Getting around on 2 wheels

Our bikes came with our household goods that arrived in December, and we were so excited to get them! Berlin is known for being bike-friendly, and for many people a bike is the main mode of transportation. Living a little far from the nearest train stops like we do, bikes allow us to manage our time a little better. Since the buses only come every 20 minutes, we can often get to the S-bahn station faster on our bikes. And having a bike parked at the S-bahn station also means no waiting for the bus on our return trip home. The S-bahn station is an easy bike ride for the kids; the U-bahn is a little further but still doable. Sometimes traffic in Zehlendorf is really bad and of course the buses are caught in the middle of it. Biking is the only way to bypass the gridlock.

Dan rides his bike to the S-bahn station every morning and parks it there during the day while he's at work. He rides in any weather, but he always checks the weather forecast each morning, because he brings his Goretex jacket and pants if there's a chance of rain, which is very often. Many nights he has come home with the rain dripping off his helmet and Goretex but he's dry underneath! He was warned that his nice US mountain bike would likely be stolen here very quickly, despite being locked, so he bought himself a "beater bike" after we moved to our house. It has wide handlebars and he sits completely upright on it and I think he looks like Mary Poppins! I'll post a picture one day.

I don't ride my bike nearly as much, but I think I will be riding it more as I wrap up buying large carfuls of stuff for the house and shift more towards small weekly purchases. Last week I took my bike to the shop and had them outfit it with front and rear fenders so the muddy sidewalks won't splash me, a bell that I can ring to warn people to get out of my way, and a rack with a basket on the back of the bike so I can carry things. The rack makes the bike much heavier, and it's harder to swing my leg over to mount the bike! But it holds one good-sized bag and I can also wear a backpack, so that allows me to carry a decent amount of stuff.

My newly outfitted bike. Those are groceries in the bag!

I have found that commuting with a bike is a lot different from riding for pleasure. While in Missoula I would wait for perfect weather before thinking about taking my bike for a spin, here I can venture out in most weather (although I wouldn't deliberately set out in the rain if I could help it). We wear skull caps under our helmets for head and ear warmth, big heavy gloves on our hands, and windproof jackets and then it's not too bad, although my feet often get pretty chilly.

Biking in light snow? With thick gloves, why not?

Bike lanes are one of the first things we learned about when we came to visit Berlin in June. They are usually built into the sidewalks here, not the roads. It makes me feel so much safer to ride separated from the traffic. I am really impressed by the foresight the city planners showed in building such wide sidewalks that are paved differently for riders and pedestrians.

If there are two paths on the sidewalk, the bike path is the path closest to the road. Some sidewalks have only one path, and then the bike has to share the road with the cars. Towards the middle of the city there seem to be fewer dedicated bike paths, but out here in the burbs there is a bike path that runs the entire length of the main roads.

Mosaic sidewalk, white brick divider, red brick bike path,
mosaic divider, curb, street

The bike path is slightly elevated, beside the road. A row of
trees separates the bike path from the pedestrian path.

Another thing I like about biking here (and walking) is that the Germans have taken the guesswork out of street crossings. At every intersection there is an odd little illuminated man who tells you if you should stop or go. If he's red with his arms out to the side, don't even think about it! If he's green and striding purposefully, go for it!

The same goes for bikes at many of the intersections. Bikes have their own mini-traffic light and their own white line painted on the bike path to show you where you should stop. Those helpful Germans have even painted dotted lines across the street to show you exactly where to ride inside the lines as you cross the street! The bike light turns green a fraction ahead of the car light, to allow the bikes a head start. Since German cars can't turn right on red, letting the bikes go first often gets the bike out of the way so the cars can turn freely.

Stop, bikers! And stay between those dotted lines when you cross the street.

It's a little hard to see but the top circle has an illuminated bicycle in it. 

Today I biked to the doctor, picked up a few groceries, and then biked over to the pharmacy. These things are all easy walking distance from our house but the bike made it super speedy.

Adventures in receiving mail

I don't know why I was surprised the first time I got a letter addressed to me and inside everything was in German. I guess I thought somehow people would know that we speak English and they wouldn't try to communicate with us in German! My initial strategy was to ignore everything, assuming that it wasn't important. But I had to change my strategy when I began to receive multiple letters from the same companies who clearly were requesting something from me. First there was the German television and radio authority. Then it was our health insurance company. And then Deutsche Telekom. I decided that I needed to get to the bottom of it.

