Transportation in England

This past weekend was a typical one in Oxford. A few of one of my friend's friends came to stay with us for the weekend, and it felt as if most of the time that we spent showing them around Oxford and London was spent on transportation. Everywhere in Oxford, it is the most common for the students to get around the city either by bus, walking, running or by bike. Since I have been here, it seems as though there are more taxis on the road than there are personal cars. This might have to do with how small of a city Oxford is and that people just find it cheaper and easier to buy a bus pass rather than an entire car for themselves, but I'm not really sure. Espcially because in the states, well at least at HPU, we typically get around by walking or by our own cars. We do have a trolley service run by the University, but students tend to prefer bringing their own car onto campus if they have to go long distances on a daily basis. HPU also has bikes which can be borrowed from the Rec Center, just like in certain places in Oxford, and London, there are bikes available to rent for the day.

Usually the only time that we decide to choose to either walk long distances or pay for a taxi is when it is too late for a bus, or the bus is taking too long to pick us up. We have learned that we need to be really careful about which taxi we choose to take because certain ones that are "private taxis" are legally able to charge a person any amount of money to get them from point A to B, whereas in a normal taxi with a yellow "taxi" sign on top of it has to charge their customers the amount that it says on the meter. Sometimes it ends up that no one has any money to pay for a taxi and we would have to walk home in the freezing cold! But that has only happened to us a few times, so far...


On Saturday, we thought it would be a good idea to take the girls into London and show them around because neither of them had been before. So, we walked to the bus stop to take the Oxford Tube, and this is probably my favorite coach that we have taken so far to travel anywhere. It is very comfortable on the bus, the seats recline, they turn the lights off at night so we can sleep, the bus driver announces the stops, and it's not too hard to miss because it has a bit "Oxford Tube OXFORD TO LONDON" sign on it. It's also one of the cheapest ways to get into the city of London: only 10 pounds for a student round-trip.

The other types of coaches that we have experienced are the U1 and the 8 (which both take us into the city center or to one of the farther away campuses for class), National Express (to take us to airports), and the X90 (which also takes us to airports and certain parts in the city of London). The U1 and the 8 are very typical looking buses with the uncomfortable seating and people packing onto it on a regular basis as if it was a subway. The National Express is what we generally like to take to the airports because it is the bus company that we are most familiar with, we know where and how to purchase the tickets, and the tickets usually aren't too expensive at all. I have yet to try the X90 bus because I am so used to taking other ones, but this was the one that was recommended by Dr. Forsaith to take from Heathrow airport to Oxford Brookes. It's kind of funny to look back and remember my first reaction to riding on a double decker bus, "OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS SO ENGLISH", and now it's such a normal thing to hop on the bus and run up the stairs to find a seat. It's actually odd when I ride on a "normal-sized" bus with only one floor because I feel like it's so small. It's almost as if what I thought was the norm before had actually turned into a foreign concept to me.

In London, the Tube is probably the easiest, cleanest, and best way to get around the city. Some people would argue that it's the fastest as well, but I honestly believe that that just depends on the day. When we went into London this weekend we decided to take the tube to get from point A to B around the city. Waiting in line (or queue as they call it in England) to top up our oyster cards, the cards that we use to ride the tube, took about a good 15 minutes. Then, we had to find our way to where we had to go, that took another few minutes, and sometimes we would have to connect to different stations to get to different lines, so that took some time as well. But the most annoying part, to me at least, was the fact that they were so jam packed inside! I felt like a little sardine squished in a can the second we got onto the central line tube. I'm not a very claustrophobic person but I do appreciate my bubble space and do not like it when strangers are two inches away from my face. Granted, thats bound to happen in any city on any major transportation system, but still it was quite uncomfortable.

Flying is a whole different experience of traveling over here than it is in the US. This might have something to do with the fact that I'm flying the cheapest airlines rather than really nice ones and not checking any bags most of the time, but nevertheless, there are a few differences. For example, on the airline RyanAir, you have to have only one bag (including just a purse, duffle, suitcase, backpack, etc.) and it has to be a certain size that fits inside of a box that the flight attendants have to come around with and check every person's bag. You have to take your passport with you every time you fly because naturally you're going out of the country, but it completely blows my mind that although you're leaving the country, it's only a 2 hour, more or less, flight to get there! The flights that I have experienced so far have been pretty decent, except for when we hit the ground. For some reason every single time the pilot manages to slam down onto the ground and jolt every person on the airplane awake with a loud bang and "completion" music. It's very odd.




It's funny how even transportation in different countries is a culture adjustment in itself. Of course you have the accent change, the change to the metric system, the size of food portions, even the smell of the people that live there which can all be huge culture shocks, but typically I would think that a lot of the ways that we travel in America would be similar to the rest of the world. Now of course i'm not saying that they're are not any differences but there are definitely some major differences that take a little bit of time to get used to. I am so accustomed to just hopping in my car and driving any where I want anytime I want, and now I have been forced to rely on the timetables of transportation systems and pay whenever I want to go pretty much anywhere, especially if it's in a hurry. Of course there are other parts, such as the fact that I can walk to pretty much anywhere around here in Oxford within at most 15 minutes, and it makes me feel more active throughout the day and enjoy the fresh air and fall scenery around me.