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Not my experience at all this spring, but we only took taxis to and from airports.
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Sep 14, 2023 00:51
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I had a taxi driver try to scam us leaving the Wien Hauptbahnhof for our hotel. Every other city we went to, we just walked to the accommodation. I checked the fare beforehand and it was 5-6 Euros. The first red flag was waiting in the queue outside the station, the first driver at the front telling us to go a random driver five cars back. Then our driver pulls out of the access road, turns off the meter and says it will be 20 euros. I say gently caress off, we're getting out here at this red light. I grabbed our stuff out of the trunk while the driver was trying to barter the price down. We walked to the other side of the viaduct and got an honest cabbie.
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Sep 14, 2023 05:03
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The taxi from Charles de Gaulle to Levallois-Perret cost me, or rather my company, 100EUR and it's like 30km. There was some traffic, but still. It was from the official taxi line at the arrivals, but I'm still not sure it wasn't a scam. The guy met me at the line and we walked to the car (which did have all the paperwork and registration) but it still could've been anyone. Just recently I took a taxi to Marco Pollo in Venice and it was a fixed price of 35 and he didn't try anything funny. Still it's kind of a crap shoot sometimes so I do prefer the apps. Even then though it's not perfect - surge pricing can just kick in from minute to minute and you'd have to shell out 50% more if you want to get anywhere.
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Sep 14, 2023 13:50
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In Europe, you're usually better off getting a train or bus from the airport into the city. Most major European city airports have excellent train links that are fast, convenient and cheap. They may not necessarily be comfy, but if you're only going into the city centre it's usually a short trip. Even cities with airports that aren't directly linked to the railway, like Budapest, usually have a very good value bus service that costs a fraction of a taxi ride.
Hedgehog Pie fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Sep 14, 2023 |
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Sep 14, 2023 14:26
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mobby_6kl posted:Oh, I had a post somewhere on the forms with a bunch of suggestions. I'll quote it here if I find it. For Warsaw in addition to the obvious historic center with all the stuff there, I remember the highlights being the Neon museum, the Jewish history museum, and going up the Palace of Culture. In Krakow there's a Schindler museum, Polish Aviation museum, game/arcade museum, Wieliczka salt mines, day trip to Zakopane or Auschwitz if you've never been. If you make it to Katowice there's a cool regional museum in an old mining installation. Thanks! It's been years since I've been to the aviation museum, but not sure I can convince my wife to go this time, especially since our son is so young. I've never actually been to the Schindler museum, so that might be on the list. Auschwitz is probably a full day, factoring in travel, right?
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Sep 14, 2023 15:07
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Hedgehog Pie posted:In Europe, you're usually better off getting a train or bus from the airport into the city. Most major European city airports have excellent train links that are fast, convenient and cheap. They may not necessarily be comfy, but if you're only going into the city centre it's usually a short trip. Even cities with airports that aren't directly linked to the railway, like Budapest, usually have a very good value bus service that costs a fraction of a taxi ride. This is true except for Fiumicino airport just outside of Rome. It has a great train link to Rome, but my god are the bus connections utter poo poo. Google Maps sent me on a wild goose chase and I ended up walking almost an hour upon arrival because none of the buses existed or showed up on time. Absolutely ridiculous, and I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because the taxi drivers were all trying to overcharge me, but the buses weren't showing up and it was really late at night so the train to Rome wasn't working. One of the roughest arrivals I've ever had.
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Sep 14, 2023 15:13
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Arriving in Rome dead tired and having the cab driver charge me 30 euros to get to the door of where I'm about to sleep for a day is worth every penny in my opinion
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Sep 14, 2023 15:44
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Last time I flew into London and then Berlin I splurged on booking a driver online, totally worth it.
