jack

I had a lovely evening with Rachel's family, but unfortunately, generated more travel rant on the way home.

It turns out that I CONTINUE to fail to manage the most simple every day tasks with the Cambridge public transport system. I used to be used to trains, which while sometimes difficult, normally have correct announcements saying what the train is, and where its going, but whenever I'm trying to catch a bus from anywhere except the central bus stop I'm always extremely paranoid, because there's a half-hour window when the bus may arrive, and if you sit down, rather than hovering nervously at the kerb, the bus is entitled to drive straight past if you are not quick enough to stand up, or stand up and look at the bus and make eye contact with the driver and get your wallet out, but fail to hold up your hand.

I have recently been trying to relax more, and not assume that if I lose attention for a second the bus will maliciously whisk me off to the wrong place, but today this more conciliatory strategy totally failed me. I'm used to waiting for a bus with the right number, at the right stop, going in the right direction, but today I got overconfident, and assumed that because the only citi 1 buses running would be the timetabled ones, so jumped on the citi 1 from the station going into town, intending to go to arbury, and stupidly failed to check the direction, stop and number coincided with the right destination listed, because Stagecoach completely successfully suckered me, by providing a Citi 1 which goes into town, at the right time, from the right stop AND THEN TURNS AROUND AND GOES BACK THE WAY IT CAME. (I got home safe because it overlapped the normal citi 1 in the city centre.)

I feel very foolish, because when I realised what was wrong I asked the driver, and he told me the facts, but I stupidly, foolishly phrased my question wrongly, in terms of the NORMAL route, assuming that if this bus was different, he would have said so when I asked, but instead just told me matter of factly what that bus did, and I assumed I understood the route wrongly, and went to look at the map, and then there was no point going back to clarify. But now I'm curious whether this phantom bus was something which was obvious to everyone except me, or what on earth I should have asked the driver :(

I realise I always look at public transport from the point of view of the passenger rather than the people having to provide the service, but always things leap out at me as LOOKING as if they'd be obviously good ideas, when presumably there is some significant downside I don't know enough to work out. For instance, what if:

* Buses posted timetables for that route, and other city centre routes INSIDE the bus where people have hours of useless time to memorise them
* Buses were issued a float of at least £10 in notes and £5 in coins at the start of the day.
* Standalone train ticket machines let you buy a ticket for the next morning during the quiet part of the night.
* If the driver stops a bus for five minutes to bring it back onto the correct timetable and smoke a cigarrette, he could announce how long its stopping for. (This is an instance which serves completely perfectly well people to whom taking a bus is an end in itself, but refuses to acknowledge that to some people a bus journey may simply be a commodity used in order to reach a destination, and committing the journey they'd decided on is actually secondary to arriving at their destination, and if the bus stops for five minutes two hundred yards short of their stop, they'd rather walk.)
* The bus company could consider the most common occurrences, and establish a policy, a set of guidelines, or an acknowledgement that drivers should have discretion over each. For instance, if someone wants to buy a ticket valid for that bus, but the driver has never heard of it, the driver could choose to prepare in advance a reasonable reaction such as "I'm sorry, I can't help you, you'll have to buy a different ticket or talk to the central bus station" or "It's ok, just buy the ticket on the next bus" or "I'll see if it's in the computer, and decide if it is or not" rather than just staring blankly and making the passenger guess each option in turn, and responding with "sorry, no" until they get the right one.

Amongst several other cool presents given and received, Mum bought me a Satnav for Christmas. It's almost exactly perfect for a present, as I'd just got to the point where one would obviously be nice, but not yet essential. The next Satnav I buy, if ever, may well be a utility item like a new computer or a new exhaust, but the first one is exciting to have, and relieves me of the chore of choosing one, rather than just trying it out.

Liv and I refer to her affectionately as "Kate" or "Bossy robot lady". Although I've seen Satnavs in other people's cars, it's interesting to experience driving with one for the first time. It planned both routes fine, which was roughly what I expected. It was not too intrusive: the voice is useful for a new journey, and would be too intrusive for a half-known journey, but if you turn it off, the screen would still be about perfect if you remember you have to turn left somewhere but not exactly where.

What was a very pleasant surprise was reports on heavy traffic. I knew in theory they did that, but hadn't realised until I tried it how much of a difference it would make to the journey. I assumed the reports would be like "heavy traffic on M6" and too vague to matter when you were already committed to the journey, but they made a big difference.

I only used the Satnav twice, from lancashire to Stoke and Stoke to Cambridge, but both times it gave an estimate of journey time plus N0 minutes traffic delay which was accurate to within ten minutes, and got more accurate as you went on, and on the first journey suggested a 20-minute-shorter diversion. Having an apparently reliable guide for that makes it so much easier to plan, and so much more relaxing, than not knowing how long the delays will be.

I can even imagine leaving the satnav on at home to see what times of day seem best for certain journeys. I assume it's only accurate for motorways, but it's still really nice.

I'm back home from America. I had a marvellous time. Darcy and Gisella, and Anna, and Jen are really lovely, and Berkeley/San Francisco and New York are great.

I'd been warned that America was not as used to vegetarians as England, and indeed, if I'd been there with non-vegetarian friends it might indeed have been awkward, but most of the bits I saw looked like a big boat full of beautiful helpful people had crashed into a big boat full of good vegetarian restaurants, and where they washed ashore someone said "hey, let's build a city like this".

The California climate is really lovely. We were lucky with the New York Climate, because it was less boiling humid than it normally was, but it was still boiling humid.

I almost always have to get up at an unseasonable time to catch flights, and hence have the morning's itinerary planned down to the minute. However, today I've got two hours between a very late lie in and having to leave, which I'm totally unaccustomed to.

It even seems my bags are comfortably inside the weight and size limits (assuming you use the same units for the bags and the limits), which seems completely implausible.

However, I did finish packing last night, and may well have blanked on something important.

So:

1. Is there anything else I should throw into my bags, if I can?

2. Other than passport, what bits and pieces am I most likely to have forgotten?

Flights are finally booked! Thank you so much to everyone who helped me get that sorted. It's really exciting to be going.

And I've checked in, and have just to tidy up a few loose ends at work.

Quote of the experience, "Passenger bags may not contain: gases".

ETA: And any lingering tweaks to my code are also checked in.