Well, the past few days have certainly been interesting here in Bucharest, with the transport workers going on strike. While it's not the first time this happens, it's certainly new not to have any bus, tram or trolley working for such a long period of time. The only thing that's working is the subway, but that's only a partial fix, since not all areas of the city get metro stations.
Now, being a little out of touch, as I usually am, I had no idea transport wasn't working yesterday morning, so I spent a good 15 minutes at the bus stop. I wasn't alone, mind, there were other people waiting. And then this lady with her kid stop and she asks me has the bus been? We've been walking on foot from the metro station. I said no, but I'm assuming it'll come any moment. It seemed unthinkable that transport might not be working in the middle of the day, without there being some holiday. Of course, I figured out what was going on, and got to walking. All in all, I ended up walking some 6 miles yesterday, since naturally, Uber prices had also gone through the roof.
Now, that's alright. There's a Romanian saying about how walking makes your legs pretty, and I certainly hope so, judging from the shaking in my calves.
Photo by Ana Dujmovic on Unsplash
Anyway, the funny thing was, this coincided with a good friend of mine getting her first car yesterday, which was a bit of a surprise. She's been desperate for a car for a very long time, and we're always saying how much easier things would be if we had cars.
But the thing is, you don't really need a car in Bucharest. It's a commodity. I know that for some people, like in the US, a car is necessary for survival. But here, as with most European cities, and countries, you don't actually need it. Personally, I'm a bit of an oddity in this sense, since we never had a car. It's interesting, really, but no one in my family has a car. My mother and grandmother never knew how to drive, neither did my aunts or any other relatives. My uncle's learning how to drive now, and he's almost 50. As for the rest, none of them ever really bothered. I only got my permit because my boyfriend at the time taught me how to drive, so it seemed a shame not to take the opportunity. My dad drives, but since I'm not close to him, that's never really affected me one way or the other.
Oddly enough, because of this, cars have never been a must in my family. There's always someone who'll take you somewhere, and if not, you can go by public transport. I know a lot of people with cars, and I always find they're insanely snobbish about public transport. Always commenting about how unpleasant it is, how dirty, how inconvenient. I don't know, maybe it's because I've never had a car myself, or someone around me who drove constantly, but I've never really minded it that much. Why? Well, it's not like there's an option.
Traffic in Bucharest is known as being quite chaotic, so I don't think I'd drive that much even if I had a car, as for going out on trips, I actually really like taking the train. I don't know, it seems natural that if you have a car, you should take that, but at the same time, I know people who don't own a car, but at the same time, wrinkle their noses at traveling by train. As if it's something below them. Seems rather materialistic to me.
Personally, I think cars are a bit of a trend. Maybe it's an old-school kind of mentality. It still seems luxurious, in a sense, to me to know someone with a car. I don't know why, because I know a lot of drivers. Maybe it's where I've always seen cars as a bit of a trend. As long as you don't live somewhere far from the city, to actually need it, it just seems more trouble than it's worth. Certainly not a reason to get snobbish about public transport, either.
To each their own, though. Getting back to the strike, it was interesting. Luckily, since I don't actually depend on a 9-to-5 job, I could be or not be on time. And though I walk a fair bit by nature, I was quite a way out, pretty much on the outskirts of the city, when I learned about the strike, and it was like. Okay, I need to get home, the cabs are pricey and in high-demand, what am I gonna do?
