A travelin' (wo)man...

I was thinking this morning that I've traveled a lot in my life and in recent years have found myself wanting to take public or mass transit when visiting other cities and countries, if nothing else, to see how their systems compare to my beloved DC. 

So I cataloged all the US cities and international cities where I've utilized their public or mass transit systems. First note to mention: I say 'mass transit' in addition to 'public' because a lot of time overseas their transit is actually privatized, at least in Europe, and that's a whole 'nother discussion for a different post (andwhyIthinktheUSisbehindontransit, coughcough).

I also would like to define what I consider to be "mass or public transit". This is city/county buses, commuter/regional rail, subways, trolleys and light rails. This does NOT include passenger rail (i.e. Amtrak), planes, ferries, or taxicabs. 

So without any further ado, here is my ever-growing list that I would like to continue to enhance! (ordered by proximity to where I call "home")

Washington, DC (obvi) and surrounding jurisdictions (MoCo, NoVa, etc.)
Baltimore, Maryland
New York, New York
Columbus, Ohio
Boston, Massachusetts 
Chicago, Illinois
San Francisco, California 
Seattle, Washington

London, England
Paris, France (twice!)
Pisa, Italy
Rome, Italy
Athens, Greece

Sadly, I've been to plenty more cities than this, but either due to circumstance, stupidity or age, we didn't utilize the public transit systems in those places, walked, drove, or cabbed A LOT, or I just don't remember it. Here's to hoping that changes and I can teach my future children about the importance of it someday and cities continue to improve their transit so that tourists feel compelled to use it! 

Brr, Brr, Brring it on, Spring!

So, unless you've been living in a ice-encrusted igloo somewhere on one of the Poles and have no access to electricity, you may not be aware that the entire continental US has entered into the end of days with the polar vortex of 2015. 

My thoughts on this today, the coldest day I've experienced by far in my 30+ years of life (and was record breaking in DC), when my car read 1 degree this morning when I got in at 6:15am and didn't rise much above that after the sun came up:

-It's really cold and yes we're going to complain about it until the cows come home. I live in the mid-Atlantic, not Canada, not Boston, not Chiberia, so when I complain, it's because WE ARE NOT LIVING IN THOSE CITIES, therefore SHOULDN'T HAVE my eyes water and immediately freeze when stepping outside. Ok, end rant. (PS - I have to admit that I do like to give our family in Florida a hard time when they complain it's cold outside when it's 40 or 50 degrees. You wish.)

Never moving to Chicago -- sorry, Grandipants.

-Despite my complaining, I'm very thankful for a warm home, car, and workplace to relish in 23.5 hours of the day during these crazy-town temperatures.

Smart little creature.

Wish I had one of these, but the vents in my ceiling work just as well.

-There are some nutbags (and by nutbags, I mean LADIES) walking around with skirts, AND NO TIGHTS ON in this weather (I've blogged about this before). Now, I saw one woman with knee socks on, but still, that's a lot of thin layering going on between the knee and the waist...more than I can handle on a 50 degree day, honestly. Brave women. Stupid women, but brave. 

There's no shame in that, Joey.

-Commuting sucks in this weather. This might be the only time of year I wish I drove to work and only had to be outside for about 10 minutes of my day, versus waiting for a bus or a train for 5-10 minutes each time. On that same regard, waiting in The Line also blows in a climate like this. I really wanted to yell at some people when they cut in line today, but my lungs hurt too much from the cold to attempt to. 

I do feel for our furry friends during this cold. Their poor wittle feet. :(

-Finally, I'm going to have to invest in a few massages come spring because I find myself lifting my shoulders in a shrug-like position and HOLDING them there when it's this cold. Almost like I'm trying to keep my ears and neck warm with my bony shoulders. I'm a weirdo. 

I'm permanently stuck like this, December thru March.

Alright, enough complaining, but good news is, only 1 month until Spring officially comes back to taunt us, sticking around for maybe 45 days before it's seeping hot in DC once more. Yay. 

Bad Luck Friday (and Thursday)

So, WMATA/Metro is on my list. Thanks to a 12 minute wait, ON THE TRAIN at Judiciary Square (across from my work, where I catch the Metro each day) last night, I missed my 5:40 MARC train out of Union Station (as did a lot of other people). The next one wasn't until 6:20, overcrowded and getting me home at 7:15pm, when I usually leave work at 10 until 5pm. Gah. 

My annoyance at last night's issues.

Then this morning, you lovely public transit system, I arrive at a crowded Metro platform at Union Station once I got off the MARC train, to find it filled with people, anxiously awaiting a train on the Shady Grove bound side...the direction I want to go. 

