Metro Mania

Ah, the Metro... Much as it is for many of the residents of the Washington DC area, it's practically the backbone of daily life for us interns. We use it at least twice a day to get to and from work, but most days we end up chasing all over town, from one line to the next, to get from one adventure to the next.

I don't know how many of you have been to DC and used the Metro, but it's actually a very easy to use and simple system. It may seem a bit daunting at first for some us sheltered Utahns, but you get it pretty down pat in no time. Or at least you would think so..

So in true Justin Davies fashion, now that I've gotten to the point where I'm basically riding the Metro on autopilot, I go ahead and make some sort of absolutely ridiculous mistake.
Allow me to elaborate:

So I generally leave my apartment at around 8:15 or 8:20, walk to the station, and get on the first yellow line that comes my way; but yesterday morning I was making fantastic time - I left my apartment at around 8 or so, and was excited to be able to walk at a pretty leisurely pace and not end up working up the traditional "welcome to crap loads of humidity" sweat that has been so plentiful the last week or two. I hop on my usual yellow line, just kickin it, listening to the Frames and enjoying my commute. I get out to switch over to the red line at Gallery Place/Chinatown, and when I come up the escalator, I'm welcomed by this:
Now let me tell you right now, this picture doesn't do justice to what it was actually like down there. I thought about trying to take another one, but the throng of people didn't seem to enjoy me snapping flash pictures at our misery.

But no, if you were wondering, this is not what it usually looks like in waiting for a train... Apparently there was some mechanical problems with a train outside of the stop right before ours, so we just had to stand and wait for the situation to be cleared up, and for trains to start coming our way. Obviously the entire crowd couldn't all fit into one train, so it wasn't until about the 4th or 5th train that came that I was finally able to squeeze in. By this point, my slowed down relaxed attitude had obviously taken a pretty big hit, and I all I could focus on was doing my best to put as much space between myself and the big sweaty dude cramming himself next to me. After a fairly swift ride, we reached the first stop, and as it was pulling out of the station, my stomach dropped. I was going in the wrong direction.

Yes, not only did I get on the line going the wrong direction, but I stood in a huge sweaty crowd of people watching the train I actually needed to be on come and go and come and go with very reasonable amounts of passengers on them. Then to make matters worse, I watched 4 or 5 trains on my side of the platform come and go, without realizing that all of them were going in the wrong direction. I was able to squeeze out of the train at the next stop, and get on the one I should've been on in the first place, but instead of starting off my morning getting to the office at a leisurely pace and time, I got there after a very brisk walk and yet another good worked up sweat.

Then to make matters worse - I fell asleep on the metro on the way home and slept past my stop. Luckily I woke up at the stop directly after, but I'm pretty sure I scared the living daylights out of the lady sitting next to me when I jolted awake and rushed out of the train.

Final Score for Friday, September 12th, 2008

Metro - 2
Justin - 0