Living on Guam for more than half of my life, my experiences with any form of public transportation has been extremely limited. The bus service has never been reliable on island and we have no metro or train system, so I have always been either a passenger or driver of a automobile.

When the friends we stayed with recommended the Metro station, you can only imagine my apprehension to the idea. I think I watched too many movies in my time and everything negative you could think of ran through my head about public trains and late night rides on the metro systems.

The experience however wasn’t all too bad. Durning the five days in Washington DC we would drive to the Hunnington station in Alexandria and ride on the Yellow into the main parts of the capital. Looking at the traffic on the freeways, we actually shaved off quite a bit of time by travelling on the Metro rather than trying to drive straight into the city.

We did however experience several bumps on the road. On the first evening of our vacation, we took the Metro all the way to Central Station and were bussed on a night tour of D.C. that didn’t end until a quarter after eleven in the evening. The experience was great until we headed home using the Metro to return to Hunnington. While on the commute we ran into some thugs, (or wannabe thugs) who were pretty damn rude and inconsiderate. My wife told me to remain calm but I really had the urge to tell the kids to knock it off. They were loud, doing pull ups on the Metro, and walking around the car as if they owned it. It made my wife nervous and uncomfortable and it did bother me quite a bit. The friends that were with us signalled to remain calm so we did, but that experience really ruined what was actually a really good evening.

Coming out of the Metro that same night was even funnier. All of us bought paper passes instead of Smartcards so we were locked inside the parking area because the exit required a smartcard and accepted no cash. At 11:45 in the evening, there were no attendants left at the exits and we had to go back to the station to search for a way out. Fortunately we were able to find someone on duty who allowed us to leave without the card otherwise it would have been a very long night! haha.

The next couple days were pretty cool. We were able to cover alot of ground and visit quite a few places without any real problems along the way. On the last day on the Metro however, the ride home wasn’t very fun. The station we entered was completely backed up, and we discovered later that one of the trains had some maintenence issues. It didn’t help that we got on during peak hours (500-530pm) and there was a Nationals game that same evening.

We seriously looked like a can of sardines in the cab and I had to squeeze up on so many men in suits it was pretty ugly I overheard a couple people mentioned that this was the worst they had ever experienced so I couldn’t help but laugh. It just had to happen on the day we took it right? It didn’t help that my wife was smashed between men too which I obviously didn’t appreciate, so it was a tough 45 minute ride back to Hunnington that day. The cab eventually cleared out the farther we went along, but we were backed up for much of the way.

As for taking the Metro again, I would definitely do it. Even with the problems we had, the convienence of the Metro outweighs the negatives. We did drive into DC one day and from that experience alone, I personally believe you need a special course to get out of there alive! haha.

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