London Part 3 -- Transportation

Here is why I'll never move to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Japan and drive: This morning I placed something in our old microwave oven, dead but not yet removed because it is part of an integrated unit with the wall mounted oven, damn it, instead of into the new microwave oven which is large, bright white, and fairly obtrusive. We've had the new microwave for months, but that did not stop me from automatically heading over to the old dead oven and sticking in my container. I would be fine driving on the left at first, while it was still new, shiny and terrifying, but then the day would come when I'd be so at ease and assimilated, running on auto pilot, and I'd drive right into the first oncoming white van.

The drivers of the ubiquitous white van were experiencing a moment in the spotlight while we were there. The white van is to the UK what the white Ford F150 truck is to us -- the vehicle of choice for tradesmen and other people who make their living providing services and deliveries. A report had just come out identifying white van men (WVM) as the most dangerous drivers on the road, when it came to paying courteous attention to other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. There was much tittering in the press about them, which I'm sure was unpleasantly class-based in origin, but made me extra careful about crossing the street or walking too close to the curb.

One nice thing about London is the way they paint "Look Left" and "Look Right" on the street directly in front of you at crosswalks. It is invaluable and I'd be dead or maimed today without this assistance.

The best drivers on the road, or at least in London, are the bus drivers. I was able to persuade my husband and son to accompany me on a double decker bus ride on our last evening in town.

"They're phasing them out, and they may not be here next time we come, and our son will never have had the chance to ride one," I declared passionately to my husband who was loath, loath! to come along. "You have to come with me too," I pointed out. "I'll get lost forever if you don't." All too sadly true, otherwise I'd have spared him. "I hate buses," he mumbled darkly, "And I don't know the system. I don't know exactly when they are coming and I don't know where they are going..."

An anathema to an engineer...unknown variables everywhere and erratic, nonlinear, unquantifiable squiggly lines of bus routes unpredictably going who knows where! But what is foreign travel without a moment or two of stimulating fear as you plunge with impetuous innocence into the unexplored dimensions of places you've never been to?

We finally compromised on a ride from the Baker Street Underground station to Oxford Circus. We would take the underground back, as we had day tickets and it wouldn't cost extra. The ride was thrilling! High up, as high as second story windows, we raced along Baker Street, with exquisite views of side streets, lined with all manner of historic buildings, pointing off into uncharted and alluring horizons. Weaving through traffic -- cabs, automobiles, white vans and other buses --charging down Oxford Street past all the big name British stores, John Lewis, Debenhams, Selfridges, stopping only at traffic lights and bus stops.

At the first bus stop, my son and I, who were sitting in the very front seats of the top deck, were astonished and agape as the driver raced up at top speed to stop on a dime, or six-pence, I guess, centimeters away from the lumbering double decker bus parked ahead of us. "Cheesus Christ!" my son exclaimed, to the consternation of my husband and the slender African man sitting across from us. Long minutes then ensued as my son suddenly developed the inability to not yell "Cheesus Christ" in a spontaneous and specific moment of Tourettes. I kept offering alternatives, and he even tried to come up with a translation in "kid language." "How about yikes!" I'd say. "I know," he'd brightly and loudly respond, "I could say 'Gleesus Glist' instead of 'Cheesus Christ', or maybe 'Weebly Wiste' would that mean the same in kid language as "Cheesus Christ?!"

My proper British husband, dragged on an expedition to hell, the African man pointedly staring, finally we reached our final stop and leapt out on to the crowded rush hour sidewalks where no one could hear us anymore.

Comments

[Vanda]

LOL at driving. We lived in the States for 23 years and that's where I got my license. Emmm the other day in the small village where I live, I wondered why the drivers were driving on the wrong side of the road and had a look of horror on their faces. Opps it was me gigggle.

[Elaine Park]

My point exactly!

[Jo]

THe bus ride sounds fun. Cheesus Christ!