ADVENTURING! On Turku buses!
11 May 2012 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimorene08:05. I leave for the bus stop.
08:16. I grab the first bus going the proper direction, the 21. The 21 is the same bus that I took Wednesday, but got off when it turned towards Runosmäki instead of Raunistula. I thought it didn't go where I wanted, but I was able to walk the gap in 10 minutes and when I got there found the sign at the appropriate stop said 21, so I concluded the bus was going to make a short loop. I have observed this behavior in other buses before, such as the one which goes to my brother-in-law's house.
08:30. Class starts without me.
08:45. We've passed Moisio, wherever that is, and are headed further into the boonies. Every time we pass a highway sign with an arrow back to Turku I think the bus is going to take it, but it doesn't.
We go through Patis and pass its rural church. We drive through a residential area and pass, in order, Virgin Mary Street, Madonna Road, Domina Road, and couple of saint roads, and then turn onto Midsummer Way and promptly pass a turnoff for Dionysus Street.
At some point two small boys get on the bus and are so excited talking about their Pokémons or something that they can't even sit down. Then a tiny, like, four year old gets on with his daddy. They all go to the same rural school and get off. We pass another rural school.
08:55. The bus driver asks me where I was going. I say "I don't understand Finnish, but... wrong bus."
HER: What? Where are you going?
ME: I was going to Turun AKK in Raunistula. Wrong bus.
HER: There's more than one route and this one doesn't go through Raunistula!
ME: Oh, I see.
HER: You should have asked!
ME: Yeah, I see that now. But you see it says 21 at the bus stop, so I thought bus 21 went there. But anyway, I will have to wait for you to turn around and get off when we get back to the point where the routes diverge; it's fine.
HER: Yes, you can do that, but after I get back I will come here again and that time I will be going to Raunistula - no wait actually I won't.
ME: I can take a different bus from that bus stop.
HER: Yes. But now I have to ask you to get off and wait at the opposite side of the street because I have a 25 minute break between routes.
(At this point she seems to me to be projecting a definite air of miffedness, slightly hunted, but I think it's because she is worried/guilty about kicking me off the bus to wait: she seems to feel badly for me, but I'm trying to project as relaxed and friendly as I can: it isn't her fault, after all, and it's not like I really mind waiting. I'm dressed all right for the weather.)
09:00. This is way more fun than Finnish class would have been. I've been able to listen to Trespassing all the way through on this trip and looked at lots of cute little buildings and I am having an adventure! So I walk across the street. The rural bus stop is this sad little hollow with two plank benches on either short end, and walls made of actual pressed-paper boards full of embedded staples and covered in sad, faded graffiti. The whole thing seems to sag together with embarrassment.
I decide that since I have 25 minutes to kill and my thermos of tea is already empty I should class the place up a bit.
I have nearly finished writing out the entirety of "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll in blue ballpoint on the wall beside me (I'm at "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?") when a small blonde apple-cheeked farm woman arrives dressed completely in dowdy mumsy printed windsuit, carrying a lot of bags.
I finish the line on autopilot - then freeze - then studiously pretend that I haven't seen her in the other end of the bus stop. When she turns away (I see from the corner of my eye) I risk a quick covert glance and she doesn't seem to be looking at me, but nonetheless I guiltily slip the pen into my bag, trying to look like I'm not doing anything and haven't been committing acts of graffiti. We wait the last 5 minutes in a pregnant silence and I get out the ereader, but I'm lost in a paranoid fantasy that she's calling the police to arrest me when she gets out her cell phone, and that they're going to come cart me away and I'm going to have to defend myself in Finnish ("It's already got graffiti! Poetry raises the tone! It's LEWIS CARROLL") and will perhaps be sentenced to community service, which will be awkward for me because I don't speak Finnish. I try to remember how to say anything about poetry in Finnish, for my hypothetical conversation with the cops.
