Public transportation: I haven't had a great deal of experience with it. Throw me underground in New York City & I can navigate a map well enough to get us close to where we should be, or let me jump in a taxi & I'll certainly make it to my favorite bar, but the bus system is almost entirely foreign to me.
Today, two new girlfriends & I decided to make a trip to the mall to gather some necessities: snacks (dinner ends here at 7 p.m...... If you know me, you know I'm more of a 10 p.m. kind of girl), candles & other homey items to make our dorm rooms a little more "college chic" and a little less "prison break" (I'll post photos once I reach a stage where it looks decent), some wine (which costs twice what it does in the US (hello boxed wine, it's me, Amelia, remember me from freshman year?) and some school supplies for when classes begin next week (see guys? I AM here to go to class...).
I also located the perfect pair of versatile jean shorts to add to my odd assortment of clothing that I've been piecing together since the airline lost the bag with all of my clothes in it (jorts go with everything, right?.... Don't answer that). Most importantly, I was able to get an Australian SIM card put into my iPhone 5 so that I can use my own phone to communicate both locally in Australia, and internationally here . If you're in America, just message me at +61 455 985 989 ---it won't cost you anything, and if you have an iPhone we can imessage.
Anyway, one of the girls I was with attends U Penn & together, we were confident in our bus map reading skills (I don't know why I'd ever be confident in my bus map reading skills, I've ridden a bus in Wilmington downwards of 5 times), but it seemed to border on common sense. We decided on bus 202, which was supposedly headed to the Uni, and rode around on it for about 30 minutes before deciding that we must have done something wrong. After approaching him, the bus driver laughed at us, told us they'd changed the bus map signs 3 years ago, and told us that only the 201 went to the college. Luckily, he was friendly (as I've noticed virtually all Australians to be so far) and dropped us off at a nearby bus station, then called a bus driving friend who came by and picked us up. All in all, our adventure home probably took an hour and some change when it should have taken ten minutes, all while we were loaded down with groceries (boxed wine isn't light, either, okay??) but watch out world, I'll be a bus-loop expert in no time.
I guess the moral of this entire story is that we're all bound to get lost sometimes. I was lucky to be with friends, and was lucky to be on the receiving end of some very kind strangers (a pattern, it seems). Hopefully, I'll keep getting lost... But on a less stressful scale... It helps us to appreciate finally finding our bearings.
Blessings--
-A
No comments:
Post a Comment