#bus

[sleepy-bebby]

#bussi #Spain #public transport #meme #memes #lol #funny #funny meme #funny memes #cute #mascot #mascots #bus #bus meme #bus memes #transport #iT’s nOt fUnNy in oThEr LanGuagEs #shut up nerd #it’s funny to me #erhmergird anglophones on tumblr!!11!!!

[trainsinanime]

I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.

Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.

The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.

It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.

Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).

You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.

So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.

And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…

…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.

And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.

But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Incan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.

#bus #buses #school bus

[soracities]

Marina Tsvetaeva, from "Bus", Selected Poems (trans. Elaine Feinstein, with Simon Franklin) [ID'd]

#q #lit #quotes #poetry #typography #id included #marina tsvetaeva #selected poems of marina tsvetaeva #bus #russian lit #notes on the human condition #m #x #personal

[funpolls]

#public transport #transportation #trains #train #bus #fun polls #random polls #polls #tumblr polls

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was waiting for a bus that never came.

#dream #text #bus #queueueueueueueueueueueueueue

[coolthingsguyslike]

#VW #bus #van #factory #Volkswagen

[angelamor]

The bus stop in Nagasaki is too cute 🍈

#cute #fruit #bus #bus stop #Japan #flowers #Nagasaki #cutecore #pastel #green #pink #blue #orange #yellow #purple #food #archutecture #design #kawaii #leaf #plant

[pixel8or]

#gif #loop #rain #refelctions #droplets #water droplets #bus #blur #bokeh

[shrimptin]

#public transit #bus #support public transit

[bumblebeeappletree]

Electric buses and electric trains electric buses and electric train’s electric buses and electric trains eleCTRIC BUSES AND ELECTRIC TRAINS ELECTRIC BUSES AND ELECTRIC TRAINS ELECTRIC BUSES AND ELECTRIC TRAINS ELECTRIC BUSES AND ELECTRIC TRAINS

ELECTRIC BUSES AND ELECTRIC TRAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#solarpunk #public transportation #bus #train #electric buses #electric train #electric vehicles #AND NOT ONLY ARE THEY ELECTRIC BUSES AND ELECTRIC TRAINS #BUT THEY ARE CHARGED THROUGH ELECTRICITY GAINED BY RENEWABLE ENERGY #BUT SERIOUSLY COME ON WE NEED MORE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION #THAT IS NOT RUN ON FOSSIL FULES #YOU! #YEAH YOU! #GO SEE WHO YOU NEED TO TALK TO IN ORDER TO GET SOME OF THAT IN YOUR CITY #MAYBE CITY HALL

[polishwave]

Nie płacz nad rozlanym barszczem.

#polishcore #poland #polska #polishwave #polish #bus

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was on my school bus, and it was a zombie apocalypse (I have dreams like that a lot???). So, naturally, the human bus driver was doing his rounds and picking up all of the human kids. We make it to school and it's just full of zombies. So the bus driver opens the bus door and I BOOK IT.

#dream #school #school bus #bus #zombie #zombie tw #apocalypse #apocalypse tw #zombies #bus driver

[coolthingsguyslike]

#Volkswagen #VW #bus #van #minibus