Since we had only know Chika was pregnant for a few days just before we flew over to Berlin to look for apartments, we hadn’t switched over fully into parent mode.  Having lived in New York, Tokyo, London between the two of us, life on public transport was a way of life.  So we decided over the nicer apartment and neighborhood over the carpark.

Now the reality has sunk in with Kai onboard.  Yet, we are managing not too badly thanks to Berlin’s excellent transport system.  It’s not 100% perfect all the time, but in general more often than not there are working elevators in all the U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations (in fact I think I’ve never been to an S-Bahn station without elevators).  Thus, we can navigate the city without having to carry the Bugaboo up and down the stairs.

The pass fares are the cheapest I’ve seen — 72 euros for a full month, which includes bringing a guest after 8 and on weekends.  Or if you are more flexible, 36 euros for a month if you leave after 10am.  And it’s based on a checker system — there are no turnstiles anywhere, but you might be asked by someone along the journey for your ticket.  This is HUGE, because frankly baby carriages and turnstiles do not get along at all.

And on top of all this, it’s timed with German efficiency.  Just plug your start and end destination into bvg.de and you will get very efficient routings and timing to your destination.  And it works almost too well — sometimes you wish things were a minute or 2 later with Kai around.

We may move into car mode at some point, but for now we are happily enjoying being the eco-friendly city travelers.