We were on one of those bus tours - you sit up high and the driver tells you what you're looking at and you can hop on and off if you want to take a closer look at something and then you just take the next bus because they come by every 15 minutes. Sounds great in theory. In practice, it reminded me of the hop-on hop-off boat in Amsterdam. But this place actually did have more than two buses, or trolleys as they called them.
It started out fine the first day. We just wanted to ride around and get the lay of the land, listen to the commentary and decide what we'd do the next day. Our first driver was great. Heavy Boston accent - you know, pahk the cah instead of park the car, but easy to understand. But when we got back on the bus after lunch, we had a different driver. He had an eastern European accent and sometimes he constructed his sentences oddly. And he kept saying the word "here", even when it made no sense to do so. (At least that's what I thought he was saying.)
So on our second day, while taking the Charles River Cruise it started to rain. We decided to eat lunch before getting back on the bus in the hopes that the rain would stop. Well, it didn't stop so we thought we'd ride the bus over to the aquarium to get out of the rain. When we came out of the restaurant to the bus stop, we could see that it was the driver who didn't speak English. "No! I can't bear it! Let's wait for the next bus." Agreed. A 15 minute wait was no big deal. We had plenty of time to get to the aquarium. But the bus didn't come in 15 minutes. It didn't come in 30 minutes. The young lady in the booth informed us that it would be here any minute and that things were slow because of the bridge repairs and the rain. (I understand those bridge repairs are going to go on for several years - Bostonians need to brace themselves.) Then she ordered us to go to the back of the line, even though we'd been waiting the longest. Maybe it was because I'd already been waiting for over 30 minutes, maybe it was because I don't like being told to go to the end of the line by an 18-year old, or maybe it was because she truly had no idea when a bus might actually turn up, but that did it for us. We got a cab and set off for the aquarium.
But then the cab got stuck in the traffic. After running up a fare of nearly $20, we decided we could make better time on foot. We paid the driver, left him sitting in the traffic and headed for the bridge on foot. We actually made it to the aquarium in time to have a couple of hours before it closed, something we couldn't have done if we'd waited for the bus or stayed in the cab. They have no HOV lanes, no bus lanes, nothing to help move traffic along. I had to laugh because at the spot where the bridge was being repaired there was a sign that said "Seek Alternate Route". No detour. You're on your own. Anyone who's ever used a GPS knows that the silly thing will keep you going in circles until you are back on the designated route. So, if you don't know your way around, you are stuffed. Bottom line? - You could not pay me to live in that city.
No comments:
Post a Comment