I fought the flu, and the flu won…

Well not completely. But it did manage to take me out for a good 5 days.

Inauguration was great, I had a great time, and DC is really cool. Luckily I didn’t get knocked down by MR. Influenza Type B until the day we were going home.

But I think the number one thing I brought back from the trip was that DC knows how to do a metro system. I have used NY’s subway countless times, and I love it. But in DC they did so many little things that made it much more of a pleasure to use. Simple things, like having the sign post that lists stops not include stops that the train has already made. This way if your stop is on the list, you know you are going in the right direction.

There are lights all along the edge of the platform that are the color of the line you are on, and they blink when a train is coming.

Every stop has a post telling when the next 3 trains are coming, and where their last stop is.

——–The downfalls——-

It wasn’t perfect though. The one HUGE flaw in it was the payment system. You pay for the distance you travel, and to verify this, you must swipe your metro card when exiting the station. This is actually when the value is taken from the card. If you dont have the card (lost it) your a little screwed. If you have it and you didnt have enough on it, they have a kiosk to add value to the card, but it is cash only. We had no clue this was how it worked, and Mary almost threw hers away  before we got to the next step. Luckily, I stopped her and said she may need it.

Also, the machines to add value to a card are horrible. There are 2 rocker switches, one for dollars, the other for cents. You press on either one up or down to change the value you want to add to the card. It is really ugly, really slow to use, and really annoying. There is a key pad on the machine for debit card, why not allow it to be used for the value?