Planes, trains, and automobiles.

Well you know about the planes. Enough said on that subject. I don't hate trains. In fact they are pretty fun as far as transportation goes. I had never been on a passenger train so a few years ago, Paige and I had Stewart drop us off in Shelby, Montana, and we rode the Amtrak to West Glacier National Park, which is 8 miles away from Lake 5 where we spend the summers. It was a hoot, and as far as I know, nobody got sick on the train, and if they did they could get to a loo, so no technicolored yawning into a tiny little bag.
SIDE NOTE: Sean Davis-Brads brother, who is an EMT in Calgary and deals with my most hated thing every day, told me to use Vic's Vapo rub, earplugs, and a mask and get on the dang plane already. He calls it the technicolored yawn. Love that- my new favorite saying. Covers all the bases, don't you think!!
I do, however have a love hate relationship with subway trains. I love the fact that once you get your directions straight and you figure out how to use them, you can get around pretty well and for not too much money. But I have had a few mishaps to be sure.
When Whitney and I and Brad went to Greece the spring before Whit got married, we learned the ropes pretty quickly and we were peeling all over Athens in no time. The only problem was that at random, very inopportune moments, the subway workers would go on strike- apparently they had something better to do that day. You would go to get on the train and the doors would be shut with a hand scribbled note stuck to the gate, sometimes in English, mostly in Greek- but we got the gist..ON STRIKE... So we would get stuck in far away places with no way to get back to home base. Well we did try to get a cab. PPPFFF! I am not sure how cab drivers in Greece make money, because all they do is drive around in an empty cab, yelling, honking and smoking. In Greece the proper way to hale a cab is, you stand on the side of the road and yell out where you want to go. So we tried it. All we got was very rude and annoying uplifted chins. Translation- "No freaken way lady, I am not going to interrupt my day to go there. SO we thought maybe they just don't like to turn the cab around. Maybe U turns are some kind of bad Greek karma that might invite the evil eye or something. Maybe we have to be on the other side of the street so that they are already headed North. We tried that- more ignorant chin lifting. We stood there yelling Naonia for 45 minutes until a bus came that was heading north so we just jumped on. We didn't have a clue how to pay, so we didn't, figuring if they really wanted money from us, they could jolly well come and get it-which we knew would NEVER happen because there were 256 people crammed on that bus which seated maybe 40. AND to make matters worse, because of the strike, the bus stopped every 15 feet-(I am not exaggerating) and more people would cram in. The stop and go effect had adverse effects on Whit. I looked at her and she was the color of cotton. I said are you ok? NO I feel like I'm going to...yup... up chuck...my favorite thing in the whole wide world. So I start frantically pushing all the buttons and pulling on all the ropes I could get my clammy hands on, which really wasn't necessary because the bus stopped every few feet as it was but it gave me something to do other than panic and ZHAZAM, the bus stopped. Out we go spilling onto the crowded sidewalk where Whitney, to my amazement, bent over...here it comes oh crap I can't watch... wait- she held it together! Halleluia! How she didn't lose it is beyond me. When I started walking away so I could pretend I didn't know the girl puking on the sidewalk, she must have got scared I would leave her in the middle of Athens- Brad had sort of wondered off as well. Can you blame us? Well yeah you can but on with the story.
All right, what are our options here. No bus-that's out, can't even buy a cab, let alone rent one, and the subway is still closed. We do know we are headed North, which is where we are staying- Northern Athens, in Naonia, so the only option left to us is we walk...and walk...it's 300 degrees in the middle of the day. In retrospect, it was kind of a unique way to see many parts of Athens. Every once in a while we would ask someone if we were going to eventually get to Naonia. Sometimes we got an answer, sometimes not. We figured as long as we kept the subway on our right side, we would get there and eventually, 2 long hours later we stumbled onto our beloved Naonia and our street. It was a modern day miracle of the highest possible order! We fell into our apartment, we each took a cold shower and slept the rest of the day away. We deserved it!
Next time I will tell you about the New York Subway. Gotta love trains!! I bet you just can't WAIT!!