I sat down with Google translate and began the tedious task of transcribing the letters into the translator. With the case of the insurance company, I could decipher enough to understand that they were not going to issue me my insurance card until I sent them a photo of myself. I had noticed that Carter and Dan and Haley all had their insurance cards and I had not received one and had idly wondered why not. I assumed it was somewhere in a pile of mail, but of course they had sent me three German letters asking for a photo and I had yet to comply. It turns out that the kids don't need a photo so they got their cards automatically but the adults do need a photo. Dan had sent one in months ago when he first arrived in Germany before we got here but I didn't know I needed to do that.

In other cases it wasn't so easy to figure out what the letter was saying even after translating with Google. I took the indecipherable letter from the TV radio bureau to our relocation specialist (Karla) and she explained that everyone in Germany needs to pay a monthly fee for the broadcast radio and tv, about 18 euros a month. This form was asking how I want to pay that - by automatic debit? Quarterly? Semi-annually? Yearly? How helpful of them to offer so many options for payment. Unfortunately about a week passed between when I got the explanation and when I sat down to complete the paperwork, so I couldn't remember which sections of the form I was supposed to fill out for which options. (Shoot. I just realized I'm going the wrong direction on the bus while I'm distracted typing this on my phone.) I filled it out to the best of my ability and put it in the mail today. I guess they'll send me another letter if I've left something out!

The letters from Deutsche Telekom were apparently telling us that we haven't paid our bill. Dan had thought he had set it up to autopay but apparently he hadn't. In the US when you haven't paid a bill the letters seem to highlight your balance in red or yellow and use words like "past due" and "overdue". These letters looked so friendly, it didn't seem like they were saying anything bad. "Dear mr. Cripe..." I showed these to the relocation specialist also because, while I was pretty sure they were overdue bills, I wasn't sure what to do about it. There are no checks here, so you can't just mail them a check. All transactions are done using 2 numbers that correspond to your bank account: your IBAN and your BIC. In some ways this makes paying for things really convenient. Once when making a big purchase I realized I didn't have my debit card with me and I thought I was going to have to make another cross-town trip another day to come back and pay. But to my surprise and delight, the sales person simply printed out an invoice that included their bank information. All I had to do was go home and transfer the money from my bank directly to theirs. In the case of Deutsche Telekom, though, Karla told me that I could pay the bills easily using an automated machine in a branch of my bank. So I decided to give that a try.

Sorry for the blurry picture. I snapped it quickly because
there were other people in line behind me and I was trying
not to look like a complete doofus taking a picture of the
bank machine!

At the bank there are two rows of machines. One is ATMs and the other is labeled "Bankingterminal". There was a short line of people waiting for the banking terminals. Most people seemed to have one or two bills to pay, but there was one lady there who had an entire folder of paperwork spread out around her and she looked like she had settled in to do a monthly reconciliation of her bank account!

The picture doesn't really do it justice, but this lady was
going to be there for a while!!

I probably waited about 20 minutes for my turn and then stepped up to the machine. The instructions were in German but with a little trial and error I got the first bill paid easily enough. You put in your debit card, enter in some information and then physically insert your bill coupon into the scanner on the top right. The bill coupon looks like this:

Then you can print yourself a receipt. I ran into trouble with my second bill though. The scanner couldn't read the coupon for some reason and kept coming back with a blank screen. It seemed like I should be able to type in the information myself, but I could only type in the "name" field and then I got a beeping noise when I tried to advance to a different field. I'm sure this is a complete no-no, but I interrupted the woman at the terminal next to me who was trying to conduct her private banking matters, and asked her if she spoke English. She seemed taken aback and replied "Nein." So in vain I repeated the scan again and again, hoping it would work this time while I felt my cheeks growing red and my armpits sweating and felt what I imagined to be the impatient stares of the people waiting in line behind me. And then, I was rescued. The lady next to me had finished her transaction and came over to me and asked if I was okay. I said "Nein" and showed her that my paper wasn't scanning. She showed me how to enter it into the machine, using the Tab button to advance between the fields. Duh, why didn't I think of that??? She stayed with me until the whole transaction was done. Thank you, nice lady at the bank.

Sitting beside my computer right now is my 2nd letter from the energy company, waiting its turn to be translated and dealt with...