My thoughts exactly, Liz Lemon.

A train pulls up and is stuffed to the gills with people. Your ever so communicative train operator says "Please do not try and get on this train if there is no room. There is a train directly behind this one. I repeat, there is a train directly behind this one." So, I wait. With bated breath. 

Pardon my French, train conductor, but directly behind you, my rear-end?! I stood for another 15 minutes to wait for that train, supposedly coming directly behind you. Blarg. 

Preach, Amy.

The platform continues to fill with people and FINALLY a miraculous sight appears: an utterly empty Metro train. We all rejoice and I still made it to work by 8:45am (with a stop off at CVS to buy Valentine candy for my wonderful co-workers). 

Thankfully my mood improved after that and even though I missed two opportunities this week to use my monthly MARC train ticket to ride Metro for free, it's finally Friday, albeit the 13th, and Valentine's Day tomorrow. Who doesn't love spreading a bit of love around on a globally concluded unlucky day of the year?! Happy V-Day, y'all!

I plan to.

Bad commuter, Bad!

So, as a commuter, usually I'm super good about being prepared before I leave the house each morning with what I might need for the day, umbrella, boots, hood, coat, gloves, etc. But I'm also careful to not have to cart everything with me if I don't need to. That just causes undue shoulder pain, lugging all that around in my bag.

Yesterday they were calling for rain in the evening, so I packed my umbrella as a smart commuter would, but I do remember thinking to myself, before I left the house: Should I wear my rubber boots? 

Alas, I didn't. I walked out of the house in my flimsy little black flats I wear 4 days out of 5 and boy, did I regret it. When I left work yesterday afternoon to head to my board meeting, it was raining, but not too terribly hard. Well, it was not falling hard from the sky, but the wetness already on the sidewalk soaked straight through my shoes, into my socks and I was miserable the rest of the night. Ick. Nothing is worse than wet socks. Well, there might be a few things, but that's close to the top of my list.

Needless to say, going forward, I'll answer 'YES' to my hypothetical questions when I leave the house each morning. I'm pretty sure I ruined my shoes and I'm lucky I didn't wake up all snuffly and sickly this morning.

Poor, sad, little commuter. You gots your feet all wet.

Holy snow

Found this gem today, via The Washington Post. Apparently a freight train in Canada ain't scared of no snow, no sirree. Click the link below to see pretty cool (ha!) footage of him plowing through the white powdery stuff. It gets good around the :26 mark. And I love the photographer being a true craftsman and artist at the end and wiping his lens free of the frozen stuff.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/06/snow-is-no-match-for-this-new-brunswick-locomotive-video/

I've always wondered how deep snow would be for a train NOT to get through on the tracks, but apparently this one has upped the bar. 

Happy Friday, dear readers!

RIP SmarTrip card

Today is a sad day in the history of my public transit days. I had to say goodbye to my original SmarTrip card. For you Londoners, it's like your Oyster Card, or for Red Sox fans, the Charlie Card; the SmarTrip is just DC's version.

Originally intended and marketed for daily commuters, the DC Metro now incentivizes purchasing these for anyone traveling on Metro as it's an additional $1, each way, for using a paper fare card, and as DC commuters are aware, it's already pretty expensive to ride the Metro. It is a minimum $10 to purchase -- $2 for the actual card and $8 pre-loaded onto it when you buy it.

I remember when Metro first came out with these and they became the necessary method of exiting a paid parking facility of Metro. Once, in the early days, my mother and I had a hilarious time thinking we could pay cash to leave the lot and there was no attendant to pay. So we backed out over the curb and grass to exit the lot, versus just running back to the station to buy one of these puppies. Whoops! Now, thankfully, you can use credit card OR SmarTrip to pay for parking at a Metro lot. 

On the top is my new card, purchased fresh this morning and the bottom, is my fairly in good shape original one. Recently, every time I went in and out of the turn stalls, I'd have to swipe it 3 or 4 times to get it to register, if it registered at all. Even more recently, it'd usually not work after those few swipes, so I'd go to the purchase machines and get it to at least register on them...then it would seem to work to pass through the gates. 

In the past few days, I had to resort to going to the Metro attendants and have them "reactivate" or swipe it in their magic machine to make cards work. I tried to see how long I could do this as I had more than $30 left on the old card. Well, I couldn't hold out any longer. I became that person whose card didn't work and was holding up the line, pretty much every time. I'll figure out how to use the money on there, whether it's to pay in a parking lot on the way out, or just use it when it's not rush hour. 

Either way, so long first SmarTrip card -- it's been a good decade-plus run. You were the OG of SmarTrip cards and I'll miss you. Well, not really that much.