I’m still staying with Virginie and her family in
Peymeinade, a town near Grasse. There is only one bus (bus C) that I can easily
take between Grasse and Peymeinade and the schedule is fairly complicated (see
Grasse Bus Saga). Yesterday evening I was waiting for bus C in Grasse to get
back to Peymeinade, and a bus C arrived at the stop about 5 minutes ahead of
schedule, which made me question whether or not it was the right bus to take.
The bus drivers here are very hit-or-miss: some are
super helpful and nice while others are downright rude. The very first time I
tried to take a bus C back to Peymeinade from Grasse I was very confused about
which bus to take and which stop the bus would come to, so I decided to ask the
bus driver of the first bus C I saw if he was going to Peymeinade, even though
it looked like it was probably going in the other direction. This turned out to
be a mistake as the bus driver was extremely rude and repeatedly asked me if I
had read the destination sign on the outside of the bus and insisted that I
need to read the sign. It was
completely uncalled for and a simple “no” would have been perfectly sufficient.
As a result, I’m very reluctant to ask bus drivers any questions, but I was
more worried about missing my bus since the next one wasn’t for another hour.
I got on the bus and verified with the bus driver
that the bus was going to the right destination and then I sat in a seat near
the front so that I could easily see out the windshield to look for my stop
(since the buses only stop upon request, it is very easy to miss your stop
before becoming familiar with the route, which I’ve learned the hard way). The
interior of the bus was completely different from any bus I have ever been on,
which was disconcerting; it was like a mix between a coach bus and a public transport
bus. The bus waited around for a few minutes, I guess because it was ahead of
schedule, and during that time I looked around for the nearest “stop” button
for signaling to the driver to stop but I realized that I didn’t see any stop
buttons. I didn’t really want to ask the diver another question because he
hadn’t been particularly friendly in our first interaction, but I had to find
out how to get off the bus. I reluctantly went back up to him and asked if he
stops at every stop or if we need to signal to him to stop. He replied “If
someone at a stop wants to get on, I stop to let them on. If someone on the bus
wants to get off, I stop to let them off, just like any other bus.” I said “Yes,
but normally there are buttons to push to request a stop, and I don’t see any.”
He replied that there are buttons all
over the place and when I said “sorry but I don’t see where they are” he
got up and walked back through the bus with me to look for buttons. We finally
found ONE button by the exit door near the back of the bus…
P.S. I’m writing with a French keyboard, which is
quite a challenge since most of the keys are in the same location, but the Q,
W, A, and Z are all switched around and the M is also in a different place.
Additionally, all of the character keys are different and you need to use the
shift bar to get a period! It will definitely take some time to get used to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment