Day 3 -where the bus disagrees with me

On the third day the parentals were going to the harbour to catch a ferry so I got the bus with them and waved them off before catching the bus back. Simple right?

Wrong, as readers of this blog will probably know by now, nothing I do is ever 'simple'. I was shown where the bus stop was and knew which bus to get -so far so good- I had my Dubrovnik card at the ready which as I have previously mentioned allows me free bus travel for up to 20 trips (well I didn't mention the last part before but now you know- why aren't I a font of knowledge). So there I was poised and ready for action and then the bus drives straight past me. Fantastic. But it's ok I can get the next one…apparently not as the second bus full to capacity goes hurtling by.

Here I am, sitting at the bus stop, it's sweltering hot and by this time getting a bit fed up. Cue random irate Croatian woman shouting 'il lipo' at me, not going to lie this did slightly freak me out and I couldn't remember the phrase for 'I don't speak Croatian' but no matter because here comes the bus. It turns out that all she wanted was to borrow a pen. For future reference the phrase I was looking for is " ne govorium hrvatski."

Today was a day of churches, St. Blaise's being the most ornate as he was the patron saint of Dubrovnik. However also on the list were St. Saviour's but I was the only one in there having a gander so that wasn't awkward at all and another near the city wall but I can't remember the name of it. This church is one of the few buildings in the city and survived the 1667 earthquake and is still standing today,you can therefore imagine my horror to find that it is being used as an art gallery. An art gallery in one of the few remaining original buildings? Are you insane!!!

So there we have it ladies and gents at the end of day three I am starting to look rather brown, have heat rash and blisters on my feet. Fantabbydozy. On the plus side I found some spots where I can get wifi yay I don't feel so out of sync with the world anymore.

The wheels on the bus

Let me share with you a pearl of wisdom that I have observed from my years of riding one the bus. Although I should add that I only get the bus to get me to and from destinations not like that really cool girl that a friend of friend of a friend once knew who had an obsession with bus drivers and would ride around on buses all day.

Although I have spent a good proportion of my life stood around waiting for buses, a fact that wasn’t so bad when I was at university and could dance around at the stop while I waited, although that would probably work better now that I live miles away from the bus stop because people have no idea where I live whereas then they did…And then there was that other fun time where a drunk person tried to follow me home one night (fear not I got off a stop early and dawdled all the way home making sure that the bus, and the drunk guy, were well out of sight before I let myself into the house.

My chemistry teacher once told me that people are like electrons. Or maybe it was that electrons are like people, I’m not too sure. Anyway people on buses will occupy the rows of seats singly wherever possible and then double up only when necessary. When the bus gets really full and the young bright things are expected to give up their seats I often find that the inner Rosa Parks will come out in people with them exuding a manner of ‘I will not be moved.’

In the same vein if the bus is really busy and people have to stand they are very reluctant to move. You can literally hear them saying ‘This is my spot.’ Not that you will hear them talking of course, people do not talk to each other on buses.  This leads more often than not with a populace of people at the front with little to no room for people to get on let alone get off and the bus being sparsely populated at the back. 

It doesn’t make a jot of difference how many times you have been in this situation things will never change, people are creatures of habit and even if you tell them to ‘move down the bus’ chances are that they will go straight back to their old habits the next time or more probably just nervously shuffle about when asked and not actually move anywhere. 

One thing that I can say for buses (or the peasant wagon as they are often called) is that they do not do much to restore my dwindling faith in humanity. With shootings, sex scandals, murders and government failings on the rise it's not hard to see why my belief is on a downward spiral. Of course there are the rare cases in which I think that there might be some hope for us like the time when somebody gave up their seat for an older passenger (the fact that it was me is beside the point) but that's the point, they are only rare.