Public Transportation Junkie

Before January 7, 2013, if there would have been an award for “Least Likely to Ever Ride Public Transportation” I would have won hands-down (#DivaStatus).  The race wouldn’t have even been close.  In fact, I shocked myself the first day I rode The 46 and needless to say, I pretty much hated those 15ish minutes on the ride to work.  But since then, I have had a complete change of heart towards public transportation.

Click “Follow By Email” to stay updated on my transformation to a public transportation junkie.

Always Save the Best for Last

Hello readers!  I regret to inform you that I will be going on hiatus until my next co-op in the fall semester.  I know, you may be shedding some tears, I practically am, too.  I'm currently trying to find a new topic to blog about.  Want to help me out?  Leave a comment below.

So here's the thing, I've saved my very best luxury vehicle story for last because it is my favorite.  While it may be super embarrassing, it's quite funny to look back on.

Let me take you back to about week 2 on my co-op.  I was wearing my huge puffy coat - probably wasn't needed, but I'm always freezing and it gave me some protection walking down Calhoun.  I was running a bit late, so I remember literally throwing everything in my bag and placing my phone and membership card for The Met in my coat pockets.  I was sprinting to the bus stop, probably looking like a fool, but that's pretty much besides the point.  As I neared the corner at The 46's stop, and I reached in my pocket to pull out my card...  and it wasn't there,  PANIC.  The 46 was pulling around the corner, so I took off back to my apartment as to avoid the embarrassment of not having my card.

As I walked back, I searched the sidewalks and the street for the card, but it was nowhere to be found.  Fear was truly setting in and when I arrived back at the apartment, I searched far and wide for the pass with no luck.  I knew I was going to be late for The 46, so I went out searching again on my way back to the pickup area.  I grew more disheartened when I had to call my mom for advice on how to handle the situation.  Needless to say, I was freaking out and needed to calm down.  Just as The 78 was coming around the corner, I decided I wasn't going to pay to take it downtown.  I walked back to the apartment, again, in hopes that my roomie was still there.  As I was walking, I happened to look down and see my Met pass (I knew because the girl pictured on it looked strangely like me) lying near the curb.  I bent down to picked it up and.......   RRRRiiiiiPPPP!  The squat I had chosen wasn't exactly conducive the the multiple bags I was carrying while wearing jeans.  Thank goodness for the puffy coat.  Otherwise, Calhoun would have got quite a show that morning.  

I was so relieved about finding my pass, and it was even better when I found my roommate hadn't left for work yet.  She was willing to drop me off downtown, but I definitely needed to change my pants first.  

A huge thanks to all who have helped make this blog a success.  I look forward to more adventures in the fall!

In the meantime, keep living your dream!  

The Struggle Bus

Today, I decided The 46 is The Struggle Bus, emphasis on The (pretend like you are saying The Ohio State University.)  Not only are my fellow "friends" shambly in the mornings, but The 46 has been struggling lately. For instance, last week, my driver couldn't get the back door closed.  He tried closing it and opening it around 20 times, and when that didn't work, he decided he would just turn The 46 off in the middle of the road.  No big deal. 

Today, though, it was an extra shambly mess.  Since it's raining outside, it was super smelly on The 46.  Like ew.  Thankfully, some of the smellier "friends" got off quickly.  But, The 46 was practically falling apart before my very eyes.  One of the windshield wipers just stopped working, and it just happened to be the one on the driver's side.  Guess I shouldn't worry about that?  My driver was also having quite a hard time getting  The 46 to start back up after each stop.  He had to push on the gas and brake multiple times.  It was a bit worrisome.

Needless to say, while it was certainly a rough morning for The 46, I arrived to work safe and sound.  Second last day of co-op!  And happy birthday to my UC rider friend!

Keep living your dream!  

#TBT Bus Drama

Remember that time when I went across The Pond to Ireland?  And all the weird things about Europe?  Well, I wanted to share another with you.  It's probably one my favorite moments from Ireland...

