any public transport, if it means they can fit more people into one cabin. With the construction zones and the heavy need for “ersatzverkehr” or replacement transport, there were flocks of people running for the buses to try to make it and be one of the many packed into place so tight that one can not even simply turn around in their standing position. In this video here, I ended up needing to stand on one of the steps in the back of the bus to allow more room for others to get on. when there’s a good deal of people on the bus just from one stop early in the line, there will still be many more people trying to squeeze their way onto the bus/tram/u-bahn or s-bahn. If you plan of studying in Germany, Munchen specifically, be prepared to be packed like a can of sardines on “die offis”, or the official public transport!
