Friday, June 13

The London transportation system is driving me crazy. Not that it’s bad; it’s a wonderful system, and it never fails to amaze me how easily you can get around the entire huge city. But it’s just not working for me at the moment. I’ve been taking the Tube to work and that’s certainly an adequate way of getting there; it’s only 4 stops between my closest station, Holborn, and Liverpool station on the Central line. But the lone down escalator at Holborn has been broken ever since I started using it. The steps are frozen – the many, many, many steep steps. It takes forever to walk down, and after the first few dozen all the ridges on the steps start to swim together and it’s very disorienting. I hate walking down it; I always feel like I’m about to tumble forward right to the bottom.

Riding on the subway itself is not so bad except it gets very, very hot deep below. It will be chilly and breezy outside, so you have to layer and wear a jacket, but you get down to the train and you’re sweating. Ugh. Finally, Liverpool station is a solid 12-15 minute walk further to my workplace, along super busy Bishopsgate which becomes equally busy Shoreditch High Street, with many intersections to cross. There’s a lot of construction going on along those streets, so the sidewalks are very narrow and uneven in places, and buses are always blowing past and creating a veritable wind tunnel in their wake. It is not at all an enjoyable walk.

All of this is weighed against this fact: there is a bus stop directly outside the door of my workplace. Directly. Therefore, I have been dreaming of the bus as the solution to all my troubles. I won’t mind having to leave earlier if it will save me loads of walking down broken escalators and along busy thoroughfares. I’ve been unclear on where to actually catch this much-longed for bus from my new flat, though, so I had yet to take it. But this morning I spoke with Tina and she described where the closest stop is – super close! Literally around the corner! – and so I determined to attempt the bus this morning.

As with the London crossword, I failed spectacularly.

As usual, I was running late. I think this is simply my lot in life, to always be late. I trotted down the street and around the corner to the bus stop, where a quick glance at the board showed my bus wasn’t due for another 8 minutes. Eight minutes! I wavered over whether to wait or just continue to the Tube, but at last I decided to wait. I wanted the bus and I was going to take the bus, dammit. So I stood and fidgeted for 8 endless minutes while bus after bus drove by. Many times several of them would come at once, and they would stop one right after the other all down the street.

At last my bus - #242 – appeared around the corner . . . behind three other buses. It positioned itself waaaaaaay down the street. As is my usual state in this country, I was confused. Was I supposed to walk all the way down to the bus? When the others cleared out, would it move forward to the stop? I was at the bus stop – I shouldn’t leave it, right?? What should I do???

At last I started to hesitantly walk toward it down the street. Then all the many buses started moving, swung into traffic, aaaaaand . . . . there went my bus. Blew right past me while I stared at it in disbelief. I could not believe that I had found my bus stop, found my bus, and yet I still missed it. So not only did I wait all that time for a bus I never got on, I still had to walk to Holborn, walk down the (still broken!!) escalator, squeeze onto the Tube, and walk all the way from Liverpool to my workplace. Talk about a disastrous commute.

I have since learned (of course) that no, the bus will not always conveniently pause right at the bus stop for you. It stops where it stops and it’s up to you to get to it. I love how you can be right at the bus stop, ready and waiting long before the bus arrives, and you still have to run to catch it. Madness!