The Tube

The past 3 days the weather has been 75 degrees and sunny with not a drop of rain (very A-typical). Normal people would rave about the glorious weather, but everyone here seems to think 75 and sunny is too hot, constantly complaining about “the pressure.” I told them that from where I come, Amerka (you must say this in a red neck, deer killing voice, pronounced uh-mer-ka), it has been 105 degrees. They then asked me to translate into Celsius, so I did and they stared at me in amazement when I told them 40. After this conversation I began thinking, how could anyone think this weather is too hot? I pondered and then stumbled across a realization...the tube. In theory the tube is brilliant-fourteen, timely trains, carrying over one million people to and from their jobs everyday, sounds amazingly convenient, right?

Wrong. You should have heard us on the tube the first week we got to London. Try to imagine five American college students travelling north on the Piccadilly line tube train with everyday Londoner’s when suddenly the calming voice of a British woman comes over the speaker and says “This is a Piccadilly line train to...Cockfosters.” Of course we couldn’t hold in our laughter and immediately started imitating the voice of the British woman saying over and over again with hysterical laughter afterwards “This is a Piccadilly line train to....COCKFOSTERS!!!” with way too much emphasis on Cockfosters. Really mature. After the initial shock of the tube wore off, which took about 2 weeks; I very quickly began to see why Londoners think 75 degrees is hot.

I remember the very moment when I realized the tube was hell on earth. It was last Saturday and I was travelling on the Circle line to Portobello Market from Westminster. It was about 75 degrees and sunny outside which made it around 90 on the tube. Crammed into a train car with probably 50 other foreign people is not pleasant, when it is 90 degrees it puts in the hell category. Due to my extremely long train ride, I eventually got a seat. As soon as I sat down, the respectable looking couple sitting next to me started making out. I see now why it is called a “French kiss.” The European do not kiss; they slurp, slobber, grope and they continue doing this for hours. Thankfully they got off at the next stop and continued slobbering and groping all the way out the tube door. The next character to sit next to me was a little boy, around 8 years old, travelling with his older brother, around 14 years old. Since my seat happened to be the last one in the row it was situated next to a pole in which the older boy standing next to and holding onto for support. The younger brother soon got the brilliant idea to start reaching across my face to pull the older brothers fingers off one by one. Let me remind you that there are about 45 other people on board at this point, people literally could not move if they were standing. The older brother just ignored the younger brother and continued to re-grip the pole as soon as all of his fingers were pried off by the younger brother. The older brother continued moving his hand higher and higher up the pole to avoid the younger brother’s antics. This conveniently situated his armpit in my face. This is when the smell hit me like a bird flying into a recently cleaned office building window. It was literally the foulest body odor I have ever smelled. This unbearable smell was also mixed with the other bearable body odor smells coming from everyone else. I literally think everyone on the tube had B.O. on Saturday, except for me of course. It is the 21st century and I swear to god North America is the only continent to have discovered deodorant. I’m not stereotyping, just stating the honest to god truth. I have witnessed and smelled it and it is hell, and this is why Londoner’s think 75 degrees is hot.