Thursday 6 March 2008

Streik!


So there's this really fun strike going on in Berlin right now. No subway, buses, or trams are
running until further notice. What makes it funny is that the first day of this strike was yesterday. Which just happened to coincide with the first real snow of the year. Coincidence?

This situation will become even more interesting on Monday, when the German train system plans to begin a strike of their own. Which means that there won't even be any commuter rail service (which both Kate and I require to get to work). We'll be living in a city of 3 million people with absolutely no public transportation. And both of these strikes are open-ended, so no one has any clue when this will end.

(Oh - in the interests of full disclosure, this photo was not taken from either of us, but ripped from the Spiegel site. However, I do bike past this stop every day, so I felt justified in putting it up.)

5 comments:

Douglas said...

What's really great is that the beauty of German grammar allows the BVG to make elegantly clear who they think should take the blame for the labor dispute: "Die BVG werde von ver.di bestreikt." Poor BVG, passive victim of active agent ver.di! I never understand people who think German is an ugly language. But then again, they don't understand German. Jawohl! (Kate, doesn't that just make you long to sit on my terrace and hear further pedantic language usage?)

Unknown said...

well, when you come to visit we can sit on our balcony and you can assail us with pedantic language in a german setting

just this time the beer will be gimmick free

jack "php" the dripper said...

homeboys
that is a bit complex for me...
:p

Douglas said...

oh! jeez! too complex for the french guy! who woulda thunk it... okay, now that i've insulted somebody i don't know, let's add to the list of good things about german(y): gimmick-free beer. frankly, if you need a color-changing inch of aluminum to tell you your beer's cold, you're probably in trouble anyhoo...

jack "php" the dripper said...

dugdug, i got the pun :)
just a bit slow, at the moment