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Using Public Transportation in Europe

It’s not as scary as you think it is

Shefali O'Hara
10 min readNov 19, 2019
View Overlooking Prague — Photo by Shefali O’Hara

A friend of mine and I recently got back from Europe. We visited Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic during an amazing two weeks.

When we first started, my friend confessed over coffee in Budapest that the public transportation system intimidated him.

“Well, of course it does,” I told him. “You grew up in suburbia. When was the last time you had to use the subway, or ride a bus?”

“You seem pretty confident,” he said.

“I grew up in New York City,” I pointed out. “I used to take the subway every day when I was in high school, to get to school and back. Plus I’ve traveled in Europe before.”

A few days later, he spent the day on his own in Vienna. He took the bus to the train to the Leopold Museum for a Klimt exhibit. He came back elated.

“How was the exhibit?” I asked.

“The exhibit was amazing! And, it was so easy to get there and back! It wasn’t hard at all to use the public transport!”

And it really isn’t!

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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