Traveling When You Are Traveling - The Transport Abroad

The public transport abroad is different than the public transport at home. There are different written and unwritten rules and different ways to deal with problems. As a tourist, you usually don't know these and you just do what you are used to or what seems best at that moment. This can lead to interesting situations. So here are my funniest memories about public transport.

Porto

 We were taking this cute little tram to go to the beach. But somewhere along the track, a car was parked very badly and was partially on the tram track. No time was wasted. Some guys got out of the tram and together they lift the car and moved it a meter of so. I LOVED that.

London

The first time I went to London, I was there with a group of people from university. We just had two days so we wanted to make the most of it. We travelled by tube to save time and see as many things as possible. In the south of the Netherlands we don't have metro's. There are just busses and trains and the drivers wait till all passengers are inside before closing the doors. Well, the tube in London does not wait. Of course part of the group was outside of the metro and the other half inside. And there is no mobile reception underground. Luckily the panic lasted only a short time since the next metro arrived after only a couple of minutes and we could catch up with our classmates.

Madrid

In London, the colour of the bard in the metro is matched with the colour of the lines of the route on the map. So when I went to Madrid, I took on the same theory. But this does not quite work in Spain apparently. So we ended up being in the complete wrong metro going who knows where. And we thought we were being smart...

Glasgow

 When my parents were visiting me in Leeds, we went to Glasgow for two days. The traveling part was a disaster! When switching trains in Edinburg, the doors closed and got locked because of an error in the door system (or something like that). My parents were inside the train and we were outside. I was trying to get an explanation from the staff but I could just not understand their accents at all. On the way back we got stuck at the train station of York for almost 3 hours in the middle of the night. Also not a great deal of fun.

Dublin

 Me and a friend had walked a long way to one of the museums. After the museum visit, we were tired and decided to take the tram to go back. We just hopped on and asked someone who looked like a staff member if we could buy a ticket. His answer: "You should have bought it before you got in. So if you see a guy dressed like me entering the tram, just go out quickly." Cool guy.

Istanbul

 These little dolmus busses just scare me. You get into them and before you have the chance to even sit down, where are racing through traffic already. Seatbelts are nowhere to be found. While driving, the driver takes your money for the ticket from you. No need to stop for that. I feared for my life. But at least you get where you need to be really fast.