Transportation and Agitation

As part of our exchange program we go to go play tourist for a fair bit. Since school was still in session, we actually got to do a great deal while our billets had to rot in school. This resulted in some cool field trips to say the least. The main mode of transport for this was the mighty yellow bus. If you haven't been to Calgary before then you would have no concept of distance.

Rule number 1 in the prairies is that if you can see it you shouldn't try to walk to it. Now I've heard the joke about watching your dog run away for 3 days in the prairies but until I was there I never realized how true it can be. When we went to the Rockies we figured it was an half an hour away because they looked like they were right there, an hour and a half later we finally arrived.

The bus became a focal point for much chaos. We had the usual people who hadn't thought their option to sleep on the bus all the way through. There was lipstick used and photos taken, but I won't post them out of respect to those people. We took great pride in singing songs both real and some of our own demented creations, at the top of our lungs. I'm sure this caused the driver and teachers some distress but we weren't really worried about that. When you're stuck on a bus for that long you'll do what you must to pass the time. I'll just go on the record and say that the fire exit levers cause really loud noise and serious driver agitation when pulled (You know you always wanted to give it a pull).

Of course all this travel doesn't help a small band of already strange people focus well. When the buses unloaded our stiff and weary carcasses, we were in prime form for chaos. The only good part about this was that stuff is pretty spread out in the prairies so the damage could be limited to small areas at a time. I have to throw praise to the bus driver we tormented. We kept getting the same one so I would like to think she was extremely tolerant rather than mentally challenged. I know I couldn't have driven this pile of lunatics around more than once or twice.

The buses kept our antics contained for a little while but once we got to the tourist areas or city destinations it was a whole different ball game.