So it was the first night in Dublin for me.  We went out to Howth, a town located right on Ireland's coast.  We took a train ride out to Howth, where we enjoyed views of the ocean and then we traveled up to the top of the cliffs to see as much of the country as we could. 

As it soon started raining and grew extremely cold, we decided to head in to the local pub for dinner and some warm drinks.  The locals were so friendly and kept talking to us, which made it hard to eat our food while it was still warm, but by far, this was one of the best nights in Dublin.

After dinner, we got on a Dublin bus that would get us into the city.  We figured we could just transfer to a different bus when we got back into the city.  Well, as I mentioned before, it was my first night in Dublin, so I fell asleep on the first bus.  My classmates woke me up at the stop where we would soon transfer.  It was seriously so cold out at the stop and I was still in my state of delusion.  While I can't remember which bus we were looking for to take us to the hotel, I do know exactly how the next couple of minutes played out.

So, I'm used to having my personal drivers always there and ready to take me to my next destination.  They always know exactly when and where to pick me up.  Well, let's just say the public transportation system in Ireland is nothing like my personal driver.  In Dublin, public transportation is so efficient and everyone uses it.  And they know how to use it.

We were standing at the stop, well under the Dublin Bus Stop sign, waiting for a bus to pick us up.  Instead, we kept watching them zoom right by.  Could they not see us?  Were we actually at the right place?  I kept telling my classmates that we clearly needed to find a different stop because this one was not legit. 

This old lady was walking past, so we asked her which bus we should take.  She had absolutely no idea how to explain it to us, so we tried to relieve her of her explaining duties, but she just wouldn't give up.  She kept trying to help us, but it was not helping at all.  In fact, she just kept blowing her smoke into our faces.  Gross.  Finally, we convinced her that we knew what she was talking about and she left us alone.

A young man (he was actually attractive) arrives at the bus stop.  I asked him if it actually was a bus stop, and I'm pretty sure he gave me the weirdest face, but I was having serious doubts about where we were.  He was like "Uh, yeah."  I said, "Well, obviously it's not because we've watched six drive right past us without stopping."  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the young man raised his hand and the approaching bus stopped for him.  Lucky for us, he also got the bus we were supposed to travel on to pull over.  Thank goodness we didn't have to ride with him into town.  Talk about YOLA. 

So, on that note, keep living your dream!

Personal Space

If you know me, you may be aware that I am not the most "huggy" person in the world. 

My family used to tease me about it (my cousin still reminds me of it) but as a kid, I never gave hugs, or if I did, it was more of an air hug, with my arms slightly touching the other person and my butt out as far as possible.  It was an awkward position, no doubt. 

As a young grade school student, I played basketball.  Since I was super tall for my age group, every year, I had the pleasure of being the center.  I was always being bumped by other players, and while I could take it for a while, my anger and annoyance would overcome me and I eventually just would push back.  Somehow I always got the foul.  Needless to say, I gave that sport up pretty quickly.

And so I digress.  It's the middle of the afternoon a couple of Fridays ago, and The 46 is packed.  And when I say packed, I mean it.  I was lucky enough to nab one of the last seats.  The 46 has two different types of seats, some that face forward and others that face the inside of the bus.  I chose to sit on one of the seats that faces inward, mainly because there was one seat in between this older woman and me. 

Of course, someone just has to sit there.  And by someone I mean this lady, her kid in a stroller, and her two-week-old (the older lady asked) baby tied around her front.  So she plops down, one buttcheek on the seat and the other... in my lap.  In my head, I'm thinking, "Alrighty then.  Thank you.  Yes, this is comfortable, thanks for asking.  I really love when my "friends" sit on my lap.  You aren't crushing my leg or anything."  I really kept hoping that she would be getting off soon, but no instead, she rode all the way to the stop near school with me.  Awesome.   

Luckily I was able to focus on my breathing and text some of my friends from school to keep me from hyperventilating from my "friend's" butt touching my leg.  So if you were one of those texting buddies, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  But for real.


