{"id":5725,"date":"2020-02-18T14:17:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T17:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/?p=5725"},"modified":"2020-02-18T14:17:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T17:17:37","slug":"the-metro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/?p=5725","title":{"rendered":"The Metro"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/strong> am a watcher of people and the best place I have found to watch them, is an international airport.\u00a0 Now after living in Brazil, I see that the Brazilian Metro is a close second.<\/p>\n

The Metro (or subway) is an inexpensive way to move through a city.\u00a0 In my life, I have only used the metros in three countries.\u00a0 The Metro in the Washington DC area, the Metro in Moscow Russia and the one here in Sao Paulo, Brazil.<\/p>\n

The one in the DC area is the most costly, as you are charged on how far you travel.\u00a0 The trips I usually took cost about 4 or 5 dollars. The system is very efficient, and the stations are concrete, glass and steel.\u00a0 I rode it many times from Springfield, VA into DC for work, and goes right past the solemn Arlington Cemetery.\u00a0 It seems to be the only time the verbal noise on the train subsides.<\/p>\n

I loved the Russian Metro system.\u00a0 The stations are like museums, especially the ones that existed back during the Cold War.\u00a0 You can see the old Soviet statues depicting how great the Soviet Socialist system was.\u00a0 The newer ones have no statues but beautiful decor built into the walls and even the floors.\u00a0 The Metro charges one fee and you can ride all you want until you surface and pass through an exiting turnstile.<\/p>\n

It was an amazing thing to see during rush hour.\u00a0 Back in 2007, the system moved 9 million people a day.\u00a0 A train would arrive every 45-90 seconds, and the doors opened for 20 seconds, then closed and it was gone.\u00a0 During that time of day, you walked like penguins because of the volume of people.<\/p>\n

The Moscow trains always rode like they were about to fall apart, yet I don’t think they ever will.\u00a0 As the car rocks back and forth, sometimes the flooring moves opposite the car.\u00a0 The cars are not very clean and is common to see someone sleeping on a seat, or someone drunk.\u00a0 But, that is what made it interesting.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian system is like Moscow.\u00a0 I will pay about what is equal to one US dollar and ride as far and long as I want.\u00a0 We can travel clear to the other side of the city and back for 2 dollars.\u00a0 A taxi ride can be as much a 40 US dollars.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian Metro is like the one in the DC area, concrete, glass and steel.\u00a0 But what makes this system so interesting, is the people.\u00a0 I wish I had a camera I can wear that records what I see.\u00a0 Brazil has many of these strange people that do not fully realize there are only two genders.\u00a0 It is nearing Carnival which brings out very strange individuals.\u00a0 Below is a picture I took of what I believe is of the male gender.\u00a0 The metro is full of things like this.\"\"<\/a>I will also tell you the Brazilians are very polite and considerate.\u00a0 The first time I road the Metro in Sao Paulo, a young lady got up to give me her seat.\u00a0 I was quietly stunned and just shook my head.\u00a0 If I spoke Portuguese fluently, I would have chewed her butt out for thinking I am an old fart.\u00a0 Do I really look that decrepit?<\/p>\n

In Moscow, you would see the opposite.\u00a0 Someone will stand to let an elderly woman sit and one of the arrogant Russians would quickly sit down before she had a chance to.\u00a0 I learned to watch for it when I gave up my seat.\u00a0 I would make a point to block anyone else from taking my seat before he\/she sat down.<\/p>\n

Anyway, now I am in a bad mood thinking about the arrogant Russians.\u00a0 Good thing I don’t have a pet.\u00a0 Carnival is coming up quickly and we are already seeing signs of it.\u00a0 I will try to get a mess of pictures for you.<\/p>\n

Until then, continue kicking butt.\u00a0\u00a0 D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a watcher of people and the best place I have found to watch them, is an international airport.\u00a0 …<\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2tztR-1ul","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5725"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5747,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}