The Kindness of Strangers

July 13, 2016

I made plans to visit  cousin Adrienne in Hamburg Friday.  One of my new friends in Berlin, Antje, and I had made plans to meet for coffee.  I asked her if she would assist me in getting tickets for the train to Hamburg.  She said sure.  Antje said to meet her at her office at Humboldt University school of theology.   I will explain that in another entry.

We went to the student’s lounge for a coffee and then took off to get the tickets.   The ticket machine at Hackesher Markt didn’t have a schedule so she said let’s go to the one at Alexanderplatz where they have people to assist you.  Off to Alex we went.  The times that fit my cousin’s schedule were for the fast train.  Pricey but why not.  Then Antje said,  now we will go to the station where you will be catching the train to Hamburg so you will know exactly how to get there Friday morning.  We took the  S 5 or 7 or 75 (all go to some key stations) to Hauptbahnhof (Hbf), Berlin’s new (built on an historic location) central train station.  Then we went to Track 8 to see where I would get on the train to Hamburg.  But that was not enough.  She made sure for me to know what boarding station I should stand at by Track 8 (it was C) so that I would board on to the right railway car.  Then, to make sure I would know how to get back home, we worked our way backward.

So think about that.  Would  you do that for someone?