Morning - The public transport hell

When I started to observe Hungarians, the first few things which came to my mind about us was all stereotypes. I was aware that foreigners think that most Hungarians are pessimistic or that we are very proud of our country which was once a large empire. After collecting a few things about us that I have heard before, I have decided to observe one aspect of our everyday life: Hungarian public transport. As I can see, most of the time we are in a hurry and trying to get on the public transport vehicles as quickly as we can to have a seat. After a few years of public transport experience I can tell that mornings are the worst part of the day to use public transport in Budapest. In the following essay, I have collected the major groups of morning passengers.

Firstly, as a student I have to write about students’ behaviour on public transport. Students are the majority on public transport vehicles in the morning as they usually do not own a car and they use the buses, metro or suburban railways to get to school. Most of them are trying to make their way to the school as noisily as possible, shouting their stories about last Friday and the big house party which they usually cannot remember at all. They like to complain about retirees who choose this time of the day to go to the doctor just to take the whole bus away from them and to glare at them when they are joking with their friends.

Secondly, there are the retirees. Retirees always get on the bus or the metro first; they are trying to push everyone away who is brave enough to wait closer to the door or fool enough to get on before the, and of course they need a seat – even if they only travel one stop – and they are always complaining if younger passengers do not give their seats to them. They usually carry a little carriage for the things they buy at the market, but no matter how small it is, it hurts so much when it goes over your foot. Although retirees have enough time during the day to do their daily routine, for example, shopping or seeing the doctor, they always choose the rush-hour, when the buses are full with students and workers. Sometimes I think this is just to have someone to complain about.

The third group is workers, who only try to survive the morning sandwiched between the noisy younger generation and the elderly people. They are holding their daily take-away coffee in their hands and pretending to read the free Metropol magazine, while in reality they are listening to the students’ stories and once again they make a vow that they’ll never ever let their children go out on a Friday night.

To conclude, morning is the hardest part of the day to survive on public transport. Most of us are trying to get on the bus as quickly as possible and we even use our elbows if someone gets in our way. After the rush hours, a peaceful change happens and we can use the public transport without major injuries.