Keep living your dream!  And never leave one open seat! 

The Crazies

I’m alive!  No, you don’t understand, for real, I’m still alive.  I made it to the office.  Who knew that would be such an accomplishment? 

At some point in our life, we are go a little crazy, right?  Some us go crazy in our youth – the pressures and stress from school, friends, organizations, and lack of sleep.  Others get hit with the crazies right before they have that midlife crisis.  And others, well... they may just be certifiably crazy. 

It was just another Wednesday morning (Happy Hump Day, by the way!) when I stepped onto The 46, and took my seat across from a lady.  I generally don’t get a chance to check out my “friends” before I choose my seat until I get myself situated.  This was certainly the case today, because I would have picked a different seat. 

I looked up at the lady across from me.  She was wearing black gym shoes, jeans, and... A hospital gown.  Oh, and a Walkman sort-of-thing with one side taped so the batteries would stay in.  Fabulous. 

Remember how my personal drivers always stop at that randomhouse / grocery mart on the way downtown?  Well, of course the driver needed to stop today, leaving my “friends” and me with this woman.  I soon realized why no one, and I mean no one, was sitting around her.  I’m just reading through The Skimm (sign up, and you will love me forever for all the wit and sarcasm found in this daily news report) and this woman starts talking.  Apparently she was talking to me, cause she said, “Hey you, where you going to?  I’m gonna start driving this bus.  We need to go.”  Oh no, please Mr. Personal Driver hurry up, please, please, please.  I was stuck between a rock and a hard place – I had two options:  stay on the bus and hope she doesn’t start driving, or get off on Vine and stand by myself to wait for The 78.  And the better option is???  Neither.

Thankfully, my driver was back with his bottle of water and we were on our way.  The lady kept talking so LOUDLY about how she had to wear the gown because no one gave her any other clothes (don’t mind the fact that there was a bag of clothes sitting right next to her, but whatever.)  She was also cussing up a storm, and my driver told her that her police escort would be waiting for her at the Findlay Market stop.  Now, let’s just say I was a bit naïve thinking that this was perfectly normal.  Maybe they had worked it out beforehand, I don’t know.  But I was incorrect in my assumptions.  The lady started freaking out about how she wasn’t causing trouble (minus the fact that she wanted to drive the bus less than five minutes ago) and started fake crying.  As we approached the Findlay Market stop, my personal driver was on the phone with The Met’s Headquarters and was getting the police.  I have no doubt that my mom really enjoyed the text that said, “OMG, I’m about to watch the lady right across from me get arrested!”  NOT. 

As the woman realized that he was not joking about the police, she continued her fake crying and talked about how mean my driver was since she didn’t have any clothes and it was so cold outside.  Well, while those are valid reasons, it’s actually hot outside, so good try.  As she sauntered down the street, my driver called The 78 driver to warn him of the lady in the hospital gown. 

Thankfully, the rest of the ride was uneventful, but I could not be more happy to have arrived at work.

Keep living your dream!  

Homeward Bound

Well, today was the last day on the island.  We all had a fabulous time and spent way too much money (maybe enough to pull Ireland out of its bit of a recession).  But all that aside, I wanted to give a quick summary of the week here.

Obviously, some of my fellow travelers were here to see the St. Paddy's (that's how they say it here) Day Parade.  They had a blast watching people walk from all over the world.

When we arrived on Monday morning, our first stop was at The Bald Barista - a fabulous coffee shop.  And yes, he actually is bald... and he has a tattoo on the back of his head that says "The Bald Barista."  To each his own I suppose.  We then walked around St. Stephen's Green, which was absolutely beautiful.  Guinness Brewery was the next stop.  Most of us opted out of the full pint of free Guinness, as we really couldn't handle its strong flavor.  But, the city views from Gravity Bar were absolutely breathtaking.  Later that night, we hopped onto a train to Howth, a small town on the coast.  We hiked (I know you are finding it hard to believe I even went outside) up a large hill to see the rocky hillside coasts.  We ate at a local pub, socializing with swanky locals. 

