What a joy it is to ride the bus! This morning marked my first time to ride a city bus to work. It was actually quite a pleasant experience for me. I parked at the duplex in the morning, and then rode the 8:29am bus downtown. Transferred to another bus, and made it to the lab around 9:15. No having to worry about parking, traffic or fuel! I estimate saving about $4-5 in gas alone each time I ride the bus round-trip. If I factor in garage parking every once in a while, the savings add up even more.

We'll see how it is during busy times though. Since it's already the summer, the bus routes to campus are less populated which means I had no problem finding a seat. I'm not sure what the bus ride home will be like though. Maybe I'll try that some other day.

One of the ways that it was fun was due to the interesting variety of people that are on the bus. This morning there was this old black lady on the bus who was telling others about what life used to be in Austin back in the day. "Back in the day, we didn't go to malls when we wanted to hang out. We came here to Congress Ave. We used to go to Worthingtons... oh, that reminds me of when I first went into a Bloomingdale's department store, that thing was like a maze. I love mazes. My sister didn't like it, but it was like a puzzle for me!..."

Wow. Maybe I'll say stuff like that when I'm in my 50's.