To get the full picture of my first day, please read the preamble at Tickets Please

The day arrives. I got to the station about 10 minutes early. I drive to the parking lot. I notice that some spots were numbered spots and others weren’t. Numbered spots should be reserved ones, I thought. So I parked in an unmarked one. Off to the parking meter. There was a small line and I wait for my turn. As I read the instructions at the meter, I realized I had more work to do:

1. The unmarked spots are for the monthly pass holders. I’m supposed to park in one of the numbered spots and use that number to get the ticket.
2. The meter takes only quarters and $1 bills. I have a $5 bill and some 20s. Now what?
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While train delays, stuck traffic, snowed out, break down have been part of regular conversions of my colleagues, I never had much of a commute. To the envy of many, my commute has been walking to work, or a short train ride. And the trains ran every 5 minutes or so during rush hours and served 24 hours. Awesome! If I miss one, there’s always another one right behind it. Do these trains even have fixed, official schedule? Even if they did, it would probably be like “from this time to this time, train runs every 5 minutes, then from this time to time it runs every 10 minutes, and so on.” I certainly didn’t need one and didn’t bother to check.
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Ticketing

In order to experience my fascinating train ride, I had to buy a monthly pass for the train and the car park to park my car in the open spaced park-and-ride facility at the station. I could just go the station anytime and buy it from the ticket machine. So I thought. There is no machine. That’s fine, I can buy from the ticket agent at the station. The ticket office is closed weekends and open only from 4:45 am –  10:15 am M-F. I was doing some night work then and couldn’t get to the station before they close at 10:15 am. It took me a full week to actually make it to the station. It felt as if I’ve accomplished something after I bought my monthly train pass. Who knew buying a train ticket could be this rewarding.
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