Riding the Bus

Wednesday, August 6

Today, I got up, got ready, ate breakfast, and went to the university. Before leaving, I listened to a chapter of Proverbs and to some Christian music online. I reset my phone, so I have to take it somewhere to get unlocked, so that I can use it down here.

Back

Front

I took bus 15 to school.  It's about time to talk about this experience in more detail.  Most of the orange buses take me where I need to go, but I mainly use 11, 12, and 15.  When I see the bus coming, I extend my arm so that the driver sees me and stops. I quickly get on and scan my bus card on the scanner at the entrance. The machine deducts 5,50 pesos from my card. When my balance is low, I have to go to the corner store and recharge it.

So I scan my card and I find a seat.  If there aren't many seats, I stand in the aisle and hold on to the bars on the ceiling. I look out the window for landmarks that tell me my stop is coming up. For UBP, it's a building shaped like a cone.  For home, it's Decks bar. When I see said landmarks, I make my way to the back of the bus and press a buzzer before my stop.  This tells the driver to stop and open the back doors, after which I get off the bus and am at my destination.

I was pretty nervous at first, but I got used to it, and now I like it.  I had a little trouble with the stops for a little while- I would get off too soon, or as I mentioned in an earlier post, I thought a stop was right in front of the university, so the next day, I stood there and the bus kept going.  That's not a stop.  It stopped that day 'cause of traffic... oops. Eventually, I figured everything out and I'm a regular bus rider now.