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Sep 14, 2023 15:49
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Hedgehog Pie posted:In Europe, you're usually better off getting a train or bus from the airport into the city. Most major European city airports have excellent train links that are fast, convenient and cheap. They may not necessarily be comfy, but if you're only going into the city centre it's usually a short trip. Even cities with airports that aren't directly linked to the railway, like Budapest, usually have a very good value bus service that costs a fraction of a taxi ride. CDG->Levallois-Perret was (supposed to, without traffic) 30 minutes ride vs 70 minutes with at least one transfer. If I were paying I'd put up with it for 100EUR though lol. In Venice or rather Mestre the taxi mafia must've gotten to the city officials because both the city and express buses cost 10EUR, so for a party of 3 it's better to just have the driver pick you up at the hotel. Prague has several buses that cost like $2 and take you to metro stops but after a long flight, having to wait and transfer especially if you have luggage is like uuhhhh. Residency Evil posted:Thanks! It's been years since I've been to the aviation museum, but not sure I can convince my wife to go this time, especially since our son is so young. I've never actually been to the Schindler museum, so that might be on the list. Auschwitz is probably a full day, factoring in travel, right?  " phase yet. Schindler's museum is mostly on the overall history of Krakow during the occupation and holocaust but if you aren't already overloaded on that, definitely worth checking out.The Auschwitz tour is like 3 hours plus security and queuing etc so you could theoretically combine it with something. I barely made it to a tour of the Guido coal mine (absolutely worth checking out but it's even farther away from Krakow) by not eating anything all day and bailing immediately after the end of the official tour. So it'd be smarter to dedicate a day especially with a family 
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Sep 14, 2023 18:26
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Good point, my flights to Europe aren't long-haul flights, though I do try to find public transport options even when I'm flying further afield because I'm a massive skinflint (from a third-world country lolol) and I think I just like those options better anyway. I was going to cite getting the train from Narita in Tokyo after a long flight (I first went before they expanded Haneda), but I can't imagine getting a cab is much better in that case, either for the sake of time or your wallet. This is just going from/to the airport to/from the city centre too. For CDG in this instance, I can't picture not taking the RER-metro (though maybe if I have to do Chatelet-Les Halles one more time, maybe I'll change my tune). Hedgehog Pie fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Sep 14, 2023 |
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Sep 14, 2023 21:49
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Hedgehog Pie posted:In Europe, you're usually better off getting a train or bus from the airport into the city. Most major European city airports have excellent train links that are fast, convenient and cheap. They may not necessarily be comfy, but if you're only going into the city centre it's usually a short trip. Even cities with airports that aren't directly linked to the railway, like Budapest, usually have a very good value bus service that costs a fraction of a taxi ride. I'm European and I avoid taxis like the plague. My main contact with taxis is having them cut me off and/or crash into me when cycling in Amsterdam. There is pretty much always a better way. I've traveled quite a lot and the only time I've had to take one within Europe was at Sofia airport in Bulgaria when arriving at like 23:30 (and I got scammed). I've also had to take them in Brazil and Peru but I guess there it's more common and less scammy. Entropist fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Sep 14, 2023 |
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Sep 14, 2023 23:51
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mobby_6kl posted:Maybe skip the aviation then if the kid isn't in the "airplanes Thanks! Is there a preferred way of getting to Wieliczka with a family? Is Uber still a good option around Kraków? Last time I was there it was incredibly cheap.
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Sep 15, 2023 13:44
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Residency Evil posted:Thanks! Is there a preferred way of getting to Wieliczka with a family? Is Uber still a good option around Kraków? Last time I was there it was incredibly cheap.
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Sep 15, 2023 15:33
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When we left CDG to get a taxi the one we got was 140 Euros for a ~55 minute ride to central Paris (opera district). It was a nice Mercedes van, guy was super polite. Scam or just high-end? I would have absolutely done public transport but my dad is with us (and footing the bill for the France portion) and can’t travel far or fast on foot.
