The scariest part -- so far, that is -- of moving to such a large city from Kentucky is the mass transit monster.
When I say that, I imagine a large, red furry monster with big horns, wearing a Red Sox cap and screaming at me in a strange accent, littering wherever he walks with tickets and Charlie cards, with an annoying habit of perpetual lateness and a refusal to admit that causes a problem for anybody.
Here's why I imagined the monster was so scary:
1. I have never used mass transit because I'm from Kentucky, a state which is very low on forms of mass transit because there is little need. As far as I knew everyone over the age of 16 drove everywhere in their own cars 100% of the time.
2. There are thousands of people using the transit every day so a newcomer probably will not be given much time or patience to learn said mass transit. This is very offputting to someone who was taught to be kind to strangers until given a reason otherwise, and especially hard when you are new and feel particularily vulnerable, so feel especially timid.
3. There are several, sometimes overlapping forms of mass transit. There's a bus route, a subway route, a commuter rail, taxi cabs, flying carpets and catapults if you're in the right part of the city. Apparently having one reliable method was simply too easy to learn, so in order to keep things fun they invented more methods to keep the guessing game going. I highly suspect even native Bostonians have no idea how to use more than two methods and may just pretend they do if anyone asks.
4. Since you have no idea how to get anywhere, you will constantly have to resort back to mass transit options to figure out how to get around the city. That involves carefully identifying where to go, what system to use to get there and how to use it, how long it will take you, and what your emergency escape route is if you get lost (see number 5, below).
And, finally, but not least scary:
5. If you make a mistake, you will have zero idea where you've ended up, and perhaps less of an idea how to get back to wherever it was you were headed in the first place, if you can remember that after surviving the panic from getting lost in a city like Boston.
Here's how I did on my first venture. (If I don't come back in ten minutes, send a search-and-rescue crew. A large one.)
So. Once again, my gracious roommate decided to show me how one uses the Red Line, a simpler subway system that is apparently quite reliable and goes through Cambridge to downtown Boston.
It's about a 15 minute walk to the Harvard Square red line station, and since it's a lovely walk through the Yard I so far don't mind that at all. Things got a bumpy start though when I couldn't add money to my card, and the subway agent was very unexcited that anyone was actually going to ask him a question today. We took the subway to the Green Line, which meets the Red Line in downtown Boston and then -- because the subway wasn't fun enough -- splits into four lines all going different directions.
Lovely. So, I have (sorta) figured out how to use this Red Line, and haled my first taxi cab. Though somehow, I was expected to tell him how to get where I wanted to go, which says quite a lot when the person who drives the city every day for a living hasn't figured it out enough to take me home.
But, Green Line crazy splitting aside, it wasn't that bad. The Red Line seems fairly straight forward and at least there are taxi cabs all over the city if you do get completely and totally lost. Just keep cash on you (and having some strong nerves might be a good thing, too).
I will eventually be a "big city" traveler -- I will rub the belly of the mass transit monster. Just you wait, Boston.
No comments:
Post a Comment