Bus Balancing
Never being well aquainted with American public transportation, I am learning many new skills here in Oxford. I live up a big hill to the east of town and to walk into town everyday would take over 45 minutes. With the constant threat of rain and the early sunset (it starts to get dark around 4:00 in the winter), I felt that buying a bus pass would be my best bet of getting where I needed to go dry and with all of my possesions.
Learning how to use public transportation effectively can be a challenge in the States, but here in a country where they don't believe in instructions, or even identifying labels for that matter, it becomes a test of true intellegence and capability.
The first challenge is learning how to hail a bus effectively. Unless one stands in exactly the right place, raise one's arm in a very particular manner, and then prepares oneself to be ready to leap, jump, sprint or run onto a bus that is trying very hard not to stop for you, you will find yourself standing at a lonely bus stop for hours.
After you have gotten on the bus, there are more challenges in front of you. Bus drivers do not like to just sit around, so once on the bus you must head for the seat as quickly as humanly possible. If you aren't fast, the bus will take off, throwing you down the eisle into an unsuspecting Englishman. If the seats are all full you must balance carefully on your feet while driver slams the breaks, hits the eccelerator, and winds through the many round abouts.
Figuring out where to get off the bus is very difficult because the bus driver will only stop if you demand to be let off the bus, and so you have to be pretty sure that you want to get off. No one will ever say the names of any of the streets you are nearing, so you must rely on strange landmarks to know where you are at first. While you don't want to get off too early for fear of being late to your destination, if you miss your stop you are going to be taken to the outer ends of Oxford, never to return.
I can't wait to get home to my car.
Learning how to use public transportation effectively can be a challenge in the States, but here in a country where they don't believe in instructions, or even identifying labels for that matter, it becomes a test of true intellegence and capability.
The first challenge is learning how to hail a bus effectively. Unless one stands in exactly the right place, raise one's arm in a very particular manner, and then prepares oneself to be ready to leap, jump, sprint or run onto a bus that is trying very hard not to stop for you, you will find yourself standing at a lonely bus stop for hours.
After you have gotten on the bus, there are more challenges in front of you. Bus drivers do not like to just sit around, so once on the bus you must head for the seat as quickly as humanly possible. If you aren't fast, the bus will take off, throwing you down the eisle into an unsuspecting Englishman. If the seats are all full you must balance carefully on your feet while driver slams the breaks, hits the eccelerator, and winds through the many round abouts.
Figuring out where to get off the bus is very difficult because the bus driver will only stop if you demand to be let off the bus, and so you have to be pretty sure that you want to get off. No one will ever say the names of any of the streets you are nearing, so you must rely on strange landmarks to know where you are at first. While you don't want to get off too early for fear of being late to your destination, if you miss your stop you are going to be taken to the outer ends of Oxford, never to return.
I can't wait to get home to my car.
posted by Cate at 10:16 AM
6 Comments:
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Your car doesn't want you.
we are very happy together.
leave us alone.
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^^^ it's the ZOMBIE!!!
i tried figuring out the bus system in bulgaria and ended up getting fined about 4 times.
i decided to walk around, lugging my baggage rather than risk getting sent to jail because i had no more money to have another try at the bus system.
good luck.
ryan
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