Lisa Zamecnik

The tube or underground is a very interesting way to travel around London. The landscape is very different from the streets above it. To get to and from the trains you have to pass through areas where you can either buy a ticket or swipe your card to get through to where the trains are located. At some stations you have to walk down stairways or use an escalator or lift if available. If you are lucky enough to use an escalator you have to stand to the right so other people can get by. At other stations you may have to walk through a series of tunnels that occasionally have someone playing an instrument and/or singing hoping some of the people passing by will put money in their case.
If you are changing from one train line to another you have to consult your tube map to see where the stations are located to be able to do this. Sometimes you have to walk quite a distance underground and change levels to get to another train line. This can be tricky at first, but once you get used to how the trains run and if you can read map it is not so bad.

The landscape underground is a series of tunnels to get here and there. Everything, of course, has to be lit. The lighting is very good, but you are reminded of where you are when you peer into a grate in the wall into utter blackness. As you pass these grates you can sometimes feel cool air coming from them. The temperature does fluctuate quite a bit from cold to hot as you are walking to the train. The temperature on the train also can fluctuate from comfortable to unbearably hot especially during rush hour when the trains are full.
Potential passengers always seem to be in a such hurry to reach the trains no matter what time of day it happens to be. During rush hour this is even worse and the passengers are packed into the train cars as tightly as humanly possible. Those that are not lucky enough to get a seat have to stand and hang onto hand rails. The passengers on the trains do not interact with other passengers unless they have to ask them to move so that they can get out. Passengers do not look at each other as they are either reading newspapers, books, playing games on their phones, or listening to music.

Some of the things you hear while on the train are the rustling of newspapers as readers turn the pages and sometimes you will hear passengers talking, but that is usually because they know each other and came on together. You can hear the clacking of the tracks as they pass underneath and the squeal and screech of the wheels as the train is switching tracks. This is so loud that some passengers actually cover their ears with their hands!