Keeping up with the **!!?*?XXX&&% bus passes

No, I didn't accidentally sit on the keyboard. The mishmash of punctuation in this blog title is, in fact, an expletive - feel free to pick one.

We spend a lot of money on transportation here. While Berlin's transit is convenient, it isn't without cost. A monthly transit pass costs about 30 Euros for each child and about 80 for each adult. This buys us unlimited rides on bus, U-bahn and S-bahn within the A and B zones of Berlin, which is pretty much where we need to travel on a regular basis. If we want to go into Teltow or Potsdam, as we did last weekend when friends were in town, it costs extra. It also costs extra if we want to bring a bike on the train, which we occasionally do. But for the most part, 220 Euros/month gets us where we need to go.

The problem is that the bus pass is a small piece of paper. We have to pull it out and show it to the bus driver each time we get on a bus, which is typically about 4 times each day for kids and 6-8 times for me (depending on whether I catch bus or train to and from taking kids to school. You don't have to show your pass on the train, but if an attendant comes around and catches you riding without one there is a very hefty fine.) Each time we take the pass out, there is a danger of losing it before it gets put back. Often we are holding lots of stuff (kid backpacks, groceries, jackets (because it's usually super hot on the bus and you want to take your jacket off even if it's cold outside), books (for entertainment on the bus), hair brushes (because Haley usually doesn't take time to brush her hair at home and wants to spend the 30 minute transit time having her hair done), and whatever else we might have with us on any given day.

When we first got to Berlin I was the keeper of the bus passes. They stayed in my wallet and I distributed them to the kids before each bus ride and collected them again as soon as we were on the bus. There were several problems with this approach though.

1. If Dan happened to be with the kids instead of me, they didn't have their passes.

2. Our route to school can either use 2 buses or, if our first bus is late and misses the connection with the second bus (which is usually the case), we catch a train second. We need to show the pass for a bus ride but not for a train ride. So if I collect the bus passes on the first bus and we happen to arrive in time to catch the second bus, I have to hand the passes out again, usually as we are crossing a busy street in a dead run to get on the bus before it pulls away. But if I don't collect the passes on the first bus, hoping we'll catch the second one, it leaves the kids holding their own passes for the duration of the ride and entrusts them with actually bringing them to the second bus.

3. If I control the bus passes it isn't teaching the kids to be responsible for their own things.

So a few months ago I bought bus pass holders for each of us. Nice, attractive 15 Euro zipper pouches that hold the bus pass behind a clear zipped panel so we just have to hold the entire pouch up to the bus driver instead of removing the precious pass. The kids' passholders are on a string so they can wear them around their necks and be hands-free. This worked great, for the most part, once we got the kids to always put the passholder in the outside pouch of their backpacks, so they would always know where they were and they wouldn't get lost in all the backpack junk. Mine worked well too - for me it was part of a master plan to simplify what I have to carry with me. Depending on my plans for the day and what mode of transport I am using (car, bus or bike), I am constantly switching purses/bags/backpacks. Previously I was always forgetting to move something to the next bag, whether it was my money, my housekey, a pack of kleenex, a lipstick, or my bus pass. With the new passholder, now I have my pass and my important cards - my EC debit card, credit card, health insurance card, etc. in my passholder, cash in a 2nd zipper pouch, and both are stored in a larger zipper pouch so I can just pick up one thing and put it in the next bag I need to carry.

Early in May, just after we had bought our monthly passes for May, Carter lost his passholder. We bought him single-ride tickets for several days and took the money from his allowance before giving up and buying him a second monthly pass. Then about 10 days ago, Haley lost hers. She had it at school and I had really hoped that someone had picked it up by mistake and it would show up any day. But it never has. At this point in the month, it wasn't economical to buy a second monthly pass so I have been buying her single ride tickets. Then yesterday, I lost mine. It was one of those mornings that is chaotic and we raced to the bus stop. Unfortunately, I hadn't screwed the top completely onto my water bottle and I soon felt wet and discovered that it had spilled all into my purse. I took out my paperback book and my German notebook, which were both in my purse, and tried to dump the water out. I must have also taken out my passholder, because when we got to the train station I didn't have it. Typically I always take a backward glance at where we were sitting to make sure we haven't left anything behind, but I didn't do that yesterday because Haley had her stuff all over the seat where she was sitting and I had to quickly help her grab it so we could get off the bus in time. And, believe it or not, Carter chose this time to announce that his pass was also no longer in his backpack (his second monthly pass for May).

I had lost my bus pass once before, back in November, and had managed to scrape by until the end of the month by carrying the previous month's pass. I truly don't believe this is cheating, since I DID pay for my rides for the month, I just lost the proof of payment. I'm going to try to limp by in a similar way this month. But losing my bus pass and my passholder this time was extra disastrous because of all the other things I was carrying in my passholder. I spent yesterday evening canceling my debit and credit cards and having new ones reissued. I am contacting the health insurance company today. But what I'm really worried about is my US driver's license. This Friday is my long-awaited appointment with the driving department for my test. You are supposed to surrender your license in exchange for a German one. What will they do if I don't have my US license? Surprisingly, they didn't even ask Dan for his license. But I haven't heard of anyone else who didn't have to give theirs up. I am praying that this doesn't keep me from getting my license on Friday. I don't even know what else was in my passholder - that stack of cards you carry - probably some frequent customer cards, maybe a blood type card, who knows what else. I hope nothing else important.

Now that we are sure the kids will attend the same school next year and not the John F Kennedy school near our house, we know we will be using transit just as much next year as we do now. So last month we applied for yearly transit passes. This saves a little money, but more importantly saves us the hassle of buying new passes each month. But how will we hold on to our yearly passes???? How much money will it cost to lose them??? We have got to come up with a solution to the bus pass problem.

P.S. I found Carter's 2nd lost monthly pass in our backyard this morning. He has no idea how it got there.