Public Transport Adventures

Last night on my way home from work, I discovered a new shoportunity right in the middle of the two U3 platforms in Herrengasse station: on the occasion of the U3's 20th anniversary, a guy was selling books on "subway art". I didn't stop to take a look at the book, but it was a rather unusual sight.

Some minutes later, I got on tram number 9 and was glad to have found a seat near the doors where I could park the suitcase from my Dublin trip. I was idly looking from the big tatooed guy in combat gear with an incongruously small dog on a leash to the approximately 6-year-old boy he was talking to when I noticed something...disturbing. The boy had a real (as in: LIVING) snake wrapped around his neck and shoulders. Don't ask me what type it was, I don't want to know, but it was a rusty brown and as wide as the boy's arms. Now I noticed why there wasn't exactly a crowd in the rear part of the tram where the boy was sitting. Most passengers had taken a seat in a safe distance and were eying the animal with suspicion. A guy with a slavic accent sitting behind me asked if it was dangerous. The man replied it wasn't. His reply to the question whether it had teeth was, "it doesn't have teeth, it's a constrictor snake, you know." Gulp. How comforting to know. He also showed the guy another, smaller, snake he had in one of the pockets of his jacket and when they got off at my station, he casually picked up the animal from the boy's shoulder and stuffed it into another pocket.

I don't even want to know what other lovely "pets" people take for an excursion on public transport. For the record, I've seen a pig and rats on the subway. I just hope that the owners of furry spiders stick to their own cars.