Whining about buses

At first I thought maybe buses in Iceland would be different. But it turns out that bus-drivers are the same the world over. Is there something about driving a bus that turns you into a bitter, apathetic, humourless prick or does the profession just attract people already of that temperament? I suppose we'll never know.

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I did have a particularly irritating day of bus travel yesterday. I was taking the six-year-old to his ice-hockey lesson and I saw our stop coming up. So I pressed the button and it duly stopped. The doors opened and a woman got on - we were just about to get off when the driver closed the doors again and pulled away. This left me feeling a bit confused, so I pressed the button again and dithered about in the aisle, being unsure of how far away the next stop was and whether this was going to make us late. Then the driver braked suddenly. Being encumbered by a large sports-bag, I fell over in quite a dramatic way, which was both painful and embarrassing. I sat down hurriedly. Luckily the next stop was not that far away and this time we managed to successfully disembark. As we did so the driver said to me, "You ought to wait until the bus stops".

Unfortunately in the limited time available to me I was unable to produce a suitable parting remark in Icelandic. And there are probably laws about verbally abusing bus drivers, even if they are complete wankers.

Having dropped the six-year-old off at the skating rink (which takes quite a long time, because he has to get changed into ice-skating clothes - lots of clothes), I went out to take the bus home. As number 19 approached I saw that it was the same guy driving. This time, as we came up to my stop, he was too busy talking to some people sitting at the front to even bother stopping at all. The next stop really was quite a long way away, and in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It took me about twenty minutes to walk back to the place where I wanted to get off the bus, using Hallgrímskirkja as a visual reference.

I pretty much couldn't be feeling more bitter towards that bus driver. I also have a massive bruise on my thigh. Perhaps this is their plan - if they are inconsiderate enough then eventually everyone who uses the bus will become as hate-filled as they are.