Wednesday, August 31, 2005

bumpkins and catcalls

My summer holidays to my yeha-stomping grounds and a total lack of spectacular transit experiences prevented me from posting for the last few weeks. That is until my little brothers visited and I started noticing a disturbing little trend.

Last weekend two of my three little brothers came for a visit. 'Little' is a relative word. They are lanky mofos with mopish hair and razor-sharp sarcastic wits - the trademark of my paternal family. Generally speaking, whenever I need to be knocked down to the ground a bit I just need to spend some time with my brothers. They have no problem ground my oft inflated ego. Anyways, I digress, wtf does this have to do with the bus? As we travelled to and from Slam City Jam and on my commute to work Monday morning, I realized that there are subtle nuances to taking transit that generally, only urbanites know. Revelation, no, reality, yes.

I came to the conclusion this weekend that taking transit in Vancouver if your doing it for the first time, alone could be confusing. What doesn't really help country bumpkins like my brothers is the total lack of signage. There's no signs at the stops or really obviously in the buses/skytrains so you don't necessarily know how much to pay or where to stand, or how you should move to make way of others. It was cute and disturbing at the same time watching my bros fumble through the working-class intricacies of paying for their bus rides, standing on the wrong side of the escalator and blocking empty seats as they stood on the bus. Funny. Gave me something to tease them about.

***
East Broadway besides being a vein of constantly honking, smoke-belching traffic is also the street of cat calls. The streets aroud East Broadway should be renamed: Psssst Street, Hey Baby Ave and Wooowooo Crescent to warn the poor girls and women who have to trudge to the skytrain to participate in life. I swear to god that I could be wearing loose jogging pants and a burlap sack over my head, and buffons from Burnaby and Surrey would still catcall me. It sucks and it has made me hate walking that stretch of road. Oi vai.

posted by Miranda @ Wednesday, August 31, 2005