The next station is...

These have become the words of my day, I hear them... usually 10 times, sometimes more as you can see by last weeks post on my extreme tube experience. The next station is... I go through let's see.. on the way home (the most important part) leave from Green park (which is one of my favorite parks in London), on to Bond street, here you can change for the central line, then to Baker street also with changes to Metropolitan line, Central, Bakerloo, and Hammersmith and City. Next I approach, St. Johns wood, no changes of other lines here, and onto Swiss Cottage, also no changes to be had here. I then approach MY station, I have began to take ownership of it, yes.. which is the wonderful... Finchley Road, where you can also change for the Metropolitan line. I see this as both a negative and positive, on weekends like last when they were doing work on my Jubilee line... I have the option to use Metropolitan, but an other time, I dislike this fact... I want when I am getting on the tube for everyone to know that this wonderful area is what I call my home, I am not transferring, I am HOME! It is a marvelous area, the best in my opinion. Silly, I know, why does it matter but, it is something I think of. Most people read in the tube, if you are lucky at the time, you may get a seat, making it easier to take part in this tube transport ritual, not everyone though, some people sleep, talk, mess around on their phone or just stare off into space. I find myself reading, or "people watching."  Most people do everything within their ability not to make eye contact, I have decided that it is because they don't expect anyone to reciprocate. I find it quite fun when you do though. It has been a bit random, their was the Arabic girl, who seemed a bit surprised when I gave her a smile, she was really sweet, very friendly, you could just kind of tell, she wanted to talk. Then there are the random smiles, glances, people surprised to see that I am not yet tough and calloused to the rituals of the "big city." There was the man last night, he was older, and had a good laugh with me across the tube of the man near us who didn't know how to get his groundings, he acted so secure and confidant, but then the train started up and he stood no hope. It was good for a nice laugh.

Tubes... they are an interesting thing, I have begun to see them as these announcements, these, "the next station is..." and other random announcements concerning delays, which are daily and where to change trains along with closings for this reason and that. Then there are the news stories, they aren't always on the news though. There are the suicides and the "accidental deaths." It never occurred to me how many people there were or how non-big of a deal they made it. The other day, they closed Bond street station for an hour, this was because of an electrical explosion at foot locker that is right by it. Though, while purchasing our bowls (no, we didn't have bowls until 2 days ago, we ate cereal out of wonderful plastic Eskimo Joe's cups sent with us from the Chaloner's! I hear them talking about the close at Bond and a woman's speculation that there was another suicide and a body on the tracks, the  associate said she was sure it was not that, she herself had been on the train when there was a body on the tracks, and they did not stop the train, let alone close the station. I believe this because last week there was a body found early in the morning on a track, and it only caused a very minor delay. It is so sad to me to think that these people's lives, these people who have so many who care about them, and are the world to people, their lives have been reduced to minor delays on a tube line during a morning commute.  I am doing my best not to become accustomed to these incidences and turn into one of the commuters refusing to give a smile to my neighbor on the tube, or directions to the tourist who is lost.