The Other Side of the World: Jul 26, 2007

Thursday, July 26, 2007

The Angry Bus

Am presently milling around Vancouver (though leaving ever so soon) - an experience I'll post about later when I find myself berefit of all other activities (and let history show, this will happen). Anyway, I had to mention, of note, the fact that I just took a ride on the angriest bus of my life today in Downtown Vancouver. I am not a soft suburban bus-riding debutante having ridden on buses shrieking down the 1/4 lane highway in Vietnam replete with 5 people one seat, 4 of those people throwing up, and the back windshield (definitely not safety glass - only the jagged deadly kind, of course) flying out mid-journey. And no, I didn't look behind onto the crowded, dusty road full of unprotected motorcyclists. Call me cold. That being said, today's bus ride was impressive given that, by the end of about 14 minutes on it, I had heard about 20 different people scream angrily for several different reasons, including transit fraud, slander associated with alleged transit fraud, general undirected anger and a minor catastrophe involving someone's repeated inability to open the back door. Oh, and someone told me to "take the drugs!" (although I suspect if I bothered to place that within its correct context that might be less random). Love the bus. Highly amused. And here I thought the West Coast was laid back? Bonus travel anecdote: On an AirNZ flight: hostess (handing out immigration forms): what nationality of passport are you travelling under? me: Canadian hostess: Great, so you're a U.S. citizen me: no, Canadian hostess: right. Here's the form for U.S. citizens Apparently international travel has done nothing for this woman?