09:25. The bus arrives again. I wave sheepishly to the bus driver, and she asks me if I still have my ticket. I show it to her even though - dude seriously? Do you not remember our conversation??? Whatever.
09:35. By this point I have to go to the bathroom and am thinking that instead of rushing to the one at school I should stop in the Hesburger next to the bus stop where I will have to change buses to get to school.
09:55. A mother and child have gotten on the bus at some point and the child is sitting directly in front of me, and has spent at least ten minutes taking her hat and scarf off and then putting them back on. I'm thinking hysterical thoughts about how I hate having a bladder. Adam Lambert is my only comfort. I think some more about how much I want a Hulking-out-centric Avengers fanvid to "Pop That Lock" (no seriously it would be SO GOOD let me tell you my thoughts about this sometime).
10:05. I get off the bus and head for Hesburger. It opens at 10:00 on weekdays, and I think I am quite lucky that I've gotten there just after this. I wonder if I will have to buy something in order to use their bathroom. It seems unlikely because they don't get a lot of traffic there, but I could totally buy a tea to refill my thermos. Except the door's locked. No staff are in sight. They haven't opened yet. I walk to the bus stop to wait instead and try not to pop anything, contrary to Adam's advice in my ear (former advice, since by then he has moved on to "Underneath").
10:16. Bus 1 arrives 3 minutes before my 2-hour bus ticket would expire! The driver checks the clock to make sure I am still allowed to ride on it.
10:25. Finally at school and the bathroom, where I spend some time running hot water on my wrist arteries to warm my hands up before I go to class. The teacher has been making photocopies and I run into her right outside the door. She's like "Cim! Hi, where were you?" And I'm like "WRONG BUS!" *armflail* She laughs and is like "I see, where did you go?" "MOISIO and - and - Patis?" Then she laughs even more and is like "Oh, long bus ride." Fuck yeah.
11:15. Class lets out early, taking me completely by surprise because I've forgotten that we have a short day on Friday.
11:30. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!
Whew.
08:16. I grab the first bus going the proper direction, the 21. The 21 is the same bus that I took Wednesday, but got off when it turned towards Runosmäki instead of Raunistula. I thought it didn't go where I wanted, but I was able to walk the gap in 10 minutes and when I got there found the sign at the appropriate stop said 21, so I concluded the bus was going to make a short loop. I have observed this behavior in other buses before, such as the one which goes to my brother-in-law's house.
08:30. Class starts without me.
08:45. We've passed Moisio, wherever that is, and are headed further into the boonies. Every time we pass a highway sign with an arrow back to Turku I think the bus is going to take it, but it doesn't.
We go through Patis and pass its rural church. We drive through a residential area and pass, in order, Virgin Mary Street, Madonna Road, Domina Road, and couple of saint roads, and then turn onto Midsummer Way and promptly pass a turnoff for Dionysus Street.
At some point two small boys get on the bus and are so excited talking about their Pokémons or something that they can't even sit down. Then a tiny, like, four year old gets on with his daddy. They all go to the same rural school and get off. We pass another rural school.
08:55. The bus driver asks me where I was going. I say "I don't understand Finnish, but... wrong bus."
HER: What? Where are you going?
ME: I was going to Turun AKK in Raunistula. Wrong bus.
HER: There's more than one route and this one doesn't go through Raunistula!
ME: Oh, I see.
HER: You should have asked!
ME: Yeah, I see that now. But you see it says 21 at the bus stop, so I thought bus 21 went there. But anyway, I will have to wait for you to turn around and get off when we get back to the point where the routes diverge; it's fine.
HER: Yes, you can do that, but after I get back I will come here again and that time I will be going to Raunistula - no wait actually I won't.
ME: I can take a different bus from that bus stop.
HER: Yes. But now I have to ask you to get off and wait at the opposite side of the street because I have a 25 minute break between routes.
