Braving the Metro

Arriving to the metro stop near my apartment on my first day of class at the William & Mary DC Summer Institute was daunting to say the least.

I walked to the station and bought my first metro ticket. Done. Now to wait for my friend to arrive so we can ride together into downtown DC. After she came, we quickly jumped into the crowd of people scanning their fare cards and running to the escalators. Apparently, the right side of the escalator is for those who stop and stand, not the left. I learned that the hard way. After being slightly shoved to the right, we made it down to the metro platform. Now to catch the train. Luckily for us, there was only one metro line at our stop, so it wasn’t too confusing to figure which one to wait for. The lights on the ground started blinking red and we saw headlights shining straight at us. The metro was here. There was a push to the doors, but my friend and I made it aboard safely. Another step complete.

Now we could sit, relax, chat, or read until our final stop. I saw many people reading books, iPads, or Kindles, even someone dressed in a full suit reading the 4th Harry Potter book. As we made our way into DC we picked up more and more people ready for the morning rush to DC. The “peak of the peak” in metro terms. Packed like sardines, our metro car was filled with people sitting, standing, holding on the poles and ceiling railings, waiting to enter our nation’s capital. Forty minutes later, we made it to our stop and prepared to jump off. If the earlier push to get on was bad, I can’t even begin to describe the push to get off the metro.

Jumping off successfully led us to our next task, finding the way out of the station. We followed the hurried crowd to the escalators and I ended making the same mistake again, standing on the wrong side. Oops. Once at the top, we rushed with the crowd to the exit ticket station with our fare cards at the ready. At last, we made it out of the station. We survived. Out in the fresh air, I took a second to take in the DC skyline above me. I was finally here.

~ Michelle Selim