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! 

Hangin' in the 'Bus

Sorry, I've been MIA since before Thanksgiving -- it's been a crazy couple of weeks in my world, which included a few travel snafus, but nothing too crazy to warrant a post in itself. 

Last week, the week back to work after the holiday consisted of, transit-wise: sitting next to people with terrible coffee breath, watching people pick their nose on the Metro and wondering, "Do they realize they are in the open public?", having a delayed train out of Union Station for more than 45 minutes one afternoon, and enjoyed two car-free days (pretty much): one day when my husband and I got to commute together or another, where we were meeting up later in the day to grab dinner and headed home straight afterwards, so we rode together again. 

I guess it's actually a good thing when I don't have eventful or crazy commutes and have nothing to blog about. So, yay for me, but sorry for you three (!) faithful readers.

I can also post that my husband and I recently traveled to Columbus, Ohio to see a Buckeye game at my Alma Mater and that we utilized the very inexpensive shuttle that was literally across the street from the hotel where we stayed and didn't have to worry about parking our car on the very large and very busy campus of The Ohio State University. Woot! Score 1 more for having a car-free experience. Seriously though, if you ever travel there for a football game, that's the way to go and it was this hotel (which was awesome!).

Speaking of Columbus: they apparently are targeting the very young and transient population of Washington, D.C. to come to their fair and much underrated city also known as "The Biggest Small Town in America", or as I (and many others) like to affectionately call it: Cbus. Saw this ad at the Union Station metro stop the other day and had to capture it for my Ohioan friends! Serious, it is a great city if you've never been.

Oh, and on that note: Go Bucks!