Modes of Transport

[cos]

Thursday I went through the Fiumicino shuffle once again. Unlike the time I wrote about 6 years ago when I took two trains and five buses in the morning, it was simpler this time because my hotel's shuttle took me directly from the hotel to the correct terminal. And for the first time in all the times I've flown from that airport, I got to board the plane directly from the gate, rather than via another bus. (Although on balance, I'd have traded the 40 minute long passport check line in sweaty humid heat for another couple of bus trips if I had the choice; of all the foreign airports I've been to or through, Fiumicino is the only one that always makes the USA's awful airports look good by comparison.)

It did get me doing a mental inventory of all the kinds of transportation I'd used on this trip...
- planes large medium and small-ish, from legacy airlines and low cost airlines
- tram/light rail, trolley, monorail, subway, urban metro rail, regional commuter rail, long distance train with reserved seats
- private rented bus, public city bus, double decker bus, electric bus, shuttle bus...
- shuttle van, rented car, privately owned car, taxi
- cruise ship, ferry, tender boat, water bus, rowboat/gondola

I didn't ride any propeller planes, helicopters, funiculars, sailboats, or motorcycles, though.

Comments

[lindseykuper]

Yeah, Fiumicino was ridiculous the last time I flew out of there!

Another time, Alex oniugnip and I were flying out of Barcelona, but we screwed up and thought our flight was twelve hours later than it was. The Barcelona Delta agent was very helpful and found a way for us to get home, but, he explained, it meant we'd be stuck in Paris for a while.

Alex: That's okay. There are worse places to be stuck!
Delta agent: *nodding knowingly* ...Rome.

Not even the airlines can deny that Rome is terrible.

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

Surely you can add "elevator" and "escalator" to the means of transportation you used; vertical counts just as much as horizontal!

[cos]

Planes go vertically too. It's not the direction, it's that I didn't think of those as modes of transport, I thought of them as part of walking around. I guess I could add airport/mall "people mover" type moving walkways.