Today's transit lesson

The most important lessons in life are not necessarily taught in preschool anymore. I think that transit and commuting are now my teachers in life. Mostly they reinforce humility and patience. Over and over and over again. Today's transit discussion includes a couple observations and one big tip. 

Observation #1: Those baby bullet trains go really fast. You don't realize it when you are riding one but when you are standing 24 inches from the edge of the platform and one goes whizzing by - you have a sudden appreciation for exactly how fast those huge hunks of metal truck from San Jose to San Francisco - 79 miles per hour to be exact. This observation spoken out loud led to the following advice from a co-worker: Don't sit in the first car if the train is driven from the last car. And always sit with your back facing the direction the train is going - the idea being that you will be thrown into the seat back cushion rather than to the floor if there is a sudden stop.

Observation #2: Catching a 5:06PM train from PA>SF is the equivalent of the City Market 545 bus stop to Microsoft multiplied by about 20. Seriously, 400 people packed on that platform tonight. It really is the way to travel. 

The Big Tip: Always carry a fiver in your wallet just in case you have to refill your BART ticket from inside the gate. Those machines only give change for less than $4.85 which means if, like me, you needed a buck eighty but only had a twenty, the process becomes a whole lot harder. You get the staredown from the booth attendant as you explain you have money but not in the denomination that the machine accepts. They escort you to the change machine outside the gate so you can get change, then escort you back in so you can feed the card and get the heck out of there...

Fun stuff that commuting. Still. I'm pretty much loving San Francisco.