GERMAN EFFICIENCY...to the last drop !

German mechanization is world renowned. Their efficiency, if it isn't already, should be also.

I flew into Munich airport fretting about the transportation from there to the city centre. A taxi ride, though efficient, was costly and not really good value for the dollar. But I had researched that a subway was available from the airport, a subway, not a bus, not a pullman, but a subway. Arriving and deplaning, I found an information desk in minutes and was directed to their Terminal #1, a 1 minute walk across a little pedestrian mall. There, I found another information desk, the receptionist, in excellent English directed me to the subway ticket purchase desk and the subway entrance. 9.6 E paid for a ticket, 1 minute later, I am on the subway platform. I could take either train as the airport is the last stop for all trains along this line. Minutes later, voila, a subway train. Doors don't automatically open on German subways. There is a button on both sides of the entrance/exit doors and you open a door if you need that one opened. Otherwise, the doors remain shut and less power is used by the train. Logical and efficient !
    Aboard and away we go through the German countryside, farm land, grassy fields, neat, tidy and organized. The announcement systems declares the next stop in German and  in English. Plus, train stops are indicated on a central ceiling LED text display in each car. Logical and very practical.
   Half an hour later, I have arrived at my downtown stop, Isartor. Exiting by escalator with luggage, I grab a cab and and am taken to my hotel in 2 minutes. Had I known it was that closeby, I could have walked.
But that airport run....Toronto...you're terrible !
    Next, beer service in the central market beer garten. The heart of Munich has the Viktualeinmarkt which is a food market known as "Munich's stomach" is an eating area with everything except maybe pizza. It's Germany, for heaven's sake. Now in the middle of this outdoor food galleria, there is a beer garden where they have benches and tables galore for quaffing and lunching, seating is free, catch as catch can. But the beer service is the epitome of efficiency. You get into a railed off row, never a line in it, no matter how busy, and you follow the railed path to the bar where there are two large opened windows with filled steins of beer for purchase, full and half litre sizes. You pick up a stein, walk on to the till, pay and out you go. A beer in less than a minute. German efficiency to an incredible level!

   A final note on German logic and efficiency. I bicycled around Munich for three days and thought traffic was terribly busy at most hours, biking like that was a super idea. Biking lanes painted off from car lanes and pedestrian pathways made for easy navigation around the city. And bicycling is the right way to go as you can sit and rest when you want, coast and cover distances easily, and exercise with pleasure at other times to help wear off some of that German beer. But another piece of German logic. We have tri coloured lights for traffic control with the amber signal used to warn that a red signal is imminent. The Germans add a very logical wrinkle, the caution comes on to warn the the green light is imminent. So "get ready to move !" I liked that idea a lot, not that our light system is bad but the German one encourages movement for the Germans seem preoccupied with 'action,' 'speed,' and 'production.'  Hence, their system moves traffic faster. German logic and efficiency...one hell of a productive and efficient country.
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