post-travel entry: tram ride

Tram Ride in San Francisco

Stretching straight out, then curves. Pairs of parallel metal furrows that intersect each other, spread like spider webs upon the streets of San Francisco. We wondered what those were, hopping on and off the lines until a boxcar full of people chugged along, ringing a cacophony of bells and nearly ran us down. That’s probably the first time I came across tramway, or cable cars, according to local language.

Two days before the end of Vision Trip, after paying a visit to the Stanford University, we, the 18^th wave Vision Trip team which visited the USA, took the bus to San Francisco for a good two hours simply to ride the tram. We got off the bus at a wide square floored by tiles, where there were people wearing sunglasses passing by, a set of cylindrical restrooms, and a gigantic rotating disc which was sending trams back the way they came from. Surrounding the disc was an iron fence where people lined up for the tram, and so did we.

While we were absent-mindedly expecting for the next tram to arrive, a street musician came into sight. He was an African-American who was as tall as a tree next to him, fixating a smile upon his face, and had the typical African-American accent, something like a slurred staccato. He was a friendly man, singing us his own improvised blues song which went, “I wanna ride the cable car”. We had a fun time waiting for the tram with him, singing along and dancing Psy’s Gangnam Style together. It took about fifteen minutes for the next vacant tram to come up, and we each dumped some dollars in a vuvuzela in front of him which had a red post-it saying “Thank you” stuck on it.

The tram had two compartments, one covered by windows and the other totally open. On the latter compartment, there were two benches placed in opposite directions and a plank outside the car with five bars which each bar could take care of maximum two people. Between the benches, motors and gears propelling the tram were visible on the surface of the compartment. They sounded too brutal; it wasn’t that fun to imagine what would happen if something fell right among the cold, barbaric gears.

The tram ride, if to give a one-word summary, was awesome. Great. Maybe supreme too. It was like riding a slow roller coaster, but only except that you could actually savor the Californian streets and have enough time to appreciate them. Wind clapped my face as the tram bore into it. Behind me, the driver was ringing the bells which added to the rhythm. The sky was watercolor-blue and houses that looked like packs of cigarettes were orderly lined up along the coast. Everything, the weather, the landscape, was so nice- we all agreed that we could’ve stayed on the tram for a few more hours only if it wasn’t for the schedule we had after San Francisco. I was one of the people standing up and cherishing the bliss of fresh Californian wind. I had both of my hands open in the air, and the tram ride- San Francisco- was worth the risk. And everyone felt so reluctant about getting off the tram, after the ride that seemed too short.