Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Adventures in Buses and Bustops

The bus system here is phenomenal.

Some bus routes run almost every 10-15 minutes and others are only hourly.  Note to self: It's essential to find out which is which before the journey.

There is not a shred of pride in me anymore that will stop me from chasing a bus.  I am over it. I know the time you come and if I see you approaching the stop and I am not there yet... I will race you.  I don't always win, and I sometimes have to laugh at what I must look like, and then still end up waiting for the next bus - but it's always a bit of a rush trying.

Before our holiday, I had gone to a friend and when I left I was offered a lift home to which I replied that I was quite happy to grab a bus since the exercise was good. So off I walked, (in the -2 on that day), to the bus stop only to find that I had just missed the bus. The next one would be there in an hour. That's a long time to stand at a bus stop on a road through a meadow, with not a coffee shop in sight. It's during that hour that you replay where you could have cut your time to get there so that you would not have missed it. If I hadn't read the sign by the garden or waited for the green man to walk, I would have made that blasted bus! In the end I was grateful that I had my Kindle with me and could pace and read, but I am fairly sure my toes did not defrost until bedtime.

Yesterday, as I was on my way to visit a friend I hadn't been to before - I thought I was very smart. I went online, saw the names of the stops prior to hers (so that I knew when to ring the bell to get off). Of course, what I didn't bargain on, was no-one getting off or on at these stops, which meant that the over-enthusiastic bus driver screamed past all stops and just about gave me whiplash trying to read their names as we whizzed along.  The result of this little adventure was that I missed the stop and ended up back in the city where I needed to jump back onto another bus and head back the way I came. This time though, I asked the driver if he was going to my stop, to which he replied that he was, and was kind enough to slow down for me to get off.

Leaving her place and arriving at the bus stop I saw again that I had just missed a bus, and the next was in about 15 minutes. It wasn't long to wait, and it was warmer, about 5deg. However, I knew it was only about 20 min walk into the city, so I decided to walk to meet My Man instead of waiting for the bus. I was really glad I did, because the shops that we usually speed past on the bus could now be peeked into, I could check out gardens and various prettinesses that usually go by too fast to see from the bus.

This really proves that even if you DO do your homework with regards to buses and stops  - things are bound to surprise you. Just go with it - because sometimes the mistakes turn out to be rather fun in the end!

2 comments:

  1. Can you imagine using the public transport system here. When I was a school child we used it daily...those were the days.

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    Replies
    1. Oh my goodness.... I can't even BEGIN to think of public transport there. We also used buses and trains when we were at school.... Eish.

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