Commuting

I'm getting into the swing of the commute to Washington.

The bike ride is the best part; unfortunately it's also the shortest. The 6-minute 1.5-mile downhill ride to Penn Station in the morning is nice for obvious reasons. There's a lot of traffic, but I go almost the same speed as it, so avoiding conflicts is easier than it seems like it would be. And although the ride back home in the evening is all uphill, it really doesn't seem like much anymore; it's amazing how fast you get acclimated.

The train ride is good, but would be a lot better if I weren't always trying to ride at the most crowded times of day. The iPod is really good for it, and I read when I get a seat (which has been more often than not). I see my classmates frequently on the platform, but chatting on the train turns out not to be practical most of the time given the crowds. A weird thing about the MARC train: you are allowed to consume alcohol on board. So, that old guy next to you drinking an oversized Budweiser out of a paper-bagged can? A-okay. The folks at the end of the car having a boisterous (Monday) happy hour? No problem. All told, I guess it's fine...it can certainly be seen as a train amenity. Jaclyn said she was on a train where someone spilled a bunch of beer, though, and that would not be so cool. Anyway, I'll need to try this at some point during the summer out of sheer novelty.

The walk to GAO from the train station is about 15 minutes. I've jogged to catch my intended evening train a few times already (twice successfully, once not), so I really should figure out how much time taking the Metro one stop would save me when I'm in a rush.

Anyway, aside from settling in at work, things are pretty calm. We had a stormy harbor cruise on Friday night in honor of our graduating IPS class (which involved Kat, Jaclyn and I running in the rain to catch the boat). And on Saturday I met Ira for a drink at Brewer's Art, which was nice. Andrew P. returns to Baltimore Thursday through Saturday to find an apartment; he says he's leaning toward Charles Village, and I'm looking forward to having him as a neighbor.

Oh, and the tomatoes I'm growing on our roof (where there's enough sun for them) are doing well. Here's what they looked like shortly after I parked them up there a month ago:


Now, they've got perhaps 15 nascent tomatoes hanging on them, and I've had to tie them to that ladder to keep them from falling over. Having fresh tomatoes will be awesome, even if it is way more than I can use and only for a couple weeks. In a blog event truly worth waiting for, I plan to post pictures of my ripening tomatoes later.