Something that all non-British people living in the UK should keep in mind is the fact that most public places are inherently designed for walking on the left-hand side, exactly as cars are being driven on roads. Although Big Brother may not punish you for any offence related to walking where one shouldn’t walk, doing so can have some uncomfortable consequences.This doesn’t necessarily mean everybody here upholds this unwritten rule, so that you could only see people using sidewalks, corridors, alleys, pedestrian bridges etc in this orderly manner. What I mean is that the Brits unknowingly organize even the movement of people like the movement of vehicles.
No matter what a trivial cultural difference this may seem to many, I think it’s useful for anyone to be aware of it. Therefore, I strongly recommend this blog post, and subsequent comments for more details on the issue.
It’s very unlikely (even for a country with weird laws like the UK :-) that a normative act requires pedestrians to walk on the left, but it is highly advisable to do so. For instance, in a London underground station like the above, if you don’t walk on the “right lane,” you may suddenly have to face a flood of people coming towards you.
Then, if you circulated on the wrong track, you may find yourself in front of a moving stairway which descends, whilst you actually wanted to go up… or the other way around. When you’ve got heavy luggage and you’re in a hurry, and so are the scores of people behind you, that’s truly a nasty situation, isn’t it?
[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]
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2 comments:
It's very true! I remember going to school on the Tube and getting annoyed when people stood on the left hand side of the escalator, holding me up on my journey!
A pleasure to meet you on the Megabus! I sat in your eat on the way back, and it was so very cold!
I hope everything went well for you in the UK!
Andrew
It's so good to see that a nice Londoner (met on a freezing night bus, and then very briefly in Edinburgh) visited my blog!
Thanks for confirming my opinion. Of course there is no 'law' in this regard, yet people in the UK really seem to be fond of their driving/walking on the left-hand side. Not being aware of this may generate little 'uncomfortable' situations.
As for how things went for me in the UK, this whole blog will keep dealing with the issue for many months from now on... maybe even for a lifetime! From many points of view, Great Britain is 'an ideal country' to live it, from others it isn't so... Too bad the blog is bilingual, thus you won't get the whole array of my views, but I'm thnakful for having visitied it at least once. Maybe you'll do it again :)
Good luck with your interesting career plan, God bless you!
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