Week 1: Navigating the D.C. Metro

My name is Ameshia Elliott, and I am from the medium/large city of Bowling Green, Kentucky. This fact is very important to keep in mind, because public transportation is virtually non-existent. To get any and everywhere people must drive their own cars. Parking lots are aplenty. However, DC is a completely new world as far as transportation is concerned. Anyone who plans on spending a significant amount of time in DC without a car, must have a substantial working knowledge of the labyrinth that is the Metro. I thought I had the experience necessary to navigate the Metro since I previously visited DC and rode the Metro…but I was sadly mistaken! When it was actually time to take that plunge at the Metro stop I completely froze. I had no idea where I was going, or how to get there. I asked a man for directions and he pointed me in the direction of a Metro map and I just stood there feeling dazed and confused as the map meant absolutely nothing to me. I remember thinking, "is this the map that had earlier been described to me as a 'Fisher Price map?'"

I was terrified of trekking through the subway by myself. Every time I even got close to a Metro stop I felt overtaken with panic. When I stepped on the escalators that go to seemingly unknown depths, I felt nauseous. I could imagine people falling down the escalator to their demise after they missed a step in their haste to catch trains; these imaginations were normally interrupted by the people yelling behind me because I was standing on the wrong side of the escalator. I had to learn the hard way that if you actually want to calmly ride the escalator down; you MUST stand to the right so that people can freely hurry down the escalator. And when you finally get into the Metro platform, as the trains come by there is this “big swoosh,” or some kind of suction as the trains come and go that just heightens my anxiety.

So instead of going it alone, I had to regroup and come up with a new game plan. In an attempt to avoid making sense of all the different colored squiggly lines myself, I just thought I would mooch off someone who obviously seemed to grasp the idea of this subway business. So I spent the next few days tagging along with my roommate, and this worked out fine for me…I was certainly satisfied. But maybe she didn’t like it so much, and that’s possibly the reason she pushed me out of the nest and onto the subway by myself.

So, I was finally able to get over the fear and panic I was stricken with and jump on the Metro to go where I needed to go with little event. Then came the ultimate test… I was on my way home, waiting on the train at the Rosslyn station, and as I stepped on the train a lady asks, “Is this the green train?” Having become quite the expert on the metro over the last couple of days I was like, “No, this is the orange train.” So, it’s official… I know where I am going!