Train fun

When we moved to Toronto, we used to stay in downtown in a small cozy apartment which was hardly 15 mins away from my office. Later on we shifted to Toronto suburbs.

Now, I take 2 trains to reach office. One is the double decker train that travels above ground and the other one is a subway that travels underneath. Together an hour journey. Of course, the same way back home too. That makes it 2 hrs per day.

Initially, I was petrified by the amount of time spent on travelling to office. But now after about an year, I have got into the groove. And the travel amuses me with a variety of experiences each day. And of course, I sleep through half the journey. I'm so sleep-trained by now, that I open my eyes just before I get down at my station. The other half I entertain myself with a wide variety of things starting from reading newspaper, solving sudoku or chanting vishnusahasranamams.

I have come to realize that this personal 'Me' time is so relaxing for the day, where I don't have to think about my work at office or my chores at home :)

Well, there is a flip side too!

The double decker train travels to downtown only in the mornings and back to suburbs only in the evenings. That limits the travel to only office hrs. I cannot leave early. Also, I got to be on time otherwise the next train is only after 20 mins!

Thankfully, the subways are more frequent (2-4 mins). But, the main problem is with the operations. You never know. They would dump you in the middle of nowhere and say that there are no more trains enroute! Or they would drag you through the route in such a slow pace, that a snail would have reached the destination by then. And then you miss the next train....phew!

My train tales are galore...

The other day me and S were still in the car when we saw the train arriving in the station. The traffic to the station is always at it's peak. Everyone wants to catch the train. S drops me and I run without looking back. There is no easy path to the train. I need to cross a fleet of stairs down and up before I make it. I ran like I was competing in a marathon! The driver had already announced that the doors were closing. In a snap, I jumped into the train and the doors closed right behind me. There was a great sense of accomplishment in me as I had missed my train on several occasions in similar situations. The onlookers had this 'You made it!' expression on their faces! They had completely got my feeling :)

On one such cases, I came running to the station, but the train was gone. It took time for me to realize that the train was on the otherside of the platform :( Sigh! By the time I saw that, the doors were closing.

On the contrary, the day is perfect. I come to the station on time and all. But the train is late :( And especially in winter, it's impossible to stand for a couple of minutes in the biting cold.

And then there are days when I forget my pass. One of my friends taught me to request at the booth that I shall show the pass the next day. I tried the same trick. But the person won't agree. He asked me to pay. Being the smarty that I am, I told him that I had the pass in my purse and I forgot my purse at home. He had no choice but to buy my reason :D

Zillion thanks to S, he gifted me an iPhone recently. I'm already an addict. The journey to office has started to seem shorter. There's so much to do with my iPhone...

And I'm not complaining at all....;)