Foreword: Being living in Germany is quite a valuable one. I have been among people with educational background in natural science and it is quite difficult to have a serious discussion about social sciences phenomena. But let me share some lessons I get there based on my simple think.

I am so impressed with the Government policy that enables people here to travel cheaply if they do it in a group. It is a simple but effective policy. In Indonesia, if some people (let say more than 3 people) want to travel (no matter how long the distance we will take), it will be cheaper if they do it by car. That is why it is not a surprise to see how many cars there (especially in Jakarta). In Germany, people are encouraged to travel in group by public transportation since there will be some benefits received.

The most popular one is wochenendekarte. Wochenendekarte is kind of promotion card for traveling among the cities in Germany where the price of card depends on the distance. for example, if I want to travel alone from Marburg to Frankfurt (it is like from Bogor to Jakarta), I have to pay about 27 € (or about 400.000 Rupiah) for two way ticket. But If I travel in a group (up to 5 people), we just have to pay about 30 € or 6 €/ person or just 90 Rupiah. Without Wochenendekarte, if I and some friend want to travel (let say we are 5), we have to pay about 135 €. It is very costly and we will be looking for alternative transportation. If one or some of us already have a car, we absolutely prefer to travel with a car since the cost of transportation will be about 60 € (the price of fuel in Germany is 1.8€/liter). So it is considerably different between traveling by public transportation and by private car.

This impressive policy, however, will be difficult to be applied in Indonesia since the main problem of public transportation in Indonesia is not the price but the quality of service. People will pay for just being comfortable any way.

But what I love most from Germany? The huge number of subsidy for students. The implication is, in next 4 months I will pay just 65€/ semester for a semesterkarte that makes me possible to travel freely among many cities.