Bus Report #1054

Hello, and how are you?

I just got home from London, where I had the opportunity to take the Tube, as well as the bus. Loved it all, for these reasons:

1. You can pay with a transit pass, or with a credit card, no need to get a special pass if you don't live there, no need to fuss around with tickets. Just tag your card the way you'd tag a Clipper card, and you're golden (you need to have a chip and pin card, so ask your card company!)

2. It is cheap! None of my rides cost more than $1.31. Most likely because it was off-peak time, but still. Cheaper than Muni, and we rode all over the place.

3. Need I say more than this: clean double-decker buses? No, I need not. But I will. While waiting in the queue at the bus stop, where everyone was waiting quietly, an older woman started talking with us, grinning and telling us about her history of broken wrist, broken arm, smushed finger.
"We need to wrap you in bubble wrap," I said, and she agreed.
Upstairs in the bus (the Holborn 8), a man was studying, while other passengers napped or played with their phones. It was so quiet, and calm, and wonderful.

I will say, the Tube must be a nightmare for anyone requiring accessibility. Not all stations have lifts and sometimes you have to take stairs to even get to the lifts. This afraid of heights traveler had more than a few moments of eyes closed, handrail gripping near-panics while navigating a couple of the Tube station escalators. One station had 96 steps down a spiral staircase to get to the train platforms. Their lift? Out of service.
I saw a family carrying a stroller down a steep set of stairs and several others with the strollers on the escalator. Heartstopping, I tell you.

Five hours after landing back at SFO, I hopped on a 33 in the Mission to get home after the Dessa show at The Chapel.
The driver smiled, asked how I was.
"I just went to a show," I said, feeding dollar bills into the machine (I'd run home, ditched the suitcase and gone back out, forgetting my Clipper card). "Got back from the airport with just enough time to get there. Just in time for the headliner."
"Cool, cool, I'm just working," he said. For the rest of the ride, he greeted all the passengers, told everyone to get home safe when they disembarked. That's why I love this so much, I thought. Drivers like this guy. Let's call him Matt. He seems like a Matt.

Yesterday morning, Jeannine, the early morning nurse on the 33, told me about a cooking class she took, and now I want to do the same. She learned how to make croissants! Who wouldn't want to do that? We chatted about her class, and then wondered why we haven't seen Olga lately. I hope she's doing well, and just getting a later start to her day these days.

Stephan is our super-trouper afternoon driver. Always has a wave and a smile for me. I really have to remember to get him a coffee card, soon.

This morning, the mom and her two sons were on the bus. The older son being a typical (yet as always, lovely) tween, the younger son sitting quietly next to his mom.
A man got on at Mission Street, pulling a cart behind him. He sat across from them and talked with the mom, made goony faces at the little boy.