The 3/4 Pant; Capri

I found a pair of capri's today! Mission accomplished, finally. It didn't even require having to ask some random guy on the street. However, it appears that the official name, the part that I didn't know, was that they are actually called a 3/4 pant. Not capri's. Right? Who knew? Well either way, I found them at SportWorld, just another run-of-the-mill sports outlet (with more clothes and less sports equipment). This place had like a huge clearing out, 30-70% off sale on everything. Apparently this place has been perpetually having closing-out sales like this for the past 6 years. How they do it, I have no idea. How they do it in this recession? I REALLY have no idea.

After that, I had to find my way, by myself, back to the train station to get home. Kyle had to depart to work, but he pointed me in the right direction. I found the station without any trouble, purchased my one way ticket for 3 pounds 40 pence, and proceeded to head for the turnstile. Well, that's where I was wrong, the lady who sold me the ticket yelled at me from behind the counter that I was headed toward the wrong platform, thankfully. So, I never actually got going in the wrong direction which is a huge plus. After that, all I had to do was wait for the train and then walk the 15-ish minutes from the station back to the house. Quite a nice walk actually, it was a very sunny/warm day, and it was enjoyable to be walking instead of driving through the small town where I'm staying. Very relaxing. The price of my train ticket comes out to be somewhere around $5, which is quite expensive for traveling only 3 stops away from my current location. Well, it's not actually that expensive, it's just a much higher price to ride the train than I'm used to for riding the MAX light rail system in Portland. I have yet to figure out why there is such a discrepancy, although I have conjectured a few possible reasons. The first is that the overall comprehensiveness of the rail system here is much more involved, and thus cost more because there are more servies available. The second reason is that, because this system is so much broader, it is more expensive to maintain (and to build originally). Also, I'm not exactly sure of the difference between the train system here and the "light-rail" system we have back home, but I'll find out. All of this has led me to want to figure out what it would take to improve our public transportation system in Portland, because it is so effective here and SO many people ride it. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to do (relatively speaking). Also, to encourage more people to use public transportation, there is a "congestion tax" in place within a certain radius of the metropolitan core of London. It sounds like its somewhere between 5 and 10 pounds per day ($8-$15 ish), or you can get a pass for a longer period of time. This is to discourage people from driving their cars into the center of the city and clogging up the roads (congestion). Another economics lesson in action folks. It appears to be pretty effective, as I don't distinctly remember any large traffic jams any of the time that I was in London, and we were very near the city center during the evening rush hour. I think that Portland could benefit from this sort of thing too, as there is ALWAYS tons of traffic at the rush hours. It might be difficult to initially incorporate, but once in place it would raise revenue and really keep the amount of cars out of the city. Also, it would further help curb emissions!

So, when I get home I'll be doing research to learn more about our current public transportation system. If you know of some good resources to get some of this information, I'd love to hear from you. Or, if you feel the same way that I do, join the ride! The efficiency and ease-of-use of the system here is truly inspiring. I'd love for Portland to be known for the same thing. It would allow me to take so much more pride in this great city, of which I'm falling more in love with all the time.

Thorns and roses!

Thorn - Lapsing for a second and heading towards the wrong platform... I thought I had the whole transportation system totally figured out!

Rose - Finding capri's!

Bud - Going to see a play tomorrow and hopefully getting to take a look at an international school in London which the University of Oregon offers a study abroad program at. ;).

AT out