Getting around European countries and cities has been a huge adjustment for me considering in Charleston I can get around mostly everywhere with just my bike and rides from friends. I came to Nice with my friend Reagan who is also a junior at CofC. We live together in an apartment that is about 5 miles away from our school so you have to take a tram or a train to get there. On our first day of orientation, we decided to try to figure out how to take the train to campus. We arrived at the train station and attempted to purchase our tickets but the machines were all in French. We quickly became confused and overwhelmed considering neither of us speak any French and I had never taken a train before. Since we had no idea what we were doing, we decided to ask someone for help to which they responded with only the word “no”. Discouraged, we left the train station and paid $20 to uber to campus. 

Since this experience during my first week in Nice, I have learned so much more than I ever thought I would know about getting around using public transport. The tram is the main way of traveling within the city and I use it almost everyday to get around and go to class. There are also plenty of buses in Nice but I haven’t quite mastered those yet. We have traveled on the train to Cannes, Eze, and Monaco and it is much less daunting than I thought it would be after my initial experience with the train station! Getting around Nice has become very easy and convenient to me. I actually wish Charleston had more public transportation than it does considering the amount of people who do not have cars. 

Once I mastered traveling around Nice, getting around other European cities became a lot easier. Taking flights to other countries can get to be a bit expensive so I have ended up using Flixbus twice, once to go to Florence and once to go to Turin. It cost me around 50 euros round trip and it was as easy as simply showing up at the right bus stop at the right time! Most cities I have visited have very useful public transportation. In Munich, Turin, Budapest and Paris I was able to use the metro systems with no issues. In Florence it was a bit more difficult due to the city having restrictions on many types of public transport, but I still was able to figure out the tram system and call taxis. 

The main lesson I have learned about public transportation is that you have to be patient and not stress. Sometimes your journey might not go as planned. You might accidentally miss your stop or get on the wrong bus. The train may be late or maybe the bus you’re waiting on just doesn’t even show up. It’s not going to be perfect all of the time and it can be confusing but as long as you go with the flow and have patience you’ll get where you’re going!