Walking to School...

You know the old story about your parents having to walk to school up hill, both ways, in a blizzard. Well, today I had to walk to school. It is a 10 minute taxi ride or a 20 minute bus ride to get to our school. And there is a bus that goes from the gate of our apartment complex to a few feet from our school. We usually try to take the bus because it is so much cheaper than a taxi, however a taxi ride is still less than $2. So, this morning I was doing great on time, early in fact, so I knew it was going to be a bus day. (As opposed to yesterday, when I was running a little late so I made up 10 minutes by taking the taxi)

The bus I was waiting for, #33, was slow today. I had to wait about 10 minutes for it, which is very unusual. It finally arrived and I climbed . I positioned myself in the back of the bus, which is apparently the polite thing to do here, pulled out my language book to review on the bus, and began my trip. As we neared one of the major streets in the city, I noticed policemen standing about 1 foot apart from each other lining the streets, and the traffic getting extremely heavy. I had about 1o minutes before my class started, so I started to get a little concerned. My bus was supposed to make a left turn onto the major street, but instead it passed it, and I noticed the major street was completely shut down. I know my way around my area of the city, and this bus was veering off of its path and headed onto unknown streets. I quickly jumped off the bus and decided I would just have to walk for a while and catch another bus or taxi when I saw one.

I walked back to the major street and realized it was lined on both sides by policemen and soldiers. At this point I had to decide to whether or not to actually cross the police tape and go into whatever was going on. I decided to go ahead, after all this was the way to school. As I walked I noticed formations of people up ahead standing at attention and a big charter bus being escorted down the street. It was coming toward me and I was going to get a great view of whatever was going on.

As I got to where the action was taking place I realized what this was. You see, in about 2 weeks the highly publicized "TORCH" for the "BIG GAMES" that are being held in this country is coming through my city. We are extremely excited about this, because we LOVE the "BIG GAMES". Today was the practice, a walk-through if you will. The main road to the whole city was completely shut down at 8:30 this morning in order for the practice to take place....so much for rush hour. Because we have been anticipating the "TORCH's" arrival, we have been wondering where it would pass because we want to see it when it comes by, and now I know.



To conclude my story, I ended up having to walk an hour to school, because the roads were closed all the way to my school. The good news is, my tutor was also stuck in traffic. Someday I will be able to speak this language and can just ask someone what is happening.... I took a picture of the practice, because I am a foreigner and that is what foreigners do.