First time I've felt embarrassed as a foreigner..

One of the best things about London is the Underground, more commonly known as 'the tube'. One of the best things about FIE (my study abroad program) is that the day after my arrival they gave us our tube passes, ready to go. Tube passes are called Oyster cards. Don't ask me why they are called Oyster cards, I have no clue. I vaguely heard that in some other country the transportation card is named after another sea creature. My conjecture is that in London, the world is my oyster...Here is a bad picture of my Oyster card. So when you want to use the tube, you have to scan the Oyster card to get into the station and then you have to swipe again to get out of the station. It's important to swipe out because that's how they can tell if you've paid for the amount of traveling you've done. My Oyster card is set only for zones 1 and 2, zone 1 being central London and zone 2 an area that surrounds zone 1. So if I want to travel outside of zone 2, I have to put more money on my card.

Anyway, tomorrow I am going to Heathrow airport which is in zone 6 so I had to put money on my card. So a friend and I went to the nearest tube station to use the ticket kiosk. Sam tried his card first. He scanned his card, clicked the option that said "Top up/pay as you go" ('top up' means to fill your card up; you can also top up a gift card), and inserted his debit card. Then the screen asked which kind of ticket he wanted to purchase. We got really confused because we thought he had already chosen. We tried pressing cancel but that didn't work. We also didn't want to press "zones 1-6" or "single destination" because we didn't want his card to be charged twice.

Sam decided to go to the ticket attendant while I waited in front of the ticket kiosk. Unfortunately, there were two women talking rather frustratedly to the attendant and Sam had to wait a good amout of time. While he was waiting, I stood in front of the kiosk to make sure no one would use it. I felt bad because it was getting to be rush hour and I blocked several people. But I also tried to discreetly watch the people using the next kiosk to see what we did wrong. Though I felt a little foolish trying not to stare so that I wouldn't be accused of stealing debit card PINs, I was able to watch a couple of people top up their card successfully. And I couldn't figure it out! Then, after a woman wearing a large fur coat topped up her card and left right after paying, I realized that her screen had reverted to the same exact screen that Sam's screen was on. The kiosk wasn't asking for more money - it was ready for a new transaction!

So I relayed this to Sam and we had a little conversation in front of other people in line about how we were complete idiots. But Sam decided to check anyways since he had waited for so long and since the women before him had finished. Sure enough, his card had a new balance of 10 pounds.

Just thought I'd share that little incident. Such a smack-yourself-in-the-forehead moment.