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Sep 15, 2023 16:04
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Easychair Bootson posted:When we left CDG to get a taxi the one we got was 140 Euros for a ~55 minute ride to central Paris (opera district). It was a nice Mercedes van, guy was super polite. Scam or just high-end? You paid like 2x and got scammed. Could be an "traditional" scam overpayment, or a "legitimate" soft-scam in that you got upsold to a way more expensive large van “premium service" when a regular sized taxi would have worked. If the meter was running it was probably the second.
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Sep 15, 2023 18:16
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A lot of regular taxis in Europe are Mercedes for some reason.
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Sep 16, 2023 12:35
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I’ve used Uber in a bunch of random countries now (or the specific local equivalents) and have never had a problem. Assuming you have data the driver knows exactly where you’re going, the price is fixed upfront, you can see if they’re diverting etc. Generally the biggest issue is in places where Uber exists but doesn’t have drivers because of the taxi mafia (eg Thailand)
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Sep 17, 2023 10:40
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I did find out the hard way that uber adds a minor fine to your price if you're at the pick up location a minute late
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Sep 17, 2023 13:36
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webmeister posted:I’ve used Uber in a bunch of random countries now (or the specific local equivalents) and have never had a problem. Assuming you have data the driver knows exactly where you’re going, the price is fixed upfront, you can see if they’re diverting etc. Generally the biggest issue is in places where Uber exists but doesn’t have drivers because of the taxi mafia (eg Thailand) I’ve never heard an actual human being have a particularly bad time with an Uber/Bolt/Careem/whatever. You see outrage articles online by poo poo-stirrers who are either useful idiots to Big Taxi, or are Extremely Online people who never travel and are reactionaries to everything related to tech bros. Yeah, there’s a lot of stupid and bad techbro stuff, but I can’t even imagine stanning for traditional taxis. From my own anecdotal experience the "minor bad time" things with taxis are overcharging, unsafe driving, and unsafe vehicle, which happens exclusively with taxis and never with Ubers. For women add "creepy driver" as another common issue with taxis that is far more common than in Uber/Careem/etc.
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Sep 17, 2023 19:34
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Haven't heard any bad stories about taxis in Barcelona --although I'm sure scams do happen, it's Spain after all. But the taxis are cheap and plentiful and easy to use and never gave me a problem. I take public transit all the time but depending where I am in the city it can be nice to spend 10 Euros and get home 20 minutes faster. I'm glad there's no Uber here. At least living somewhere dense enough, I really prefer the experience of hailing a passing taxi than using an app. Although I really don't know what's different here that you don't see those scams (assuming my first- and second-hand experience isn't wrong, which it could be). I think the worst that happened is 1 out of 100 being overly chatty, but that's a way better ratio than Uber in the US. Well, the real downside is the rare occasions when you can't find one on the street. There is an app, but it's a crapshoot if anyone will take your ride. The trick is to find a hotel and ask the front desk to call one. Anyways, point is, I for one am glad to live in a taxi land instead of Uber land, although I totally get it elsewhere in Europe. Ninja edit: I don't think it's only that I live here, because I read quite strong as a tourist, and never heard any problems from our friends and relatives (actual tourists) who come visit us.
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Sep 17, 2023 20:03
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I never really take taxis in Europe but when I was in Vegas all my rideshare drivers had just moved to town and didn't know poo poo about poo poo. The taxis were the same price and they were up to speed on traffic and constructionand best drop-off points and saved me about 15-20 minutes per trip. They've also got an app and a special phone number that goes to all taxis, seems like the taxis are actually doing something to suck less there.
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Sep 17, 2023 22:19
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Saladman posted:I’ve never heard an actual human being have a particularly bad time with an Uber/Bolt/Careem/whatever. You see outrage articles online by poo poo-stirrers who are either useful idiots to Big Taxi, or are Extremely Online people who never travel and are reactionaries to everything related to tech bros. Yeah, there’s a lot of stupid and bad techbro stuff, but I can’t even imagine stanning for traditional taxis. Not a Europe experience (I take public transit if I have a choice, and honestly "no transit" is a minus when picking destinations) but I've definitely had unsafe drivers with Uber. One dude was clearly falling asleep and had trouble staying in a lane. If there had been a non-highway portion of that trip (out to the airport) I'd have had him pull over and let me out early. I always report stuff like this but I've never seen the same driver twice anyway so I have no idea whether these things are acted on, or how many chances they're given.
