road rage
One of the big challenges of the trip so far has been getting around Damascus. It's too hot to walk very far, and maps are next to useless (few street names, and often turn out to be different from the actual street signs--if, of course, you can find those). For the first few days, time was more precious than money, so I took cabs, like these:
Ratings (on a scale of 1-5, 5 being highest):
Cost: 4 (high relatively, low absolutely: about $.50 for a normal ride)
Speed: 4
Terror: 5+ These things buzz around like hummingbirds on speed. Lanes? We don't need no stinking LANES! Woe to the pedestrian...
Once I had some sense of the geography and started pinching lira (the local cash), I graduated to buses and "micros." Here's the bus I take to campus:
Cost: 1 ($.10-$.20 for a ticket good for 2 rides. And you better have a ticket because they get checked on almost every ride.)
Speed: 2 (but beats walking)
Terror: 3 (there is NOTHING in Damascus that is less than a 3, unless I commandeer a tank).
The group providing the ideal balance of cost ($.10 for an average one way ride), speed (moderate), and terror (also moderate) is the micros:
The problem is that trying to catch the right one rates a 10 on the inconvenience scale. I'm really at my wits' end. Theoretically, they run on fixed routes, but no one seems to be able to tell you what they are. The route names (see the blue sign) are useless if you don't know the location of the landmarks they refer to. The local practice of asking if the micro is going to your destination before hopping in is great in theory and useless in practice, if your geography and pronunciation is as bad as mine. Not to mention that you never know when it's time to hop off...
I'm sure this is one of those things that gets easier with time, but for now, all I can say is ARGH!!!
Ratings (on a scale of 1-5, 5 being highest):Cost: 4 (high relatively, low absolutely: about $.50 for a normal ride)
Speed: 4
Terror: 5+ These things buzz around like hummingbirds on speed. Lanes? We don't need no stinking LANES! Woe to the pedestrian...
Once I had some sense of the geography and started pinching lira (the local cash), I graduated to buses and "micros." Here's the bus I take to campus:
Cost: 1 ($.10-$.20 for a ticket good for 2 rides. And you better have a ticket because they get checked on almost every ride.)Speed: 2 (but beats walking)
Terror: 3 (there is NOTHING in Damascus that is less than a 3, unless I commandeer a tank).
The group providing the ideal balance of cost ($.10 for an average one way ride), speed (moderate), and terror (also moderate) is the micros:
The problem is that trying to catch the right one rates a 10 on the inconvenience scale. I'm really at my wits' end. Theoretically, they run on fixed routes, but no one seems to be able to tell you what they are. The route names (see the blue sign) are useless if you don't know the location of the landmarks they refer to. The local practice of asking if the micro is going to your destination before hopping in is great in theory and useless in practice, if your geography and pronunciation is as bad as mine. Not to mention that you never know when it's time to hop off...
I'm sure this is one of those things that gets easier with time, but for now, all I can say is ARGH!!!
posted by Emily at 4:21 PM
4 Comments:
what's the bike culture like?
I think that I can say with pride that after three months of living in Berlin, by the time I left I had finally figured out how to use the mysterious and intimidating Ring-Bahn. And I think that might be the most I can say, but still, it's a lot. Meaning, you will master it just like you mastered the Red Line and it will still feel like a huge accomplishment a year later, but hopefully you will have also mastered the language you went there to learn. Bah.
also, those cabs look rilly scary.
xoxo,
Sina
How many times have you gotten on to the wrong vehicle and ended up in a completely unkown part of the city?
I am sure you will pick it all up shortly.
Great post by the way!
uh...bikes? I've seen a few relics (often bedecked with world up flags) leaning against walls, but people rarely seem to ride them, and then only in the old city. Riding on the main streets would be suicidal.
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