Monday, November 5, 2007

Weather and Transportation

This morning the world was wrapped in a beauteous, soft-focus fog. Usually Vancouver fog is clammy and bone-chilling, but today it was rather warm. Those car headlights are not even half a block away; the houses across the street were noticeably fuzzy. This is not the thickest fog I've seen in Vancouver. I remember a ten-day fog that descended on the city many years ago, during which you could not see the house next door. You couldn't go to work; the city buses couldn't run. It was serene and dignified, and when it seemed to be letting up a bit you ran out to buy some more milk, then hunkered down for further welcome, enforced rest.

Well, today's fog didn't last but I couldn't give you details because on my bus up the mountain to work we rose suddenly above the cloudline and were in a perfect, sunny, cold fall morning. For the rest of the day, whenever I looked out the window I could see another cloud lifting off the city below, rising to dissolve against the blue mountains across the harbour. There is fog in Brooklyn; but there isn't this fog. However, Brooklyn has great lightning storms, which B.C. generally does not.

Some other differences:
  • people here wait on the sidewalk to cross the street. If you step down into the gutter to prepare for a dash across the street, you are endangering yourself and others. The drivers will screech to a halt, in the belief that you are beginning your advance across the street.

  • on the SkyTrain, people are not reluctant to take the inside seat.

  • in Vancouver, you thank your bus driver.
I was actually sure I had heard people in Brooklyn thank their bus drivers; but Winnifred assures me I had just heard us thank our bus drivers while we were in Brooklyn. Apparently it's a B.C. habit I never kicked. Thank God there's one thing I don't have to relearn.

2 comments:

the chocolate doctor מרת שאקאלאד said...

You totally thank the driver in New York? Whadaya mean?

FJ said...

I'm not following your syntax. You do thank the driver in New York? Or you don't?