On my way home today, I had a headache-so I wasn’t completely with myself when I boarded the crowded train headed from Jena West to Weimar. The train was unusually packed because of the Easter holiday.
I sat down in a seat near the door because I had a tight three minute connection in Weimar-and the girl across from me said something.
“Sorry, I don’t speak German,” I said.
She then said something and I got the jest of her question, she wanted to know if I had a first class ticket!
“No, I don’t,” I said.
She made some motion like I was sitting in a privileged area.
“This isn’t first class, first class is over there,” I said, pointing beyond the glass door.
“Oh, I didn’t know,” she said, speaking English.
When one isn’t a regular rider of the train, it seems rather presumptuous to ask other people what kind of ticket they have, assuming they’re sitting in the wrong spot.
I maximized the space that I took up crowding her legs a bit, and was amused when she discovered that her mobile didn’t work while the train was slowly making its way up the densely forested hillside.
Not only had this girl not been on a train before, she apparently hadn’t ever been out of range before.
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