Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Charlie card

oh, we got spoiled by so many days of great weather... i forgot how annoying rain is.. but now i know again. a rainy window view i had from the lab, the subway, the apartment... rain rain rain... the pool is sooo full its almost overflowing! yesterday evening we swam in it, pfew, that was rather cold (it is not heated).
luckily i dont bike to work... :) no, actually i miss that soooo much! i wish i could... so i started biking in the 24hr fitness, because it cant be that i return home and dont know how to bike anymore. but biking on a bike that doesnt move is really soooo boring! instead, i have a charlie card. that card, which costs me only 30 dollars/month (the other 30 dollars are paid by the university) allows me to go anywhere in boston by subway or bus! it is named after a character in a protest song dating back from 1948, "Charlie on the MTA". it was written to protest a fare increase; not only did you have to pay to enter the subway system (10 cents), but also to leave you had to pay an exit fare (5 cents). so, the song is about charlie, who has enough money to enter the subway, but does not have enough to exit and thus rides the T forever. here are the lyrics. and if i wanted to, i can ride the T forever with my charlie card as well :)
i had read about charlie somewhere, and thought i knew a very interesting piece of information not known by many others.. but... having been to many places with my charlie card by now, i saw the story explained already on several stations.

6 comments:

Wayne said...

The Kingston Trio made the song famous. It's called MTA and it's easy to find on the net.

CaT said...

thanks! i will look that up and listen to it..

Diana Nijholt said...

goed hoor; want dat zou niet kunnen; een nederlandse die vergeet hoe ze moet fietsen! doe je wel een helm op als je daar gaat fietsen? is wel zo veilig.

Tim said...

hahahhahahaha :) in de gym diana?? :D

CaT said...

nee, ik fiets met slippers.... en sloeberkleding, terwijl de amerikaanse trutjes er allemaal perfect bijlopen met dure sportkleding en schoenen.. ze zullen mij wel vreeeeeeemd vinden.. maar ik kan wel beter fietsen! HA!

CaT said...

and really, look at the song! i really like the text! (there is a link in the post)