Sometimes I manage to shock even myself.
I drew up a map last night of where I was supposed to go, and it was very, very simple: get off the bus at the usual spot, walk straight until Georgia street, turn right, and poof! there would be the bank.
Honestly. Check out the driving directions on Yahoo Maps for yourself. See where the road forks? That's where the bus stops. It really doesn't look that hard, does it?
Started out at the apartment this morning, leapt on the bus, and rode downtown as planned. Headed in the right direction and promptly forgot something interesting I'd noticed last night in looking at the map: there are two near-parallel streets that go from point A to point B which means I took the wrong one. At least, I think I did, because after walking about 10 minutes in the direction I had memorized, I found myself at 8400 rather than 8788. Oops? *looks perplexed*
While walking, I saw a really cool but weird mural of a tree sprouting rainbow feathers and eyes and mudman in the fire swamp in the business district. It strikes me as rather bizarre that California is supposedly a big liberal hippie haven, yet we have historical murals while Silver Spring has something so trippy!
The tale doesn't end there, though.
I figured out that I'd goofed, checked out which direction the numbers ran, and started going the opposite direction on Georgia, heading towards the mystical 8700 block. That part was easy.
It also involved walking past an apartment building with a name I don't think I'd see in my home state a couple of times. I can only wonder whether it was originally named that, or if they changed it as a memorial. I'm not sure which is creepier, in any event.
A short while later, I reached Bank of America. Yay! The first ATM, however, was dead, booo...no problem, I thought, I'll just use the one next to it! I sidled up to its sibling, put my card in, requested some cash (for the frappuccino that at that point I needed to combat the heat!) and...
We're sorry. This ATM temporarily is not able to dispense cash. Please come back later.
I calmly, patiently walked down to the next bank. Same thing: a "cashfree" ATM. WTF? Walked down to yet another bank -- the one Parrish uses, by an odd coincidence -- and finally was able to gain my money, though at a fee. Sigh.
Now here I am at Starbucks Silver Spring, by the Metro station. Hmmm, now what to do. I think I'll finish up my frappuccino and jump on el Metro to see if I can manage to get interestingly lost en route to Pentagon City.
Side note: I've been told my cats are all doing fine, the house has not burned down, and in general things are the usual back in California. So I had no nightmares last night, woohoo! :^D
Next update: the journey to Pentagon City, also known as will there be appealing people on the Metro, or scary weirdos trying to caress my leg? All that is certain is that there's a Borders and Starbucks there, which is really what matters, right? *snicker*
Posted by moggy at July 01, 2003 09:43 AM | TrackBack
