My experience so far with transportation in Germany has been a stark contrast to how I use transportation in America. There is a vast array of methods of both public and private transportation. Because of Lakeland’s suburbian nature, I always find myself driving to wherever I need to go. Wattenscheid is a much more compact and urban environment compared to Lakeland, and because everything is so close together, walking and biking are much more common. Thus, instead of driving to a school 10 miles away like I would back home, in Germany I simply use a subway and walk for 5 minutes to get to school.
Traveling in Germany has given me a glimpse to what regular use of public transportation looks like. Aside from school buses, I have used public trains and buses more times here in my week in Germany for transportation then I have I think my whole life in America (that is, public transportation for daily purposes). The most common method of transportation is what my exchange partner and I call the metro. It’s basically just a train that runs along the road with its own tracks and cycles through various stops which we use to get to and from school. There are also the train stations we use to travel from city to city. As a whole group we used these larger trains to not only arrive for the first time in Wattenscheid, but also travel to Cologne and Essen. I additionally have used these trains to travel to other cities such as Bochum and Düsseldorf.
Overall, the use of transportation in Germany has been an exciting experience. I feel it is extremely economically viable as compared to America, for you can buy a monthly pass that allows full use of the metro, subway, and trains for only 40 euros, as opposed to having to buy tickets for every trip. After being here for less than a week, I can already see myself getting better at reading which trains are going where and being able to figure out how to use the public transportation on my own.
Cooper J
