Travel tribulations

B to the R:

Some time ago, I promised a rumination on the difference between travel and vacation. Sometime I'll get to that, if you all think you can stand the wait. But one of the differences has to be this: on a vacation, you seek to avoid all trouble and maximize relaxation; but while traveling, you at times embrace the challenges of the road and all the concomitant difficulty they may bring. Though this trip has been great so far, it is undoubtedly a vacation, and has had moments of red-faced, mouth-frothing, hair-pulling-out-the-roots-by frustration just to add some lows to the highs. To wit:

==Coming back from Potsdam, I was approached by a ticket-checker on the S-bahn. Though confrontations with state authority figures usually make me nervous even when we speak the same language, I expected this one to be cool, because all he wanted was to check my ticket, and I had a ticket. Or so I thought. So I showed him my ticket, and he said "Nein," which even in my linguistic ignorance I realized was not a good sign. Realizing I did not speak enough German to straighten things out, he dragged me off the train and pointed at a subway map, which revealed that there are three zones in Berlin: A, B, and a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny zone C, which happened to be where we were at the time, and which happened to be the one zone not covered by my pass. Finally getting it, I apologized, said I'd buy the required supplement, and apologized again, at which point this damned teutonic bureaucrat said "forty euros." I thought initially he was saying that the supplement for zone C would cost that much, and I acted incredulous, whereupon he clued me in that 40 euros was the FINE I owed for my treachery. At this point, I lost all ability to try to communicate in what broken German I may know, and ended up making a series of points--I'm new to the city, I didn't know I was out of zone, the zone is just a tiny technicality, I'm a student, I'm unemployed (at this point I was desperate and the consistency of my point-making suffered)--all of which prompted the ticket checker to say, "40 euros." I started to say more, but realized that this guy was never, ever going to budge, and I handed over the money. After all that--and even though there was only one stop left in zone C--he even made me buy a damned C zone ticket to boot. Dick.

==I was a damned thorough packer (too thorough, if the weight of my duffel bag is any measure), and was sure not to forget to pack a voltage converter that is compatible with european sockets. However, upon arriving, I realized that the converter's prongs are compatible with German sockets, but this makes no difference because Mitteleuropean sockets are also recessed into the wall in such a way that the converter cannot fit (this is as clear as I can make the explanation, I'm afraid--imagine me trying to get this across in German). So I went to a store to buy a German adapter for my camera battery, shelled out nine damn euros for a whole set of euro adapters because they don't sell them separately (now I can adapt American plugs from the Faroe Islands to Serbia!), and brought the bastard home to find that it STILL DIDN'T FIT. Much swearing and general ranting ensued, but at the end of said rant I just had to head back to the electronics store and tell the guy the problem. He was nice, said he could fix the adapter, and told me I should come back the next day. When I did, the adapter was fixed, just as he said it would be, and then told me I had to pay four extra euros for the labor. Hopefully this guy didn't understand English well, or at least English obscenities, because I let loose with more than a few, then forked over the additional cash. Finally, I toted the accursed adapter back home, plugged it into the wall, got out my battery charger, and--you've certainly guessed it by now--the mofo still did. not. fit. At this point, I was beyond swearing and the like, and simply set the whole issue aside with a vow to return to the store tomorrow to revisit it then. On the good side, though, while my camera battery remains dead, I have been able to practice my german with the good, non-english-speaking people at the electronics shop, and have learned invaluable terms like "Stucker" (plug) and "Reisadapter" (current converter/adapter). Inconvenience is the mother of sprachenlernen.