(At this point she seems to me to be projecting a definite air of miffedness, slightly hunted, but I think it's because she is worried/guilty about kicking me off the bus to wait: she seems to feel badly for me, but I'm trying to project as relaxed and friendly as I can: it isn't her fault, after all, and it's not like I really mind waiting. I'm dressed all right for the weather.)
09:00. This is way more fun than Finnish class would have been. I've been able to listen to Trespassing all the way through on this trip and looked at lots of cute little buildings and I am having an adventure! So I walk across the street. The rural bus stop is this sad little hollow with two plank benches on either short end, and walls made of actual pressed-paper boards full of embedded staples and covered in sad, faded graffiti. The whole thing seems to sag together with embarrassment.
I decide that since I have 25 minutes to kill and my thermos of tea is already empty I should class the place up a bit.
I have nearly finished writing out the entirety of "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll in blue ballpoint on the wall beside me (I'm at "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?") when a small blonde apple-cheeked farm woman arrives dressed completely in dowdy mumsy printed windsuit, carrying a lot of bags.
I finish the line on autopilot - then freeze - then studiously pretend that I haven't seen her in the other end of the bus stop. When she turns away (I see from the corner of my eye) I risk a quick covert glance and she doesn't seem to be looking at me, but nonetheless I guiltily slip the pen into my bag, trying to look like I'm not doing anything and haven't been committing acts of graffiti. We wait the last 5 minutes in a pregnant silence and I get out the ereader, but I'm lost in a paranoid fantasy that she's calling the police to arrest me when she gets out her cell phone, and that they're going to come cart me away and I'm going to have to defend myself in Finnish ("It's already got graffiti! Poetry raises the tone! It's LEWIS CARROLL") and will perhaps be sentenced to community service, which will be awkward for me because I don't speak Finnish. I try to remember how to say anything about poetry in Finnish, for my hypothetical conversation with the cops.
09:25. The bus arrives again. I wave sheepishly to the bus driver, and she asks me if I still have my ticket. I show it to her even though - dude seriously? Do you not remember our conversation??? Whatever.
09:35. By this point I have to go to the bathroom and am thinking that instead of rushing to the one at school I should stop in the Hesburger next to the bus stop where I will have to change buses to get to school.
09:55. A mother and child have gotten on the bus at some point and the child is sitting directly in front of me, and has spent at least ten minutes taking her hat and scarf off and then putting them back on. I'm thinking hysterical thoughts about how I hate having a bladder. Adam Lambert is my only comfort. I think some more about how much I want a Hulking-out-centric Avengers fanvid to "Pop That Lock" (no seriously it would be SO GOOD let me tell you my thoughts about this sometime).
10:05. I get off the bus and head for Hesburger. It opens at 10:00 on weekdays, and I think I am quite lucky that I've gotten there just after this. I wonder if I will have to buy something in order to use their bathroom. It seems unlikely because they don't get a lot of traffic there, but I could totally buy a tea to refill my thermos. Except the door's locked. No staff are in sight. They haven't opened yet. I walk to the bus stop to wait instead and try not to pop anything, contrary to Adam's advice in my ear (former advice, since by then he has moved on to "Underneath").
10:16. Bus 1 arrives 3 minutes before my 2-hour bus ticket would expire! The driver checks the clock to make sure I am still allowed to ride on it.
10:25. Finally at school and the bathroom, where I spend some time running hot water on my wrist arteries to warm my hands up before I go to class. The teacher has been making photocopies and I run into her right outside the door. She's like "Cim! Hi, where were you?" And I'm like "WRONG BUS!" *armflail* She laughs and is like "I see, where did you go?" "MOISIO and - and - Patis?" Then she laughs even more and is like "Oh, long bus ride." Fuck yeah.
11:15. Class lets out early, taking me completely by surprise because I've forgotten that we have a short day on Friday.
11:30. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!
Whew.
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Date: 11 May 2012 12:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12 May 2012 03:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11 May 2012 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12 May 2012 03:47 pm (UTC)