Barriers

Magdeburg l My plane from London arrived late, so I missed the bus I should have taken from Tegel airport into Berlin. I was carrying an enormous suitcase, and was worried. Would my ticket be valid on a later bus, or would I have to pay extra? What if I didn’t have the right change? British bus drivers despise giving change. And while I would be fumbling with my wallet and dealing with the driver, I expected, a huge queue of passengers would build up behind me, tapping their feet and looking cross.

None of this happened. When the bus arrived, I waved my ticket to the driver but he barely looked at it; he just nodded and let me through. I think it probably was the wrong ticket, but he didn’t mind. I walked on into the almost empty bus and relaxed. Before I knew it I was on a later train to Magdeburg. Simple.

Public transport doesn’t work like that in London. For one thing, it’s all but impossible to get onto a bus or train with the wrong ticket: everything is done automatically. To get into the underground, you have to pass through a gate, which you can only do if you have money to pay with. Apparently, there needs to be a physical barrier in place to stop people abusing the system.

Is Germany a country of fewer barriers? Are Germans more trusting? I wondered this again on my first trip to a Magdeburg supermarket the other day. Having wheeled my shopping trolley through the checkout aisle, I found myself outside on the high street, still clutching it. I felt a moment of panic: it looks like I’ve stolen the trolley! Or was it excitement: my goodness, I could just walk off with it… I didn’t, of course. I realised I just had to take it back down the road to where I’d got it from. How nice to be trusted with the responsibility.

British people think of Germany as a country fond of rules. So it has surprised me to see how relaxed people are towards the minutiae of daily life. An example: getting set up as a resident. Of course, it wasn’t easy to work out which registration offices to go to, or how to sort out my health insurance. But during the many steps I’ve taken to accomplish these things, there has been a remarkable lack of stress. Everyone – even health insurance advisors – has seemed pleasantly baffled by the complexity of their own system. Their main concern is simply to find a workable solution. British bureaucracy, like the barriers at the tube station, is often automated as much as possible. And even though the systems are often less complex than they are in Germany, they are unfortunately also far worse organised.

As for those barriers, it appears that the UK is tempted to put up even more – not just between commuters and their destinations, but between the country and its European friends. I’m glad to have moved to a country that chooses to trust people. And I’m relieved to have made the move while I still have the right to do so.

Eine deutsche Version des Artikels finden sie hier.