I rode the bus to and from work every day in the summertime. Usually, my bus wasn’t crowded, but one blazing hot afternoon, it was packed. I think those buses are supposed to hold about 35-40 people; we had around 55-60. Not only were there screaming children, there were older people about to fall over, duffel bags in the aisles, and people hanging on to every single handstrap and pole. Did I mention it was 90 degrees outside and AC Transit buses aren’t air-conditioned?

It was like descending into hell.

But now I enjoy the comfort of OCTA’s air-conditioned and fairly empty buses.

Our second day in Paris, we started out walking from our hotel in Marais, went down past the Louvre, and down onto the Champs E’lysees. This is where we made our first fatal mistake of the day. We looked over to our left, saw the Eiffel Tower and said, “Oh, look! It’s just right over there! We can walk to it, no problem!”

Here’s a little tip from me to you: no matter where you are, the Eiffel Tower is NOT just right over there. That thing is huge,it’s a monster, and usually much farther away than you think. Two and a half hours later, we stood under the Eiffel tower–sweaty, tired, and feeling really stupid.

Now came the problem of how to get back to the hotel. It would be a long walk, and we were pretty tired already. We heard a rumor that some of the trains were running now, and so we figured we’d give it a shot. We waited at the nearest train station for close to an hour before giving up. Then we heard that there was another line running.

We climbed five flights of stairs to get to the platform, and there were hundreds of people already there waiting. Now, I’ve taken the Tokyo subway before, so I’m okay with being crowded on a car with strangers, but this was starting to look a little scary.

When the train arrived, it got even scarier. The cars were already at about double the normal “standing room only” capacity, and the people on the platform all started pushing forward. There was nowhere I could go but on the train. By the time the doors closed, we were packed in so tightly that I estimated I was physically touching about nine total strangers at once, most of whom I couldn’t see because I had my face buried in the armpit of a very nice gentleman from New Zealand. Most of the people in the car had just come from a rugby match, so there were scarves in team colors wrapped everywhere and jabs from pennants on little sticks.

I could not move, not at all. The Kiwi gentleman was very accommodating about my face, and moved his arm to try to give me some more room. At every stop, more people were pushing into the car than those who were trying to wriggle out. About four stops into our ride, I started to notice a serious lack of oxygen in the car. There were so many people packed in that it was getting hard to breathe.

I got myself half turned around at one stop as people got off, only to see a look of horror on my boyfriend’s face. He said, “There is a hand up my butt.”

I said, “Yeah, someone’s touching mine, too.”

“Not touching,” he said. “UP. INSIDE.”

My Kiwi friend behind me waved his arm and said cheerfully, “It’s not me!”

Thankfully, the next stop was ours, and we managed to squeeze painfully out of the car before the doors closed on us. We sat at the station, breathing heavily to replenish our oxygen supplies. My boyfriend closed his eyes and whispered, “There were two people behind me. One old and wrinkled woman who smelled like cheese, the other was a cute young Parisian girl. I don’t think you’ll blame me if I choose to believe it was the younger one who was holding onto me from the inside.”

First there was the smell. And then he started shouting, “I sh*t my pants! I sh*t my pants!” as it ran over the floor.

Needless to say, I walked the rest of the way to work.

now for my story. as i mentioned dbq doesnt really have public transportation but i did use it all the time in Rome, Italy when i lived there. after a few months i finally got used to it but the first time i had to take a bus by myself was terrible!!!! having no public transportation exprience wasnt the only scary part but the fact i couldnt speak italian yet (i had juuust moved there). i got on the same bus as all the other students i recognized from the university we were attending. i figured we must all live sorta close cuz we were all just college students studying abroad but i was totally wrong. i got on teh bus and slowly all the other people, not just students but everyone, kept getting off. im riding and absolutely nothing is looking familiar. finally the bus comes to a stop, it is literally at the end of the line. i was the only one on there still and the bus driver comes back and tries to talk to me. i cant speak italian and he cant speak english. i immediately start to cry. i have no idea where i am at and no idea how to communicate. i take out this little italian/english dictonary and try say “big white buliding” because thats the only big landmark anywhere near my apartment. he has no clue. so the driver ends up calling someone he knew that could speak a little english, and hands his phone to me. the woman i talked to def couldnt help me, the english she knew amounted to my italian (i had been there for like 4 days). so really it was no help. im still crying. i didnt have a cell phone yet and didnt know anyone else that was there. finally when he realized that this was going no where, he started his route again and i got off where i orignally got on the bus. and walked home like 3 miles, in the dark, still crying.