On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 17:54:24 UTC, Jens Mueller wrote:
> Mike Parker via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 08:43:34 UTC, Jens Mueller wrote:
>> >
>> >More questions?
>> >
>> 
>> I'll be getting out of the airport probably around 10:00 pm or so. I've seen online the subways run into the early am, but would I be better off grabbing a taxi at that time?
>
> I assume you arrive at Tegel. Then you go by bus 109 to U Jakob-Kaiser-Platz. This should be safe. I never heard of much crime in that area of the city. From U Jakob-Kaiser-Platz you take the U7 (light blue on the BVG maps) for about half an hour to U Grenzallee. So you never leave the metro in between. The less safer places of the ride are actually towards its end. That's my impression. But I'd say it's safe.
>
> Nothing ever happened to me. Even when I went to the Berlin D meetups (third Friday of a month at 7p.m.) to U Kottbusser Tor and back around 10p.m. Though Kottbusser Tor has a reputation for being unsafe.
>
> Try to not look like a rich tourist. It's fine to carry a bag. Berliners also travel and need to get home, too. Be careful when strangers approach you to avoid pick pocketing. Not that this ever happened to me.
>
> Jens

It's different when you're a tourist who doesn't speak the language well and cannot "read" the situation. I've heard it's quite common in public places now that someone approaches you and distracts you (by asking for directions or something) while his buddies try to steal your phone and wallet.

You'll probably be fine, as Jens said. My advice is to take a taxi, if you don't feel good about it, especially after a more or less long journey when all you wanna do is arrive. It'd be around €40, if it's true what they say on the internet.

There is of course the danger that the taxi driver will try to fleece you, but you know the shortest route now :)

On 25 April 2016 at 20:37, Chris via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 17:54:24 UTC, Jens Mueller wrote:
>>
>> Mike Parker via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>>
>>> On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 08:43:34 UTC, Jens Mueller wrote:
>>> >
>>> >More questions?
>>> >
>>>
>>> I'll be getting out of the airport probably around 10:00 pm or so. I've seen online the subways run into the early am, but would I be better off grabbing a taxi at that time?
>>
>>
>> I assume you arrive at Tegel. Then you go by bus 109 to U Jakob-Kaiser-Platz. This should be safe. I never heard of much crime in that area of the city. From U Jakob-Kaiser-Platz you take the U7 (light blue on the BVG maps) for about half an hour to U Grenzallee. So you never leave the metro in between. The less safer places of the ride are actually towards its end. That's my impression. But I'd say it's safe.
>>
>> Nothing ever happened to me. Even when I went to the Berlin D meetups (third Friday of a month at 7p.m.) to U Kottbusser Tor and back around 10p.m. Though Kottbusser Tor has a reputation for being unsafe.
>>
>> Try to not look like a rich tourist. It's fine to carry a bag. Berliners also travel and need to get home, too. Be careful when strangers approach you to avoid pick pocketing. Not that this ever happened to me.
>>
>> Jens
>
>
> It's different when you're a tourist who doesn't speak the language well and cannot "read" the situation. I've heard it's quite common in public places now that someone approaches you and distracts you (by asking for directions or something) while his buddies try to steal your phone and wallet.
>
> You'll probably be fine, as Jens said. My advice is to take a taxi, if you don't feel good about it, especially after a more or less long journey when all you wanna do is arrive. It'd be around €40, if it's true what they say on the internet.
>

For 40€ I would pick you up from the airport and guide you through the public transport system myself. :-)

On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 18:48:21 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

>>
>
> For 40€ I would pick you up from the airport and guide you through the public transport system myself. :-)

I look at it this way: It'd be bike-shedding when travelling [1]. You travel hundreds or thousands of miles, pay the flight, the conference fee, the hotel - and then you don't wanna pay €40 for a taxi ;-) It's these little conveniences that we have money for, not for blowing it on designer clothes.

But I agree that taxis in Germany are effin expensive. I wouldn't recommend you to take a taxi home every night.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 14:43:47 UTC, Chris wrote:
>
> Be aware that in Germany pedestrians actually do stop at red traffic lights, even if there is no car in sight. The police might fine you and / or other pedestrians, who sheepishly wait at the traffic light, might start to scold you for being a bad role model for children (even if it's 2am and there are no children around). As a comedian once pointed out, why did they build the Berlin wall, a red traffic light would have done the trick :-)

Just stumbled on this Washington Post article today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/25/this-city-embedded-traffic-lights-in-the-sidewalks-so-that-smartphone-users-dont-have-to-look-up/?tid=sm_fb

On Tuesday, 26 April 2016 at 09:56:32 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

>
> Just stumbled on this Washington Post article today:
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/25/this-city-embedded-traffic-lights-in-the-sidewalks-so-that-smartphone-users-dont-have-to-look-up/?tid=sm_fb

QED :) Funny and sad. If uploading a selfie to your Facebook profile is more important than your own safety, I'd call it natural selection.

