Every morning when leaving the San Francisco station, the conductor announces over the loudspeaker that 1) smoking is not allowed (in California, you can't smoke anywhere except on the street), 2) you are not allowed to put your feet on the seats (which is an imposition for Americans, as they tend to put their feet up everywhere, some even put their feet on the conference table during meetings!), and 3) you should not adjust the seats. These seats have backs that seemingly allow you to adjust them to face forward or backward -- but if you try, the backrest gets terribly stuck halfway, making the seat unusable and requiring the carriage to go into maintenance. I laugh myself half to death every time an American, who has never taken a train in their life, tries it and spends the rest of the journey trying to fix the backrest. No one has ever succeeded; it's hopeless. At the station, people often ask me if you know where to buy tickets. There are Americans my age who have never taken a train in their life. And I'm not getting any younger!

The conductor remembers whose ticket he has already punched by hanging a small card over the corresponding seat. If you change seats because your neighbor is snoring or smells of alcohol, you have to take the card with you and move it, otherwise the conductor will ask for your ticket again the next time he comes through. By the way, why don't train conductors in Germany remember it this way and runs through with "Shift change, tickets please?" instead? Incidentally, changing seats is a typical American phenomenon that I have never found described in literature and that I want to discuss today: People here, on the bus, tram, or train, tend to change seats unexpectedly. In Germany, if your seat neighbor gets up and moves three rows ahead, you think, "Did I eat garlic yesterday or what?" I have often noticed in Munich that I stayed in my seat even if it was drafty, smelly, or the sun was glaring--just to not offend my seat neighbor. Here, it's not uncommon for people to change seats three times if they are traveling ten stops. Mysterious America! You read it first in the newsletter!

In America, by the way, employees cannot deduct commuting expenses from their taxes. If you live far from work, it's your own fault. However, Netscape pays each employee $30 a month if they use public transportation to get to work. You receive a check that can only be cashed by train, bus, and subway operators. This only covers about a quarter of the costs, but it's at least a step in the right direction. Additionally, Netscape offers a shuttle (a private bus) that picks people up from the train station and takes them to work. In Mountain View, private buses arrive in the morning with "Netscape," "Microsoft," or "Hewlett Packard" written on them. Public transportation in Silicon Valley is practically useless; I've never seen a bus going anywhere I wanted to go. I would never get on the Microsoft bus, of course; I would rather walk the three kilometers to Netscape in torrential rain.

The one-way trip from San Francisco to Mountain View costs four dollars. If the station has a ticket counter but you buy the ticket out of laziness from the conductor on the train, it costs an extra dollar. In Germany, this is quite normal. But anyone who thinks an American would accept this is mistaken: If the conductor asks for the extra dollar and politely explains why, there are regularly people who get upset and start lengthy discussions! Some conductors simply no longer charge the additional dollar because it doesn't really show up in the evening's accounting; after all, the passenger could just as easily have boarded at a station with no ticket booth. There are only three stations with ticket booths between San Francisco and San Jose, which is 90 kilometers further south! As we hear, ticket machines are supposed to be introduced soon everywhere! Wonders of technology!

By the way, no one is expected to deal with any confusing zone systems here like in Germany. In illustration 4, you can see a 10-ride ticket (costs $34, saving 15%) that shows "Zone 4." But that's only for the conductor; no passenger would know that. Instead, you simply tell the ticket counter person where you want to go. It's also straightforward in the subway: you pay the same price ($1.10) throughout the entire city, and if you want to go to the suburbs, every ticket machine indicates how much it costs to go where. No one is required to abstract themselves into any complicated grid or zone systems.

Bringing a bicycle onto the train, as I have written before, is often an incredible source of frustration, especially when the bicycle car is full, which is when you're not allowed to board, and you have to wait half an hour or an hour for the next train. Some conductors allow more than the maximum number of bicycles on board, and there usually are no problems with that. But if a conductor is strict and leaves people standing outside, they get a lot of flak from the cyclists. Here in California, it's common to be flexible when the situation requires it. Anyone who blindly follows silly rules is considered a fool. I still remember Munich, where it's a regulation that buses must have "contact" with the bus stop sign, meaning they can't stop beforehand, for example when traffic conditions would allow it. Here in San Francisco, a bus might stop well before the stop depending on the traffic situation, and then you just quickly walk between stalled cars to get on, no problem at all. Recently, a bus driver didn't open the door beforehand when traffic came to a halt and drove all the way to the bus stop sign. People couldn't stop complaining about it!

By the way, someone who is very meticulous, as I have mentioned before, is called a "Nazi." The first time I heard this was on the TV show "Seinfeld," where it was about a soup vendor who always harassed people and was colloquially called the "Soup Nazi." If someone from the Seinfeld crew didn't follow the soup nazi's rather arbitrary rules, he simply wouldn't sell them soup and would yell with his Argentine accent: "No soup for you! Come back next year!" But the soup was so good that people came in droves and allowed themselves to be harassed. I laughed tears!

Many people are typing away on their laptop computers during train rides, which is okay. But, to my dismay, there is too much mobile phone use. I've heard that, by now, everyone in Germany has a mobile phone too. I also have one because it's practical if my bike has a flat tire or if I miss the last bus. But I would never think of making a phone call on the train, where everyone can hear what I'm saying! I don't know why, but when someone next to me is on the phone, it annoys me more than if they were talking to their neighbor. Probably because the protocol is so predictable: "Hello, this is...!" ... "Good, and you?" ... "Hey, I'm on the Caltrain!" ... "So, I have to go now!" ... Arrrgh! I would be a regular in mobile phone-free carriages! By the way, more and more fine restaurants here are starting to note on their menus that a) smoking and b) letting mobile phones ring is not allowed.

In Mountain View, through years of pioneering work, I've discovered a route from the train station to Netscape that goes over a few bridges designated only for bicycles and through parks, instead of following the congested main roads. Initially, I asked colleagues based in Mountain View if such a route existed, but received negative responses, as no one in Mountain View is riding a bike or walks. In suburban America, people tend to drive even for small errands, like buying bread, even if the supermarket is only 100 meters away from their home.

In the Los Angeles area, this sometimes leads to the police stopping and checking pedestrians, as no "normal" person walks. As a result, locals are familiar with every car shortcut that involves briefly getting on and off three highways, but they know nothing about routes through parks where you can zip through on a bike like lightning. Going on a tangent, I firmly believe that Mountain View has the slowest traffic light in the Northern Hemisphere. At the intersection of Central Expressway and Moffett Boulevard, it surely takes five minutes to change!

But in Mountain View, there is actually a bicycle bridge that goes over highway 85 (Figure 7). In winter, by the way, it is pitch dark there by 6 PM, and in the park through which I ride after work, there is no light anywhere. My bicycle only has a blinking light, which makes me visible but does not illuminate my path. The result is a 1.5 km long blind ride through the park, and every rustle in the bushes makes me pedal faster. It gets my adrenaline pumping, and I wouldn't stop for anything or anyone!

• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Car traffic in Silicon Valley
  	The Streets of San Francisco
  	Radar Traps
  	Parking in the City
  	Public Transportation
  	Dogs, Dogs, Dogs!
  	Muni Street Cars and BART Subway
  	News from the President

  
  

• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Car traffic in Silicon Valley
  	The Streets of San Francisco
  	Radar Traps
  	Parking in the City
  	Public Transportation
  	Dogs, Dogs, Dogs!
  	Muni Street Cars and BART Subway
  	News from the President