The world's favourite pastime?

You know you’ve been in Berlin a while when you start planning the best place to exit the S-Bahn. I lived near Greifswalder Straße S-Bahnhof long enough to know that if I board the S-Bahn at the back, I would undoubtedly have less chance of finding a seat but I’d be closer to the stairs when it came to getting off at Messe Nord and changing to the U-Bahn. Once on the platform for the U-Bahn, I’d head immediately to the west side of the station, as this provides the best exit route at Theodor-Heuss-Platz. Nonetheless, I was always bombarded by school children and, unless I sped up my pace, I invariably became entangled in the swarm und had to fight my way ahead.

But back to the S-Bahn for now. Possibly the only place where I felt alone even though I was surrounded by hundreds of people. There are a number of activities one can pursue on the S-Bahn, each of them having their own merits and limitations. Perhaps the most common of these is the good old traditional pastime of reading a book. Once, when a relative came to visit, one of the first things he said as we boarded the S-Bahn was “everyone is reading a book!” He wasn’t exaggerating. Literally everyone in our carriage had some kind of book, whether it was a novel or a textbook or perhaps even a German phrase book. I myself have also become quite a fan of this, though as I said, everything has its limitations. If, like me, you travel during the rush hour, the chances are you’re often without a seat and nine times out of ten, you find yourself standing so close to someone that you can smell their body odour (and often also what they had for breakfast). As five or six people all try to reach for the same bar to hold on to, there is an inevitable (and rather complex) arrangement of elbows and underarms, interweaving and yet politely avoiding contact. Often the result of this is that one simply cannot find a comfortable position to carry on with that chapter that is just so engrossing. Still, being packed like sardines into an S-Bahn does keep you warm in the winter.

Let’s just imagine for a moment however that it isn’t 7:15am but rather some strange time in the afternoon on a Tuesday when the S-Bahn is scarcely populated. Sitting down on a two-seater with space to stretch your legs out, one can really delve into that chapter and get some serious reading done. Though we are constantly told not to judge a book by its cover, it is of course possible to judge a person by their book. Not only can one discern which language a person speaks (or perhaps more accurately, which language they are trying to learn, as is often the case in Berlin), one can also make a guess at a person’s character. There are the middle-aged (and dare I say it, single) women who devour trashy “chick-lit” and the nerdy-looking 20-something males who are hooked on the latest sci-fi offering. Then of course, there are the young and impressionable teenagers who like to be seen reading Nietzsche or some other politically and/or philosophically radical author. That is often the case when trying to infer what kind of people are hiding behind those books. Are they genuinely interested in what they are reading or do they just want to give the impression that they are? The latest trend appears to be book sleeves that hide the cover of the book, giving little away (and probably much favoured by those interested in erotic fiction, though we will never know this for sure).

A similar conundrum exists with newspaper readers. One can never really tell whether the person struggling to cope with the enormous pages of the Financial Times is actually the least bit interested in economics or if indeed they somehow feel the need to purchase and be seen reading such a newspaper, as it seems to complement their Armani business suit. For this reason, I feel more at ease with the tabloid readers.

Another favoured S-Bahn activity is listening to music. Much like book-reading, there is much to be discerned from a person not just from the kind of music they choose to listen to but also the way in which they go about it. There are those that have the latest chart compilation on a budget mp3-player and simply put it on shuffle. Then are those with iPods, iPhones, iPads and the like, who are selective about the music they hear on their journey and will probably have a pre-determined playlist entitled “auf dem Weg nach der Arbeit” as well as a corresponding one for the journey home. There are variations in volume (ranging from quiet private listening to ear-piercingly loud), genre of music (oh how stereotypical it is that those black-haired, black-clothed youngsters listen to emo) and – perhaps most importantly – choice of headphones, with the largest ones seemingly being reserved only for the most serious of music fans.

Alongside chatting on the phone (much to the annoyance of fellow passengers), there are less common but by no means less enjoyable activities that can be readily performed on the S-Bahn. The daily application of make-up, the knitting of scarves, the breastfeeding of babies. Yes, the S-Bahn offers a whole manner of possibilities. But perhaps the best part of all this, the activity which must not be overlooked, is the pleasure one gets when one simply takes a moment to look over that book, or peep above that huge newspaper or switch off those headphones. Indeed, the best activity of all requires very little in the way of props and can be performed regardless of whether the S-Bahn is cram-packed or running during the ghost hours. That’s right everyone: people-watching.