It's Soooooo British!

London has a huge fleet of large double-decker buses (many very modern) which we've been enjoying using lately. The Underground is wonderful for getting to places quickly. But it has one drawback -- traveling in a tunnel underground doesn't let you get a feel for where things are in relation to each other. (We had used the underground to go both to Picadilly Circus and to Leicester Square many times. Because these two places are stops on different underground lines, we hadn't realized that they are only a short distance apart.) Lately, we've been taking buses more often and find it's really a helpful way to learn our way around London.

Recently, London has been adding new, very long articulated buses that have an accordion-like section in the middle that lets the bus make turns as though it were a shorter vehicle. There are buses like this in San Francisco and other US cities -- I think they are generally called articulated buses. See one at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/548620.

But the Brits have their own unique way of looking at things -- here in London, these are called "bendy buses". Actually, that's a very good name for them -- really describes them. But, somehow, we don't think they would ever have gotten that name in any other country -- "bendy buses" is so British!