Guess what guys, I finally went to Toronto all by myself (oh that reminds me, I still have to file the expenses from that day) I was really keen on attending life drawing class, but halfway through it, I wasn't at all keen on staying all through it. Because I didn't want it getting late and cold by the time I got back. So I walked out, and stood at the bus stop. It was much cooler than it was the past two days and I didn't have my gloves. I asked a guy standing there when was the next bus to the go train station. And he just pointed to the chart. There was something weird about that guy, all the while I was there, he didn't say a word.
The bus arrived after a few(really uncomfortable) minutes and a huge crowd had gathered around the bus stop by that time. But still, I did get a place to sit as most of them wanted to go on some other bus. I was reminded of my bus trips in mumbai with naveen. That was much more crowded and hot though. I tried my best to be looking out and keep track of the route so that I know where it goes through. I was really excited when I first caught glimpse of the go train and the go train station. The trains were not the usual box shape they are in India. they were like stretched hexagonal shape and had two levels. WOW! a double decker train! There were rows of bus stops and shelters(for people who need to wait...) outside the station. I was walking towards the station from where my bus stopped, and I saw a ticket vending machine. I thought I'd use my credit card to buy the ticket here instead of going inside and waiting in a queue and possibly having to use the limited cash that I had.
I looked at the instructions, First, it wanted me to select the station I wanted to go to. I looked at it for 'Toronto' but it wasn't there. Now for many, this may seem like a no brainer but I couldn't figure that the union station, the last station in the 'lakeshore east' line was where I wanted to go. I asked a local for help and she told me I needed to press union station. Then I looked up on the map joachim had given us, and saw that there was Go Transit written next to the Union TTC subway station. Damn I am dumb! Oh well, no time to be remorseful over it now, I have a train to catch. It was already on the platform, and these trains only run at an interval of one hour. So if I missed this one, I would be stuck for another hour and that would make my skipping THE OTHER HALF of life drawing class totally useless.
I crossed the first platform using the subway, (No jumping on the tracks like I sometimes did in Mumbai) and before getting on, I even asked a person whether this was going to Toronto just to reassure myself. I was kinda worried whether there were some compartments specially reserved for some particular kind of ticket or pass holders or a ladies only compartment like it is in India and maybe it was written in french here and I didn't pay attention to it... You know, imagining that 'everything that could possibly go wrong will probably go wrong' kind of thing. There was an announcement before the train left the station that the train was headed east etc. etc. I was like 'wow' I don't know many trains in India that have this kind of system. This makes the life of commuters so much easier!
I was taking a lot of pictures on the way, which you can see in my flickr gallery. All the while I was thinking if only pranav was here by my side, I wold have someone to share my experiences with. I missed all my friends so much on that day. And this is definitely not the only time I'm mentioning this. Then there was this girl who came in and sat in the seat in front of me. She never smiled one bit all the way to union station. Not like I was looking really scary or serious, I was really cheerful and happy all the way. But even when I looked at her and smiled, she wore the same creepy face. Not that this is something shocking, I have seen much weirder things before in India, but I'm just saying, this kind of thing happens here too!
No comments:
Post a Comment