Discovery: Public Transportation

My blog life is now dedicated to me gaining my independence, and until recently I believed to truly be independent you had to have a car. How wrong was I?

I'm fortunate enough, for the first time in my life, to live in a city large enough to have a public transportation system. I made use of this for the first time last night, and its pretty awesome being able to go places without depending on people or paying astronomical prices for a cab. Five bucks to ride all day? I'm down! Cheaper than gas prices!!

Saying last time was the first time I'd used the public transportation system here in San Diego isn't exactly true... I used to ride the trolley from base to Downtown to go the club, but it seem easier somehow, and less public transportation-y somehow. Yes, going to get drunk via trolley is much less public transportation than going somewhere on a bus... don't ask, I could never explain!

I was supposed to meet a friend from work downtown for sushi last night, and I freaked out. Because that's how I handle things. I googled, and looked it up on the MTS website a million times before finally leaving the house. Then I looked it up on my phone about 5 times on my way to the bus station. Once I got to the bus station, I freaked out again... checked the maps several times as well as my phone.

Finally the bus came..... *deep breath* I stepped on, fed my money into the machine and took my seat. So far so good.

That's when my heart started pounding, the stomach developed the ability to do somersaults, and my brain ran though every horrible situation imaginable. The I freaked out again... how do I let the driver no when I want off!!! I decided to watch the people in front of me, to see what they did. Finally someone pulled the cord in front of him, and sign at the front of the bus lit up. Yay! I figured it out. Wait... I don't have a cord like the one he pulled... his was vertical... I only have horizontal one going to the next vertical one near me! Can I pull that? I don't know... I'll just get up and pull the closest vertical one. But how hard do I pull it? Will I break it?

The rest of the trip went pretty much the same way... but I managed to make it downtown, get off at the right stop and meet my friend. Now that I know I can do it, there's no stopping me!! I can go anywhere I want now, it just requires some planning in advance, and by that I mean, Google and go!