More public transport related annoyances..

I have a lot of these, and I rant on about each individual one again and again, but I may have not necessarily mentioned this particular one in this particular space before. Then again I might have, but it's probably long enough ago and boring enough so that no one will recognize it.. considering there is at most 2 people who will ever read this, I reckon I'm safe.

This is one which doesn't happen so often, because it's one of those unwritten (or maybe it's written somewhere, I don't know, the rule book for decent people or something).. anyway people know not to do this, even traveling through the center to the touristy areas I work, with international travelers galore.. people seem to know.

Anyway, I was getting off the tram, and managed to get off, I was at the door, no one in front of me.. and there was a huge group of people just outside the door.. there appeared to be a single large group of young tourists there, and one of them got in front of me, in the direction I was going to walk, and the others just started piling on.. or I think they did, I shoved through the second person so I could go my original route which is more direct and dammit I'm going to work and I'M SUPPOSED TO BE LET OFF FIRST ANYWAY and I didn't see.. but I think a whole bunch of them just crammed in, probably not letting some of the other people off.

So.. the rule is you're supposed to let people off first. Sometimes you get on while someone is trying to get off.. I do quite often but it's when someone takes their time or realizes at the last minute they need to get off there and I do what I can to get out of their way.. but at busy stops, which this one was, you stand there.. because a lot of people are going to get out, and wait.. wait and wait until they're all off, or until you have good reason to believe that most people are off. Then you get on. These people didn't do that. Bad people they were. Bad.

Number 17.. you're going down!

So, a lovely sunny Saturday. It's nice to get those, particularly this time of year when one does not expect nice kinds of weather. Pleasant it was, though, not having a lounging about day, I had things to do!

I had to do the old fiddly change transit thing that one must do at times, so I go to Narodni Trida, and wait for the 17. It's a weekend so the trams are coming slightly less frequently than weekdays, but still not so bad. one showed up after not long. Well, I didn't notice it at first, because some woman came up and asked me how to get to Prague Castle, even though I was checking through my little notebook at the time in the vain hope I'd written some information that was important there.. so another lady took over from me, explaining in detail how to get there. In the whole kerfuffle I didn't notice the 17 waiting there at first, it was backed up, like a tram is when there's another tram waiting ahead of it, but there was no other tram in front. I went up to get on it, and it moved forward.. oh, thinks I, it's moving up to the front, where it's supposed to be. But no, it didn't.. just kept going.

So I had to wait for the next one. And no, the important info was not in my little notebook.

I get to my destination, and I walk and walk, I hadn't been to this place before but I had a pretty good idea of how to get there, until an unfamiliar road, one that I was sure I hadn't seen on the map, came up ahead of me. Then, lo and behold, I see someone I know coming across the road. Hadn't seen him for a while, so we did a stop and chat, and I asked where this place was.. I remembered the street, sorta. He scratched his head, sure that he was familiar with it.. and then realized, it was written on the street sign right above his head. Oh how we laughed and laughed.

So.. said ciao and went on, down that street, the street I was supposed to be on. But my destination was not along it! Walked back up that street, and found it ended where I had begun. I consulted my crudely drawn map and realized that all the streets were wrong, or the google map was wrong because they didn't match up. That my own map was an inaccurate representation of the official map, is not a possibility of course.

I walked up and down a bit. Then made a phone call, found out, I had the address wrong. No idea how that happened, but I walked on to this other street. Fortunately it had a name which kinda gave away where it was so it wasn't so hard to find, though the place I needed to go was a bit difficult to spot, part of a big complex of warehouses and stuff.. so I walked past the entrance a few times until I found it, then I wandered around in there for a few more minutes.. and then I thought the door was locked and waited outside like a chump.

Pretty typical of me trying to get somewhere. On the way home, I waited at the tram stop for the 17 again, checked the time it came, but it didn't come. Had to wait for the next one, and then it didn't go back the samw way but took me of course. Damn 17!

Oh it was for an audition, I was going, btw. It went kay I spose.. apparently I've improved, which totally isn't condescending or anything coming from someone who should be a peer (fair enough he has way more theatre experience and has done grown up stuff like actually help form and run a theatre company) but it's positive. Probably wasn't good enough to get in but I'll live with that.. I already have one thing going so I'll coast on the dizziness of that for a while, yeah that other one I went on.. sorta got something from it. Oh and I got that important info that I mentioned earlier in time.

Tuesday SQNEA #6 - The public transport edition..

This is one that someone probably has asked, or rather would if it were a question rather than an excuse for a rant, but I'm going to present it (them) in question form so it counts. It's probably not that stupid either, come to think of it.

Why oh why... (I think I'll start all of them like this now) oh why do people stand on the left of the escalator in the metro? This is one those of you living in wide open areas with lots of big cars won't understand, and it's quite possible that people in other parts of Europe are more well mannered than here, but someone might just understand.

Here in Prague we have a metro (underground, subway, tube) system. A lot of people use this system. They are accessed by by buildings at street level and these buildings have escalators which take you down to the part where the platforms are. Still with me? Well, due to the fact that lots of people use this system, and therefore have to travel on the escalator to go to where the trains are at, many of whom are in a hurry, it is requested that you keep to the right if you're standing on the escalator. This is, as you may have guessed, to allow the people who wish to get to the platform quicker, by walking down it (or up the escalator when they're getting out of the metro, to get to work or catch a tram for instance) to walk down it.

And of course there are always people who are standing to the left. Usually when they're with a friend beside them so the two of them are blocking the path. This on it's own wouldn't be so exasperating, but you always see people blocking the way, someone get there attention, they turn around and look surprised, like this is an unusual thing, move over, let the person past, and THEN MOVE BACK TO THE SPOT THEY WERE IN! When I see people do this I always make a point of walking whether I was going to or not so I can make them move out of my way. And they always look surprised when I get their attention.

I was going to say something else about public transport, but I think this one has been long enough.. after all. And I thought I had nothing to write about? Seems as though there's always a stupid question to ask.