Muggle Mayhem

 

Hello and welcome back to Muggle Mayhem! I hope everyone has recovered from those scary vacuums we discussed last time! Today we will be discussing a less intimidating topic: Muggle transportation! Cars, bikes, motorcycles, buses, boats, planes, trains, and more! Since Muggles do not have magic like we do, they can’t use things like apparition, floo powder, brooms, or portkeys. Though, we do have a couple methods of transportation in common like boats and trains.

Let’s start off with those two that we have in common. When we say boats, you might think of the boats you rode across the Black Lake before your first year. Well, Muggles have boats like that, but they have to paddle them. Muggles also use much larger boats that are propelled by a motor. They use boats called motorboats for fun and Muggles who have more money sometimes have huge boats called yachts. These huge boats can have restaurants, pools, and rooms as big as the Great Hall in them! They are quite impressive. Similarly, Muggle trains are quite different from the Hogwarts Express. Muggles used to use trains like that, but now they use trains that don’t use steam engines or coal. Their trains go much faster and they even have trains that travel exclusively underground. All major cities have these underground trains that are called subways.

Now, the most common means of transportation that Muggles use are those that go on roads like cars, motorcycles, and buses. Most Muggles own a car that can fit five or more people in it. They drive their cars to their job, to the store, and pretty much anywhere they need to go. Lots of Muggles find driving to be quite stressful, especially when it is in a crowded city. I asked Hogwarts’ resident Muggle expert, Professor Alberstein about why this is. This was her response: “Ah, yes. Driving can be chaotic and stressful. This is because so many other muggles wish to drive in the same place as you and tend to either speed up extremely fast, or slow extremely slow. Either way the traffic can lead to feeling stressed while on the road.”

Motorcycles, on the other hand, are often used for fun. They are a one-person vehicle with two wheels that many Muggles find thrilling to ride. A smaller version of motorcyles that don’t have an engine are bicycles. The user must propel themselves by moving pedals with their feet. When I asked Professor Alberstein what her favorite Muggle transportation was, she said, “I myself find the bicycle to be the best form of transportation. It’s easy to get the hang of using and a lot easier than some of the other forms of transportation they use.” A common phrase that Muggles use to describe something that they have not done in a while but were able to do fine is “it’s just like riding a bike; you never forget how to.”

Buses are considered public transportation that Muggles can pay to use. These buses follow the same route all the time and take Muggles to specific places around a city. They can fit lots of people. This is how most Muggle children get to school every day. So, dear reader, you might be asking, “why have we not adopted some of these modes of transportation?” I had the same question. Professor Alberstein’s thoughts are that “the wizarding world finds them to be almost a hassle to use. They're so used to magic, that it makes things like using a bicycle or driving a long on a road in a car too difficult.”

 

What do you think? Would you use Muggle transportation if given the chance? I would like to thank Professor Alberstein for taking the time to answer my questions and for giving me some more insight into this fascinating subject! If you have a Muggle object that you would like to learn more about, send me an owl!

 

This blog was written with love by: Banhi Patil