On Tuesday, we toured the National Museum and the National Gallery, to give ourselves time to catch up on Ireland's history.  We then proceeded to Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral to learn more about how religion has shaped the history of Ireland.  At Christ Church, we were able to explore the crypt, which contained a mummified cat and rat - gross, I know.  On Tuesday evening, I attended the Abbey Theater's production of King Lear.  While I was quite tired, I was able to get into the play after the first fifteen minutes.  Considering we were the fourth row from the stage, it may have been embarrassing if I had fallen asleep.

Wednesday morning - trip to Wicklow, the mountain country.  We first rode to Malahide Castle, and while some members of the group thought the word Malahide reminded them of formaldyhyde, I can attest that it was nothing like that awful smell.  The desserts served at Avoca were fabulous, and we ate those first.  We brought our sandwiches on the bus - that was quite interesting.  One classmate found a stick in his piece of bread... Yes, you did read that correctly, a stick.  You thought you ordered a turkey sandwich.... Err, no, you really just ordered two slices of plain turkey. Moving on.  The mountains were fabulous, and a friend and I were able to sport the ever famous UC pose in the middle of the Upper Lake at Glendalough.  A ghost tour completed our Wednesday activities.  While waiting in line to head to the most haunted place in Dublin, two young boys were creepliy lurking near our group.  They then proceeded to throw rocks at us.  These kids were certainly not the typical, super-friendly Dubliners we had met previously.  The kids asked us if we were from America, and one of the my fellow travelers frankly replied saying, "No, we're from Canada, and we eat little f****** like you."  Scared the living daylights out of them.

On Thursday, we went to Trinity College to tour the Book of Kells.  We also visited the Long Room, which was a library containing over 200,000 books, many of which probably haven't been opened in the past 500 years.  The stick-in-the-sandwich friend and I posed outside Trinity College doing another UC pose, and we're pretty sure the Trinity student thought we were the weirdest tourists ever.  A few of us then went to Kilmainham Gaol, the prison that was used during the Easter Uprising of 1916.  It was a fantastic, but also quite sad, tour.  Our professor suggested we check out the old hospital right across the street from Kilmainham.  On our way to the hospital, we passed an art museum, a building with a facade similar to Kilmainham, but we could not find this old hospital.  We asked for directions, and we were sent up this giant hill... to the real-life, functioning hospital... yeah.  We obviously got out of there as soon as we could, and took a bus back to Dublin City Center.  We got on a bus, the 46A, which would take us to Dun Laoghaire (pronounced as Dun Leery).  It literally took an hour and a half to get out to the harbour town, but we met some local school children along the way.  They were hurling players, and stick-in-the-sandwich friend got a pretty sassy remark when he asked the one boy if he was a hurler.  Yikes!  Dun Laoghaire may be the coldest place in Ireland, and the wind whips right up off the ocean.  The waves were so high, and the wind kept pushing us closer to the water.  After a warm dinner, which we paid for in mostly coins (it was embarrassing, but my roommate needed to get rid of some change) we got on the train, which cut down our transportation time by over an hour.  We then headed to see the Woman in Black at the Gaity Theater.  It was.... interesting.

This morning, we went to Kildare, which is horse country.  We were able to see the Irish National Stud Farm, a place to breed and train the next champion horses in the racing world.  The facts and figures of operating such a place are ridiculous, but the horses were beautiful.  We got to see a horse that was born yesterday.  It was awesome!  We took the scenic route back to the hotel, and ended the night with last-minute shopping activities and a group dinner - an interesting potato soup, salmon, and a variety of desserts. Gelato rounded out the evening, where we ran into some young guys from England.  As soon as they dissed One Direction, we peaced out, leaving them behind in the dust. 

Although it rains evey day in Ireland, there is nothing better than getting to experience the city, the beach, and green spaces all at once.  This has been a trip I will never forget, filled with many great people and wonderfully hilarious stories. 

Keep living your dream!