For $380 a month, this 23-year-old lives on trains instead of renting

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/10/1420182/-For-380-a-month-this-23-year-old-lives-on-trains-instead-of-renting

A young German woman, Leonie Müller, lives on trains. Not a specific train. Just any train she decides to get on when it's time for her to go to bed.

The German college student gave up her apartment in spring. "It all started with a dispute I had with my landlord," Müller told The Washington Post via e-mail. "I instantly decided I didn't want to live there anymore — and then I realized: Actually, I didn't want to live anywhere anymore."

Instead, she bought a subscription that allows her to board every train in the country free. Now, Müller washes her hair in the train bathroom and writes her college papers while traveling at a speed of up to 190 mph. She says that she enjoys the liberty she has experienced since she gave up her apartment. "I really feel at home on trains and can visit so many more friends and cities. It's like being on vacation all the time," Müller said.

She doesn't live entirely on trains in a completely lone wolf, hobo of yesteryear fashion.

Müller frequently travels late at night, although she tries to sleep at the apartments of relatives or friends. Often, she is accommodated by her boyfriend, her mother or grandmother.

"Normally, we would have to have a long-distance relationship, but living on a train enables me to see him all the time," Müller told German TV station SWR regarding her boyfriend. "Most of my friends really like the idea, although some consider it to be quite adventurous. Others, however, have reacted more negatively: They feel offended by the fact that I question the ordinary way of life and living."

[peace13]

1. More power to her.

Young people have a lot of energy! I would think that bathing would be the biggest issue.

[MiniMe]

2. A cool way to live, but what do you do with your stuff

Clothes, possessions, etc.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. I wish her the best of luck during her temporary journey

When she grows up and sees it's not sustainable, I wish her luck wit that stage of her journey as well.

[Aerows]

11. There are a whole lot of things that are unsustainable

Millions of young people scraping by, millions of former middle class folks that have been hit seven ways to Sunday, while Wall Street continues to rake it in.

I suspect she doesn't do this entirely because she wants to, I suspect she is doing it because she has too.

[Scootaloo]

13. "When she grows up and sees it's not sustainable"

I'm curious. How old are you and how much money do you make?

[msongs]

4. she sleeps on someone else's dime... nt

[Luminous Animal]

5. Horrors.

[a la izquierda]

10. Did you read where it says she pays?

She has a monthly pass...

[Brickbat]

20. ROFLMAO.

[lunatica]

29. Who is paying her way?

I missed that part.

[Eleanors38]

30. What? Our trans. authority would LOVE $380/mo.

[Trajan]

33. Knowing you are a Christian

I would think you preferred it was YOUR dime....

[Warren Stupidity]

35. not likely in Germany.

Perhaps it was an E0.10?

[drm604]

6. What does she do for income?

It seems like it wold be difficult to hold down a job.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. It says she's in college.....so maybe she has a scholarship?

Maybe she saved her money from some job or other so she could do this.

Dunno!

I think it's great, what she's doing.

[Kber]

16. German universities are free.

[hunter]

38. For Everyone. You don't even have to be German.

But you do have to qualify, and it's tough.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Only works if you cn get a cheap rail pass.

[NBachers]

9. The USA still has some boxcar accommodations available.

[LuvNewcastle]

12. I wish I could do that.

I don't have to have a big apartment, but I've got to have some kind of a refuge. This woman is very creative, though, and I hope she's able to get by until she finds work. Maybe this is the beginning of a career in the rail business.

She could probably think of a lot of ways to bring work and travel together and make it an interesting experience. It's something for the travel industry to consider. There are a lot of people who work from home nowadays, and it could be a great experience to travel for a month while working at the same time. Most people say they would like to travel more.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Meh - "a small backpack" cannot contain all her basics

it holds "clothes, her tablet computer, college documents and a sanitary bag". Anyone who has backpacked knows a small backpack severely limits the number of clothes you can use. Perhaps she's chosen to do that, but you can't fit all your college documents in there too. She's keeping them somewhere else, and that's where she lives. Or where she showers. And if she tries to sleep elsewhere, then she's not living on the train. She's couchsurfing.

[LuvNewcastle]

15. True.

I wouldn't want to use the sink after she washed her hair in it, either. Nasty.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. "but you can't fit all your college documents in there too"

Much of schooling today is all-electronic - textbooks, class assignments, "papers" (essays) and other "homework" that are turned in, exams, library access for electronic book checkout, etc. Hell, back in the late '70s when I was in college, we all had an account on the school mainframe. One of my young nieces just started school this week with an online account for school assignments and a chromebook for class (this is elementary school). The little ones obviously still use paper in class, but for college, so much is online now and anything "paper" needing submission and/or archiving can be scanned via a tablet or cell phone app and uploaded and/or stored on a USB stick (and the paper discarded).

Bills are electronic, mail is electronic, purchases (even micro-purchases) can be done via debit or credit card (including electronic signatures), cell phones have replaced landlines, music is electronic, "television" and/or movies are electronic (via streaming), photos are electronic, etc.. Basically anything that one might store in a home other than the "basics" of food, clothing, toiletries, furniture, is in the ether. And all but the (big) furniture can be purchased as you go along (there are portable fold-up stools available). The one biggie for that generation is keeping their devices charged, and apparently all over Europe (and in slowly increasing cases here in the U.S. in certain cities), there are USB charging kiosks all over the place (for a fee).

