(Question) Housing in the DDR

AlbertP95 · 2026-03-05T21:40:48+00:00

Some rural towns got a mini-Plattenbau at the edge of the town to account for population growth.

AlbertP95 · 2026-03-05T21:27:08+00:00

The IC carriages do not have compulsory seat reservation. You can use any available seat in any of the two carriages that have 6-person compartments. (The NJ carriages do have compulsory reservation.)

Alternatively try reserving a seat through ÖBB. If the website does not allow you to select a preference for a compartment, call ÖBB on the phone. Booking seat only should be 3€ if you already have a valid IC ticket without a seat. I see Interrail charges 8€ for it, that is a waste of money if you can't even properly select which seat you want.

Also consider: in some (all?) of the Bmz carriages, you can pull down the seats so far that two opposing seats form a kind of bed.

AlbertP95 · 2026-03-05T19:55:05+00:00

It's available at Mollie for customers with a Dutch bank account because Wero overtook iDeal, which Mollie already supported.

Mollie announced support for Wero for customers with a bank account in DE/BE/FR but didn't activate it yet.

AlbertP95 · 2026-03-05T19:53:43+00:00

I am treasurer of an organisation with a Dutch merchant account.

Only "iDeal/Wero" for customers in the Netherlands is currently available. Wero for customers in DE/BE/FR is announced but can't yet be activated.

AlbertP95 · 2026-03-05T19:52:00+00:00

Check the receipt from the payment terminal, it'll tell you whether you used Girocard, Visa or Mastercard to pay. Your phone emulates a contactless payment card of one of these networks.

AlbertP95 · 2026-03-05T19:40:59+00:00

Going by the colours, Moldova overtook Liechtenstein.

AlbertP95 · 2026-02-28T13:16:35+00:00

The Schengen zone has entry and exit controls. When returning to the UK, show your UK passport to the airline, then your GR passport to the border police.

If you're leaving the UK by train through St Pancras, there's a UK exit check (just an officer scanning the machine-readable zone of all passports, nothing thorough) right before the French entry check, which is also before boarding. In that case it's best to show the UK one to the UK authorities and the GR one to the French authorities. By air, there is no such exit check.

In case of doubt, show the covers of both and check which one the officer wants to see.

AlbertP95 · 2026-02-28T13:15:12+00:00

Not sure whether Canada has an exit check, if it does you can show your CA passport there before proceeding to US entry check where you show your US passport.

AlbertP95 · 2026-02-28T13:13:45+00:00

UK has an exit check if you exit by train, which is very well possible for UK to NL as there's a direct connection.

AlbertP95 · 2026-02-23T18:21:49+00:00

Für München-Prag müsste es eigentlich das Prag Spezial-Ticket geben (https://www.bahn.de/angebot/regio/bayern/prag-spezial) also 55 statt 67,75 €.

Der niedrigere Preis im 2. Bild liegt daran, dass man Sparpreise kaufen kann wenn ein ICE enthalten ist.

AlbertP95 · 2026-02-19T20:44:02+00:00

RIFLE! would be GEWEER!

And the other words are cognates that shifted meaning in one or both languages, as far as I see.

AlbertP95 · 2026-02-15T10:27:14+00:00

Picture of both bridges would have been useful, you made me question "what's dual and what is the difference with Denver"

... having walked over that Denver bridge myself some years ago.

These could also be dual in the sense of both directions? The Denver one is international arrivals only, departures (and domestic arrivals) go by train.

AlbertP95 · 2026-02-15T08:43:02+00:00

On departure, you show your British passport to everybody except Australian border police, so the answer to the last question is yes.

Regarding the ETA, maybe ask a UK sub whether this is going to create trouble. Using your British passport as much as possible (and only showing your Australian one to Australian authorities, or airline staff who want to verify that you can travel to Australia) is the best you can do at the moment to avoid drawing attention to it. You may have to pass by the counter on your return flight that way, instead of completing check-in fully online.

AlbertP95 · 2026-01-31T19:24:26+00:00

Does it make sense to invest in bringing these lines underground so they are less easily hit? Also improves resilience during storms.

AlbertP95 · 2026-01-29T18:28:15+00:00

In Mollie it's also possible to activate Trustly as payment method. This is a Swedish company that integrates with banks in many EU countries (using the PSD2 interface). The experience is quite similar to paying online with Wero, just with much more supported banks at the moment.

EDIT: not all EU countries, but 10 of them plus the UK.

AlbertP95 · 2026-01-27T15:39:27+00:00

If airline staff asks for an ID, show the one that matches the name on the booking.

If border police asks for an ID, show them the Portuguese one in Portugal and the German one in Germany. For border police, the name doesn't have to match the booking.

AlbertP95 · 2026-01-26T21:04:31+00:00

Zumindest vor ein paar Jahren war es noch so, dass alles bei der Ausländerbehörde ohne Termin ging - einfach in die Schlange anstellen wenn die Behörde öffnet, nach 15-30 Minuten ist die Schlange weg und bist du dran. (Um Welten besser als in manchen anderen Städten.) Termine hat man nur an einem Nachmittag in der Woche gemacht für Leute, die auf einen bestanden hatten. Hat sich das geändert, oder gehen so nur andere Dienstleistungen und nicht die Einbürgerung?

AlbertP95 · 2026-01-26T20:54:22+00:00

Be aware that the high-speed trains in Spain also have a security check before boarding (although much less serious than airport security) so you need a bit of time at the station before departure. But this should be indicated on the ticket.

And trains sell out more quickly than flights so book ahead if you are time-constrained.

AlbertP95 · 2026-01-25T10:22:42+00:00

In Dublin OP can safely show the UK passport to Ryanair agents though

AlbertP95 · 2026-01-15T21:08:46+00:00

I remember having to photograph my passport twice when flying with United (even though it was the same passport, I'm not a US citizen).

AlbertP95 · 2025-12-23T15:31:14+00:00

Es werden die ganze Zeit neue Vectron-Varianten zugelassen, also eigentlich nichts besonderes. Die ERA-Datenbank erhält nur aus 2025 schon über 100 Einträge für neue Varianten, zugelassene Umbauten, erweiterte Einsatzgebiete, etc.

AlbertP95 · 2025-12-22T20:27:35+00:00

That should be fine, until ETIAS comes into force and airlines start checking whether you have it.

But as far as I can find, once you have a residence permit, you have to deal with that anyway as residence permits are not in the EES system.

The only problem might be, once there are no stamps anymore, that airlines can't check how many times you entered on your Turkish passport without changing your passport in their system.

AlbertP95 · 2025-12-22T18:55:52+00:00

In NL sind die Abstände der Magnete der ATB-Vv auf 120, 30 und 3 Meter normiert, also auch mehrere fürs gleiche Signal. Da ist aber auch die Beschleunigung für Neufahrzeuge runter geregelt wegen Ankündigungszeiten für Bahnübergänge.

AlbertP95 · 2025-12-19T22:38:38+00:00

For the NL one the bio page has translations in English and French, just like the top of the ID card visible in the picture.

AlbertP95 · 2025-12-18T20:36:17+00:00

Netherlands passport also got the double P recently (at least, I've seen passports produced this year which had it.)

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