Didja miss me?! So last week I got my student oyster card (1/3 off on all London transit) so I figured to celebrate I’d head down to Forest Hill to see my sister! I arrive at the tube station at about 9:30 on Saturday, hoping to get the remaining balance on my old card transferred to the new one. I wasn’t counting on things opening later on weekends, so there was nobody at the window for another 30 minutes. The general staff person there, though unqualified to hop behind the counter, listened to and (mostly?) understood what I was saying, so he let me through to the next station, where someone could help me out. I got to the next station and talked to the same type of person there, who patched me through to the outside area (I couldn’t tap out since I hadn’t actually tapped in!), where a woman was able to help me. I’ve come to understand in the UK that customer service people aren’t the same as in the United States, so I wasn’t expecting sugar coated niceties. The woman was direct and helpful, and not impolite, so I took it as a small victory.
As I was leaving the station in New Cross to meet my sister, I stopped in a cafe. Sitting, people watching, I saw someone walking throw something in the trash, see that they’d missed, and went back to put it into the bin. I’m not sure what I was expecting to happen but it put a little smile on my face catching that moment from across the street! It makes me happy to see little glimpses of humanity in such a huge city, where it’s easy to forget everyone around you has a past, present, and future, and aren’t merely fillers in your own life!
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