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Sep 18, 2023 00:08
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I almost never take taxis or ride shares in Europe, so I guess my comments are off topic for the thread. I use it a lot in middle income / lower middle income countries like Egypt and Panama and Colombia and etc. I checked my Uber account and looks like I’ve taken three Ubers in Europe in the past three years, and probably not even one single taxi. Uber and similar are an absolute godsend in less wealthy countries.
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Sep 18, 2023 07:24
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I just found out that Germany's "day of German Unity" will take place while I'm in Berlin. So I looked up what that means, and found this website: https://www.berlin.de/en/events/2716319-2842498-day-of-german-unity.en.html It says: quote:The Day of German Unity is Germany's national holiday. It commemorates the German reunification in 1990 and is traditionally celebrated with a festival around Platz der Republik, Straße des 17. Juni and the Brandenburg Gate. In 2023, there will be no festival. Does anyone have any context? What do they mean there's no festival? Are there any smaller parties or anything or is this more a family celebration at home?
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Sep 18, 2023 21:45
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For 99.999% of people it's just a day off work. There's never really any celebration like on the 4th of July in the US. Edit: even in German the site is light on the info and it seems like they rushed to get the info out but yeah, nothing happening apparently. Drone fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Sep 19, 2023 |
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Sep 19, 2023 06:02
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Festivities are apparently in Hamburg this year, found an article that says they're "expecting hundreds of thousands".
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Sep 19, 2023 07:40
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I read that every year the main festivities are in another city, but there's also usually a small festival in Berlin. The small festival in Berlin is cancelled this year.
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Sep 19, 2023 07:47
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Drone posted:Also go to Reffen Street Food, place owns. Seconding this, you can do some real damage here.
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Sep 20, 2023 11:37
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glasnost toyboy posted:Seconding this, you can do some real damage here. Honestly next time I go (sometime next summer) I'm just gonna make a day of it. The idea of just chilling, peoplewatching, slowly daydrinking and eating one of everything all day sounds amazing and decadent and expensive.
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Sep 20, 2023 14:35
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glasnost toyboy posted:Seconding this, you can do some real damage here. Drone posted:Honestly next time I go (sometime next summer) I'm just gonna make a day of it. The idea of just chilling, peoplewatching, slowly daydrinking and eating one of everything all day sounds amazing and decadent and expensive. It's funny, I had planned on going Monday, September 25th - my last full day in Copenhagen - but it looks like the last day Reffen's open is the 24th. They're having a huge end-of-season party that day, so I'll be going to that instead, after a museum in the early afternoon. A little bit of luck, I'm happy I checked!
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Sep 20, 2023 16:20
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How is Uber not the same thing as a taxi from a customer's point of view, exactly? e: I mean what happens very often is I order a car through Uber or a competitor and the car that shows up has a taxi sign on it. DanTheFryingPan fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Sep 21, 2023 |
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Sep 21, 2023 14:51
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DanTheFryingPan posted:How is Uber not the same thing as a taxi from a customer's point of view, exactly? With Uber the fare is determined and collected via a singular app. The driver is not part of that process. With traditional taxis the fare is determined by a meter inside the car that can be hosed with (specifically, turned off) and you pay either the driver directly or via some payment mechanism in the car. So you really can't get scammed by using Uber specifically but taxi drivers can and do pull poo poo like turning the meter off and telling you the price will be much more than is advertised.
