Einbahn

So this is an "Einbahn" sign. You probably already figured it out from the all capital lettering inside the giant arrow, but if you're slow like me it means "one-way" in German. This is how I learned:

It was day two Vienna and the streets were slightly more familiar. Even if I didn't know the street name, I could generally find a familiar building to direct my course just fine. Jessica had forgotten her backpack at our hotel from the first night and I said I'd go with her to pick it up since my new 'house' was a few blocks over. On the break in between classes we jumped on the U-bahn and set off for the hotel. We got there, realized we didn't have a key, and then had to get back to the AAIE (school) for German.

"We just have to go backwards," I said, "it'll be easy!"

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" she asked.

"Yeah. We go two corners past the park. See the Einbahn sign? We turn left there."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. I live on that Einbahn street. It's nice because it runs all the way to the opera house, too."

We followed my confident sense of direction and made it safely back to class-- on the basis of following the Einbahn sign. After two hours of German class a bunch of us went sightseeing.

"See that street?" I said, " I live there, but all the way down on the other side."

"Wait...what street do you live on?" Jenny (who has had German before and actually has a German vocabulary) asked.

"Einbahn. You know...the blue one?"

Jenny stopped walking.

"That sign?" She pointed at the giant reflective one-way arrow.

"Yeah. Ein-bahn!" I say.

"Kristin, do you even know what that means?"

"No. It doesn't matter though because I just use it as my street to get home."

Jenny could barely talk she was laughing so hard. "How do you use the one-way sign to get home?"

Okay...hahaha. Kristin has no common sense. This was even funnier because there is NO street in Vienna that goes farther than a block.

"Einbahn. You know, the blue one?"