Monday, August 06, 2007

The people you meet on public transportation

I took the bus downtown a couple of weeks ago to meet friends for an early showing of Harry Potter. While I was taking the 16th Street Mall shuttle, an older woman with a cane came on the bus which was on the full side. "Ma'am", I said, "would you like my seat."

"No, No," she insisted and proceeded to tell me that once she started taking seats then she'd go downhill fast. It was bad enough she had the cane but she was going to fight it. She was pretty feisty and spoke quietly so I only got a couple of words here and there. As my stop appeared, I thanked her for chatting with me and stood up. Then she said, "well, maybe I will take a seat now."

At the theater, friend Pam who recently returned from a trip to London and Paris. In Paris, they ran into a group of obvious Americans trying to figure out where they needed to go -- without a map. She was amazed that not only were they wandering around a place they were unfamiliar with sans map, but clearly didn't speak the language to read the signs (or understand measurements -- 300m is not "just over there.")

Later as the hubby and I made out way back to the bus station we encountered the self-named "Irish contingent" from the Microsoft convention in town. They were looking for the Celtic Pub and were hoping they were going the right way. I laughed and said, you come all the way to Denver and you go to an Irish pub? The woman understood the reasoning and said, oh, they had been plenty of local spots -- including Elway's for dinner. Can't get more local than that.

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