Column:
A few notes from Underground
Published Feb. 20, 2007
LONDON — We live like moles in London, as my flatmate says. For miles and miles, the ground beneath the surface is hollowed out to make room for the glorious system that is the London Underground.
People scurry through these tunnels beneath the earth for hours every day. It's estimated that the average Londoner spends about two hours a day commuting on the tube, which blows my mind. No place exists in Columbia that's more than 10 minutes away by car. Two hours? That gets you to another city in Missouri, St. Louis or Kansas City, not to work.
Public transportation puzzles and amazes me. In St. Louis, the MetroLink just doesn't cut it, nor does the lackluster bus system. But London, the biggest city in the European Union with close to eight million people, lets you get anywhere without a car. Even after the tube closes at midnight, a Londoner can navigate the night buses and eventually get home.
The whole tube culture is new to me. People say studying abroad in London is simple because everyone speaks English, but they have yet to realize the nuanced nature of tube-riding. Imagine, friends, a day at the Underground with me.
Spotting the tube station marks the calmest moment of the journey. It's a true tumble into the rabbit hole after entering the giant gate and swiping what Brits call an Oyster card. The motion of the crowd propels you forward until you begin to descend the one of the escalators into the deep. Oftentimes, about 20 percent of the tube population will run on these escalators.
The escalator's primary purpose is to look at the insane number of advertisements. The tube stations love ads and the ads themselves are actually not half bad (This from someone who hates advertising wholeheartedly.) They have posters for books, museums, plays and even a naked Harry Potter one. Sweet, right?
Tube stations also love music and a random musician will appear at the end of some random escalator in your journey. The instruments include saxophones, guitars and bagpipes. Once I saw a guy just whistling for change.
On the tube itself, people act stereotypically British. The majority stare straight ahead and say nothing to anyone. Even at rush hour, there can be dead silence on a car. Everyone has an iPod, a trashy paper or a trashy novel. Yet the sidelong glances are constant. This veneer of politeness truly masks judgment.
"Oh, that guy, hah, what a douche," the thought will come to mind, just before, "But what a nice jacket."
Guys pass out those trashy papers for free. Papers such as the London Lite give you the low-down on all the celebrity gossip, clubs and crime. thelondonpaper even featured a column yesterday that referenced a "code of tube conduct."
The columnist mentioned how painfully obvious tourists act. An American with luggage and their map stands out like none other. Even after a month here, my friends seem damn American on Tuesdays when guzzling beer on the tube to The Zoo Bar & Club. Sometimes I don't even want to speak on the tube since the American accent is so obnoxiously jarring.
Although mole-like, the British do have a near-perfect system for getting anywhere without a car. The response, naturally, is to bring the tube to Missouri, and in my absence, I trust you all to rally passionately.
