Park Street station

No matter where we go for the day, it seems that every single afternoon here in Boston, my dad and I inevitably end up standing on the same platform in Park Street station, waiting for a train back to Newton Center where we're staying. I can't help but feel really, really sick of this station! The fact that it's underground, ugly, and badly overheated doesn't help either. Every afternoon, we stand and wait for a train on the same Green C line, looking at the same flamboyant posters advertising iPods, hearing the same drone of pre-recorded announcements. I didn't come to Boston to become intimately familiar with Park Street station. I came to see my family.

It's almost as bad as actually being home (heaven forbid :P), and spending every afternoon standing in Sydney's dreaded Town Hall station (platform 3, Hornsby via North Shore line — stand clear, doors closing). Uggghhh — the memories. But hey, what can you do: this is a city in America. Not much different to a city in Australia. Unfortunately, the cities in Europe will probably be much the same. Peak hour rushes. Suits and ties (with people inside — somewhere) shuffling off to work. Schedules, delays, ticket machines. The paraphernalia of urban "life", and of the joys of mass urban transit.

Anyway, maybe being stuck in a train station in peak-hour for a week is doing me good: it's reminding me of how much ye 'ol 9-5 Mon-Fri routine utterly sucks, and of how lucky I am to have a year away from it all.