Chronicles of Public Transport 8/02/05
Ok so for a while now I have been contemplating dedicating a section of my blog to the weird things I see. I tend to see a lot of weird things considering I take public transportation to school everyday. This first entry will be about things I have seen to date, after that there will be specific entries for each.
Going to school in the Minneapolis area I see my fair share of homeless people walking around during the day with either a bag or a grocery cart. This got me to wondering where they go at night. In the movies you see the homeless sleeping under bridges, but part of me always thought that was a myth. Surely, I thought, they would be smart enough to stay the night in a shelter. That is until one day while taking the 16 from the Metro Dome to East Bank Campus I saw my first-ever homeless person sleeping under a bridge.
Another time I was getting off either the 16 or the 50 going back towards the Metro Dome so I could hop on light rail back to my car. When I got off the bus I saw this homeless guy walking down the street completely covered in clothing. From head to toe, this guy was covered lair upon lair of clothing...not one inch of skin was exposed! I would have thought this was particularly smart if the temperature had not been around 90 degrees.
One day I was riding the bus from the Metro Dome to campus, and this guy got on. After he passed me I got a whiff of the distinct smell of Captain Morgan. However, he did not smell like a taste or a shot of Captain, this guy smelt like he downed the whole bottle before he got on the bus. This was at 8:00am!
This next guy I have seen a few times while riding the light rail. He always gets on at the Lake Street Midtown station. I swear to you this gentleman must be wearing his little boys t-shirt because it only covers up half of beer keg belly.
This brings me to my finale public transportation story, the one that finally made me decide to create this entry...Yesterday on my way home when the train stopped at the Cedar Riverside station I noticed a group of teenagers. There were girls and boys. All the boys looked pretty attractive, most of them without their shirts on....uhhhhhhhhhh
Anyway about half way through the train ride I thought I heard a weird humming noise, so I turned off my ipod in order to investigate. After I turned off my ipod I thought that I was surely in the twilight zone and that in my alternate dimension the Von Trap Family surrounded me.
The group of teenagers had one adult with them, and that humming sound I was hearing was them singing. I could not understand what they were saying as they were speaking either Swedish or German or some foreign language, but they sang beautifully. At this point they started singing a song about God, so I assumed they must have been a church choir visiting from overseas.
I am by no means making fun of this choir or anyone I have mentioned in this entry. As I said I enjoyed their impromptu concert on the rails of Hiawatha. When we got to the portion of the line by Minnehaha Falls their music was the perfect accompaniment to the beautiful scenery passing by.