Monday, April 10, 2006

Welcome to SF, buddy!

Just how tourist-friendly is BART and the Bay Area? Judging by today's observation, I would have to say not very. A man, who appears to be a tourist (he has a Euro accent, a huge backpack and 3 luggage pieces), looks at the train status sign, confused. The sign is flashing, "SFO 10 car train." He looks up at the sign, then inside the train, extremely tentative to step inside. He finally asks a passenger inside, "Does this go to San Francisco?" To my surprise, the passenger (standing by the door) responds, "No!" The tourist then says, "What's SFO? Not SF? No?" The passenger says, "No. Wrong train buddy." This man looked like a normal commuter so he must know that a SFO train passes by SF! I was too far from the conversation to yell out that yes, this does pass by all the SF stations! Apparently, no one else wanted to help out this tourist.

Finally, the tourist turns way from the train, asks someone standing in line at the station. As the train was pulling away, I am guessing by his expression that he found out that this train DOES go to SF, and he was the subject of a mean joke. He could only watch the train leave without him.

Not a great impression for the tourist to have of the SF Bay Area.

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