I declare today: "I HAtE pUbliC TrAnsPOrT dAy!"

Those living in the lap of luxury driving from point A to point B in your very own little car may or may not chose to read this blog, that's fine. And heaven forbid that anyone so gluttonous as to have 2+ cars at their beckon call should have to hear the woes of my own self-inflicted condemnation. However, for those fellow sufferers of the pain and anguish thrust upon the habitual public transit user please do read on.

Um, so yeah I pretty much LOVE (heavy on the sarcasm) Public Transportation. As a matter of fact I have decided to declare this my own special "I hate public transport DAY!!!" and I am not even kidding. Many of you (those of you who still read this rarely updated and often times boring blog) may be wondering why on earth I would say such a thing. Or if you are anything like my mother you are saying to yourself, "Well, hate is such a strong word she probably just strongly dislikes it." No I hate it, its that simple and let me tell you why.

Today is Thursday. Ordinarily I am not partial to any particular day of the week however I am seriously considering boycotting Tuesdays and Thursdays, but that's a blog for another day. Anyway, Thursday is Portuguese tutoring day and that generally means I need to leave my home at 9am (when not receiving a ride from my teacher) to travel a distance of a 15 minutes drive (by car) in order to reach my destination on time for a 1030am tutoring class at PBI. I was supposed to catch a 9AM bus and as I was grabbing my iPod I looked out the window (at 850) to see my bus speed by - YES, this is going to be a great day! Being the problem solving, quick thinking, lovely young woman that I am, I quickly consulted my bus schedule and realized that a bus going the other direction could get me within walking distance from my destination and would be here at 9AM so I grabbed my iPod and headed out the door thinking to myself how humorous it would be if I would miss this bus too (NOT really, I am kidding here - I don't think I would have laughed at all) so as I am walking toward the bus stop I see my bus coming at me and think - CRAP! So I stick my arm straight out and point with my index finger (the universal "hey stop the bus I want to get on sign here in Portugal") praying that it will stop even though I am not at an actual bus stop.

Well fortunately the bus driver either wanted to tie his shoe, look at the lovely roses planted on the side of the road or, and far less likely, he took pity on me and pulled over. This thus began my 40 minute ride and 10+ minute walk to my Portuguese tutoring. To make matters even better at 1030, when we were supposed to start, Ana (our tutor who is awesome by the way) was not there and Bobb's phone rang. It turns out she had gone to my house to pick me up and wanted to make sure that I was actually at PBI since I was not at home.

So let's recap, I have now missed one bus, nearly missed another, both of which I did not even need to take, helped cause our tutoring to start 30 minutes late, had Ana waste gas driving out to my house to pick me up even though I was not there, and its only 1030am. Yes, this is the best day ever!

I would like to tell you that my Public Transport woes got better but that would be a lie and if there is one thing I hate worse than Public Transport that would be lying. So all I can say is I miss my Honda and am looking forward to the day when public transport will no longer be my master and I can hop in my Honda, play my favorite CD and drive, for no reason whatsoever, to my favorite store (target) and buy absolutely nothing because I have no money. Ah, man that's gonna be great! But until then I will continue to make my own holidays and consider boycotting various days of the week. Got to run, I don't want to miss this next bus!