[LuvNewcastle]

18. What about the books?

Do they buy electronic books? Ereaders wouldn't suffice for all the books. Some texts just don't lend themselves well to that format. I could see history, literature, and such being downloaded to ereaders, but not chemistry, for instance. I left college about 25 years ago, and I wrote all of my papers out longhand. Today's colleges must be interesting. Sounds like they should be a lot less expensive than they are.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Absolutely many of the books are electronic

And they can either be "bought" or "rented" (believe it or not - something I read about regarding textbooks) or "lent" (as in a library). And it is literally growing daily as older texts are scanned into electronic format. Almost every major library has electronic "lending" of books. I have made use of Guttenberg online books (I believe all are public-domain). And Google has expended some major resources towards making books available in electronic format online.

As someone with a chemistry degree, why is an electronic chemistry textbook a non-starter? If anything, the whole text could be enhanced with imbedded animation (or even videos) of reactions, orbitals, electromagnetic interactions, etc. E.g., something like this just for basic chem classes (without the music )

Hell, I hated p-chem but I could see how animated visualizations would have greatly enhanced the static images and droning voices of my professors (e.g., basically a whole semester summarized in less than 4 1/2 minutes without the integral calculus)!

There is friggin' so much out here in terms of informational resources that it makes me furious when I see millennials and younger squandering the internet for something that they can just turn on the tv or radio for and not have to go travel to a library, pull out a card catalog, figure out the dewey decimal system, go find a shelf, and then dig for a book that in many cases is not available!

Edit to add - When I was in college, I took a Music Appreciation course. We had to buy a set of records (I think there were 10 or 12 in the set - I still have the box of records), and then either use your own "portable" player to listen to assigned songs and/or go to the school's music rooms where turntables and headphones were available (first come, first served) to listen to your music homework assignments. Of course that required "keeping the records somewhere" (dorm room). Nowadays kids will do this to you --> when you say "records" (or reel-to-reel, or 8-track or cassette or now even CD).

[LuvNewcastle]

22. I was thinking that chem and a lot of

the maths would have trouble with the problems and formulae and whatnot. I didn't know the graphics were so good! I only use my Kindle For reading and going on DU, so I haven't seen a lot of the graphics. I guess they really have gone all the way with this stuff now. I'm glad. The more information for us, the better.

Thanks for the reply. I'm looking into going back and taking some courses in things I'm interested in. You've shown me how easy it can be.

[BumRushDaShow]

23. You are right on point about considering "taking some courses"

I think I have learned more researching subjects on the internet than in the standard "classroom" setting. It's like I'm learning all over again. And this is not to somehow down play the teaching profession because teachers are there to not only teach, but to guide students to learn about subject matter and how to do so in context.

Regarding math - I had to take 3 semesters of calculus and the only way I got through that 3rd semester (multi-variable) was because I had a teacher who could describe "3-D" and what all those equations were basically doing. E.g., taking say a parabola (which has an associated equation), and then "rotating it around an axis" to get a "bowl" (which adds more stuff to that equation), and then plugging in values to calculate the volume of that "bowl". Now that type of description is animated and/or on video at the click of a mouse!

I hope you enjoy the search for stuff that you've always wanted to know about!!

[Brickbat]

21. Well, I guess you told her.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. I'm 'telling' the media not to get excited about a young woman couchsurfing

and using a general travel pass to move between her family and friends' homes, which is where she does most of her sleeping, must keep some belongings, and I suspect she does her clothes-washing and showering there too.

[hunter]

39. I kept my stuff in a university locker and showered at the university...

... when I was living a similar kind of "rough."

The locker was absurdly inexpensive because it was in a rarely traveled part of the campus, and most of the lockers were empty. There was no real accounting of who had which locker, or when it was time to collect the ten dollar rent again. You picked a locker, gave them ten dollars, put your own lock on it, and they never bothered you again. I had that locker for a few years.

But I wasn't living on the train like this young woman, I was in the 24 hour computer lab most of the time.

[ScreamingMeemie]

25. It sounds more like she's "staying with friends" and occasionally sleeps on trains.

If she "tries to sleep at the apartments of relatives or friends," this article isn't truthful. I know, shocker.

[cui bono]

26. The story is less intriguing when you get to the part where she

often stays with her boyfriend, mother and grandmother. That's kind of lame considering the reason she gave of "I instantly decided I didn't want to live there anymore — and then I realized: Actually, I didn't want to live anywhere anymore." Sounds like she decided she didn't want the responsibility of bills anymore.

[Arugula Latte]

37. Well, she's a student. I don't think it's so bad. I lived with my parents during college summers

and I'd guess that a big percentage of other students do as well. In Europe it's common for people to live at home until they're 30 or older.

[Codeine]

27. For $380 a month, this 23-year-old sleeps on people's couches

wears her clothes too many times, and often smells bad.

[Eleanors38]

32. $380 gets me coach to Florida and waves of flatulence.

[Facility Inspector]

28. It's not refreshing that Internetizens can find something nasty to say about this story

amazing. (not)

[Trajan]

34. +1,000,000 ....

All I can say is; DU is not immune to assholiness ...

(OMG - I just coined that new word ... And yes, you can use it, but remember where you heard it first!)

[matt819]

31. You really want a laugh?

Think about doing this in the U.S.

[Arugula Latte]

36. I think that's a great idea.

I'm kinda envious.

[Liberal_in_LA]

41. it's great she figured out how to live cheaply without bothering anyone

[Recursion]

40. An aunt of mine realized the cheapest cruise cabins are cheaper than a retirement home

So she just kind of cruised in a non-window stateroom for a few years.

[Ms. Toad]

42. I did that for a month in college.

Hopped on a bus or train at night that was driving for about 8 hours, hopped off the next morning. At that point it was a $100 pass. I spent a couple of nights with friends, but most nights I slept on the bus.