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Sep 21, 2023 14:57
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Yeah, knowing and paying for my ride in advance is the difference. We know the route and a drat close estimation of the time now, and so we know the rate
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Sep 21, 2023 15:36
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Maybe not a recent thing but the last bunch of hotels I've stayed in in Paris (mostly for work) have all been extremely basic despite being "4*". Seems to be an increasingly widespread practice to provide a quality of service that technically meets whatever the requirements are for that star rating on a good day and absolutely nothing more. Somehow they manage to put every room next to the ancient, tiny and noisy lift
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Sep 21, 2023 15:52
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distortion park posted:Maybe not a recent thing but the last bunch of hotels I've stayed in in Paris (mostly for work) have all been extremely basic despite being "4*". Seems to be an increasingly widespread practice to provide a quality of service that technically meets whatever the requirements are for that star rating on a good day and absolutely nothing more. Somehow they manage to put every room next to the ancient, tiny and noisy lift 4* is always kind of a meaningless designation anyway, even worse than the meaningless of stars in general, with 5* hotels needing useless archaic bullshit like having a shop in the lobby selling overpriced jewelry and clothes. With old printed guidebooks it made more sense, but the difference between 3* and 4* hotel is dumb stuff like 24 hour room service and more variety in room types.
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Sep 21, 2023 16:52
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It's not proper Paris if your hotel doesn't have a tiny screechy lift. Also, everything needs to be brown and yellow.
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Sep 21, 2023 17:36
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DanTheFryingPan posted:How is Uber not the same thing as a taxi from a customer's point of view, exactly? Part of my reason is because debit card payments are stupid (instant and irreversible) in the Netherlands and most Dutch banks would rather go bankrupt than assist you with a chargeback for a credit card transaction, but: If a regular metered cab driver screws me, the money is gone. I can fight the cab driver, who is obviously a piece of poo poo, or if he's part of a bigger company, I can fight the company he works for, who will always take his side. They will absolutely never respond to an individual consumer complaint. If an Uber driver screws me, it takes one message (likely to a support center in Asia where they don't give a gently caress about individual drivers in Amsterdam) to get my money back. If they don't, it's one chat message to American Express to get my money back. So the combination of Uber and Amex gives me the best position to get my money back in case of trouble. Drivers or cab companies won't take Amex directly, so you're forced to go through one of the apps, who presumably get a better rate, because Amex is too expensive for a lot of companies. That said, I don't use Uber anymore since a driver threatened to break into my home and kill me because he claimed my friend had broken the plexiglass barrier in his car (covid times) by lightly brushing against it with a pizza box. He was very obviously just trying to make me pay for some preexisting damage. Why else would he insist on having to inspect the back when we reached our destination? So I told him to go gently caress himself and walked away while he was yelling that he knew where I lived and that he was going to kill me. Always leave as many car doors as possible open when you walk away from a cab in a situation like this so they can't pursue. It did take Uber a week to respond to my complaint. I got my money back, and don't know if anything else happened. Probably not. I've taken maybe three cab rides in Amsterdam since then, one of them returning from the hospital at 3AM when I absolutely had no other choice. Abroad, I use whatever Uber competitor is popular. I regularly travel to Lithuania where Bolt is a big one I can't state more clearly how much I hate Amsterdam cab drivers. I will always step out into a crossing when I can tell they have no intention of even slowing down and will 100% give them the finger to tell them what I think of their driving when they brake just in time. Whenever I do this, they almost always get out of their car to scream at me. Must be great for their passengers to see what a piece of poo poo they've entrusted their life to
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Sep 22, 2023 12:23
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For anyone else reading this thread looking for Europe travel advice: please don’t jump in front of speeding taxis just to prove a point.
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Sep 22, 2023 12:33
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Judgy Fucker posted:For anyone else reading this thread looking for Europe travel advice: please don’t jump in front of speeding taxis just to prove a point. Jeez aren’t you a judgy fucker 
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Sep 22, 2023 12:56
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Judgy Fucker posted:For anyone else reading this thread looking for Europe travel advice: please don’t jump in front of speeding taxis just to prove a point. Don't tell me how to party in Amsterdam!
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Sep 22, 2023 14:15
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