On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 09:16:11 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> Germany is a cash-in-hand country.  Credit cards are rejected in most places that I've tried.

You mean debit cards are accepted? Anyway why credit cards? Aren't credit money more expensive than debit? The overdraft limit is just a fixed offset from zero and you pay extra interest, one could just imagine zero balance at his preferred offset and keep it there.

Am Tue, 26 Apr 2016 12:25:41 +0000
schrieb Kagamin <spam@here.lot>:

> On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 09:16:11 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> > Germany is a cash-in-hand country.  Credit cards are rejected in most places that I've tried.
> 
> You mean debit cards are accepted? Anyway why credit cards? Aren't credit money more expensive than debit? The overdraft limit is just a fixed offset from zero and you pay extra interest, one could just imagine zero balance at his preferred offset and keep it there.

The girocard (sometimes called EC card) debit card system is accepted at most places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard IIRC you need a german bank account though to own such a card ;-)

It's really not so bad anymore as it used to be. Credit cards are accepted in most stores or supermarkets, even "Netto" which is a discount-store and which started accepting Visa just last year. Other stores like "Real" and "Kaisers" will accept Visa, even many small shops will accept it.

Then again the Burger King at Alexanderplatz will for some reason *not* accept any credit card, while the McDonalds which is ~50 meters away will.

This is assuming you want to eat at those places while you're in Berlin, obviously there's great food here that you could try rather than go to the familiar fast-food chains.. If you're going to go for a döner kebab prepare some cash!

In some cases they might ask you for your ID (e.g. passport).

On 4/26/16, Johannes Pfau via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> Am Tue, 26 Apr 2016 12:25:41 +0000
> schrieb Kagamin <spam@here.lot>:
>
>> On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 09:16:11 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
>> > Germany is a cash-in-hand country.  Credit cards are rejected in most places that I've tried.
>>
>> You mean debit cards are accepted? Anyway why credit cards? Aren't credit money more expensive than debit? The overdraft limit is just a fixed offset from zero and you pay extra interest, one could just imagine zero balance at his preferred offset and keep it there.
>
> The girocard (sometimes called EC card) debit card system is accepted at most places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard IIRC you need a german bank account though to own such a card ;-)
>

On Tuesday, 26 April 2016 at 19:21:13 UTC, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
> It's really not so bad anymore as it used to be. Credit cards are accepted in most stores or supermarkets, even "Netto" which is a discount-store and which started accepting Visa just last year. Other stores like "Real" and "Kaisers" will accept Visa, even many small shops will accept it.
>
> Then again the Burger King at Alexanderplatz will for some reason *not* accept any credit card, while the McDonalds which is ~50 meters away will.
>
> This is assuming you want to eat at those places while you're in Berlin, obviously there's great food here that you could try rather than go to the familiar fast-food chains.. If you're going to go for a döner kebab prepare some cash!
>
> In some cases they might ask you for your ID (e.g. passport).
>
> On 4/26/16, Johannes Pfau via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> Am Tue, 26 Apr 2016 12:25:41 +0000
>> schrieb Kagamin <spam@here.lot>:
>>
>>> On Monday, 25 April 2016 at 09:16:11 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
>>> > Germany is a cash-in-hand country.  Credit cards are rejected in most places that I've tried.
>>>
>>> You mean debit cards are accepted? Anyway why credit cards? Aren't credit money more expensive than debit? The overdraft limit is just a fixed offset from zero and you pay extra interest, one could just imagine zero balance at his preferred offset and keep it there.
>>
>> The girocard (sometimes called EC card) debit card system is accepted at most places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard IIRC you need a german bank account though to own such a card ;-)

I was today to TXL, so I took some pictures while riding home (I was sitting on a passenger side).

First, here are the routes for 109 and U7:

https://www.bvg.de/images/content/linienverlaeufe/LinienverlaufBus109.pdf
https://www.bvg.de/images/content/linienverlaeufe/LinienverlaufU7.pdf

This is the U-Bahnhof Jakob-Keiser-Platz:

http://imgur.com/nCBxOho

This is the pink-orange building just before it (I took a picture when I passed it):

http://imgur.com/zrQw6Fn

In the bus, there's a display showing next station and a voice (in German, but even I can recognize the name of the station) telling the name of the next station. It's needed to indicate that you're going off the bus (this caught me when I was a new one) which needs to be pressed *before* the bus arrive to the station (if somebody has pressed it, you'll see red STOP on the right corner of the display) by pressing one of the green tasters on the yellow bars. Sorry for the potato quality:

http://imgur.com/gTzEtxh

And *bonus level*. If you didn't get off at U-Bahnhof Jakob-Keiser-Platz, 15 minutes after, 109 will get to U Bahnhof Adenauerplatz where you can catch U7 again (just after it turns right after S-Bahnhof Charlottenburg):

http://imgur.com/0TZWI7P

On 4/26/2016 12:21 PM, Andrej Mitrovic via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> This is assuming you want to eat at those places while you're in
> Berlin,

I'm looking forward to a bratwurst with some good senf!