Oh the Places You'll Go

DBG and Public Transport Worldwide!

I thought I was lucky moving to Rome, because it would make my third appearance in the eternal city, which meant I was gleefully familiar with the "dos" and "don'ts", had the metro system down to a T, and knew exactly how to properly order my morning cappuccino, right? Wrong, of course. 

Karen and I lived in a quirky, "penthouse" flat on the fifth floor of 25 Via Tagliamento, absolutely no where near access to Rome's rather pathetic underground transportation system. If we did want to make the effort to take the metro, we needed to walk 20 minutes to the nearest station, which was on a branch route of the B line, buy our tickets from a "coins only" machine, and ride about 30 minutes to anywhere near the famous sights. By the end of it, we could have walked for free anyway, which we did for a long, long time. 

For a while, it was nice to walk off the copious amounts of wine and pasta we were consuming while seeing more of our new home, but an hour walk each way is over 8% of each day! Once we got busy with classes and social engagements, something had to give. 

Rome tends to have a notorious public transportation system; notoriously bad that is. The metro system has an A, B, and partial C line, but because of the dense layers of history literally buried deep beneath the city, these systems are limited so as not to disturb any ruins or artifacts. 

They do have an extensive bus system, but it's infamously unreliable. After 22 countries, Italy is still the only place where I have had to hail a bus like a taxi, and that was still a gamble on whether or not it would stop. 

After a few weeks, we were forced to figure out a new way of transportation besides our two feet, meaning the busses had to be conquered. We used some shoddy apps that attempted to tell us when certain busses were where, but it came down to waiting at the bus stop for the next one, whenever that would be. 

We made a ton of mistakes and got lost a lot, certain busses stopped running at certain times, or certain stops were skipped at night, etc. Eventually, we got the hang of it. If we were shopping or going to the center, our 63 & 83 were the way to go, but the 83 was faster to the end because it had less stops earlier on, and if we needed to catch a train or bus out of our norm, the 92 would take us to Termini Station.

By the end of the semester, we could walk to the nearest bus stop and assess the signage, deducing which unfamiliar busses would take us to familiar stops for us to get one of our usual lines. I think this was the point when I really felt like an urban local. To be able to find our way without the use of phones and the ubiquitous digital map made us feel like it was our town, we were city people, and we had conquered the bus system. 

A perfect DBG situation, there are few things more uncomfortable than being stranded at a random bus stop at 3 AM in the frigid February weather without a clue in the world as to when the next bus is coming, what bus it will be, or where that bus goes. In response to a few awful nights like this, we learned our way. 

The ability is reminiscent of the superpower unlocked by literacy. Once you learn how to read, your possibilities are infinite. You can hypothetically learn anything. After I learned how to navigate a metro system during my first visit to Rome in 2018, I was suddenly able to take the trains to New York City and figure out the subway system as well. Four years later, Rome taught me another skill that will never disappear; one of those little things you can put in your back pocket and whip out when you need it. As I traipsed across the Balkan region and Central Europe, I primarily travelled by bus, and I'm fully confident that I could navigate my way through almost any city. How cool! I couldn't say that a year ago!

How is your navigational literacy; where did you learn? I want to start taking full advantage of the train systems in the US and expand my domestic travels. 

Until next time, find your factor. 

JJ