On my recent trip to Barcelona, I was interested in the names of the train stations for the Metro subway. The confusing Catalan language already puzzled me (Even though I speak Spanish), but the Catalan named stations did as well. There were many funny names I could hardly pronounce.
Try to remember Pont d'Esplugues, or how about Pius XII. Try to say Urquinaona three times fast? It was very difficult to ask for train stations when I could barely pronounce them. (I'm sorry Spain for butchering your language!)
The story a local Spaniard told me was that when the city streets were being laid out, the King chose the smartest, wealthiest and well respected man in the city. (Not sure what his name is) They would have him name all the city streets, no matter what. He chose to name them in Catalan after various things in the Catalan culture. In respect to the city street names, the stations were also named and written in the Catalan language.
In my hometown of New York City, train stations are usually by the number of the street. We have some stations named by their famous destination, such as
116 St Columbia University (One of my stations!)
161 St Yankee Stadium 77th Street: Lenox Hill Hospital Do your stations have interesting names? Are they named after anything?
Comments (7)
well, in Milan we have QT8 (stands for Quarter T8, don't know why the T8), Uruguay, Inganni (it means "Deceives"), Wagner, some saints-named stations...and others I don't remember now...
well, when i was in London i got a big kick out of the Elephant & Castle station, lol.
I live in Houston, TX. We don't have trains or subways. :P
lol. I've been to Madrid, and most certainly understand this post! Some of them are weird and hard to figure out how to say.
In Seoul, SK, there's a train station called "Express Bus Terminal Station" because buses come there. Haha....Also, they have names of stations that almost sound the same, like "Shin-cheon" & "Shin-chun." (almost the same except for the last vowel sound)
@iJUST_ATEabug@xanga - Ha! Too cute.
That Columbia University would confuse me epically if I saw that before reading this. I would think to myself, 'There's a university in a train station?!'