Commuting. The Metro. Welcome to the rat race.

These metro stations always remind me of the inside of the pantheon

I am so impressed and pleased with my workplace, my colleagues, my apartment, the opportunities here in DC (free concerts, free lectures, ample dance/yoga/exercise classes). But the fact remains: I'm just not a Big City person. It's great for a summer. And I might be able to handle it for a year or so, but the daily commute sucks the life outta me. Public transportation is SO much more efficient (and therefore better for the environment) than individual cars, and cities are more efficient than sprawl. But I am very happy in Monterey where I can walk to work from my house in 20 minutes and enjoy the sky above, the lovely flowers

gratuitous flower picture from my walk to work in Monterey

and zero hustling and bustling. Here, I am only 2 metro stops from my destination, but it takes me 40 minutes (on a fast day) to get from door to door. The plus side of that is that I get plenty more walking in than I do normally. In fact, the first week here, Lisa and Leah (other MIIS students here for internships) and I commisserated about our poor feet. We all had blisters up the wazoo from the extra walking. The heat and my new collection of shoes didn't help (although they did spread the blisters all over my feet instead of concentrating them in one place).

Here you can see a blister ON another blister. No joke!

Thoughts while I'm commuting:

(on the escalator going down, standing, people passing me) "Why are they all passing me? Why are they in such a rush? Do they know something I don't know? Should I be rushing to catch the last train or somthing?"

(on the escaltor going down, walking, passing others) "These shoes are loud, the way the heel smacks the step everytime, I bet everyone is annoyed at me. Whoa, this escalator is so long I'm getting vertigo walking down it. Muscles, just keep doing what you're doing because my vision is spinning."

(on the escalator going up, escalator turned off) "It was 75 steps to walk up when it was ON, now it's almost 200 steps to walk up. Isn't already hot enough without having to hike up this escalator mountain with a bunch of shoving people?"

(on the metro, air conditioning broken) "In the belly of the earth, broiling, OMG I hope we don't break down before my stop"