How excellent it would have been if, during one of my first extended stays in a non-English speaking place, I'd gotten arrested! I spent a week in Munich for work once, and was very proud of myself for mastering the subway system... except I didn't get the memo about the need to validate your ticket. I learned at the end of my stay that the term for a subway scofflaw in German is a "Schwarzfahrer". Being an official Black Rider would have been very cool except for the arrest part.
So now I am jumpy about validating tickets. In France, ticket-validating machines are signposted with the words Compostez votre ticket, which makes me think of what I would have said (in English) had I been caught.
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