Buses and subways:

Now it seems like whenever I go downtown, I take the bus. To 600 N. Michigan, I'm definitely going to take the Jeffrey (and by Jeffrey, I mean the 6, not the bus currently called the Jeffrey). But to North and Wells, too, Will and I decided to take the 6 to the 22 rather than the 55 to the Red Line. Last year, I always took the Jeffrey, but it was more convenient to catch from where I lived. This year, it's probably about 3/4 of a mile to walk to the Jeffrey rather than 2 blocks to the Garfield, and I still usually take the Jeffrey.

I think the more you learn a city, the more you learn that buses are often faster and almost always more convenient than subways. Our first month in London, we took only the Tube. You know exactly where to get on and off, the maps are far less confusing, and it seemed to make more sense. It was only later that we learned that often something that was two Tube lines away could be reached by riding on a single bus. Particularly living off of Oxford Street, which had more buses than the city of Atlanta driving down it at any given time, it began to make more and more sense to take the bus. There were still times that wasn't true. Going to Westminster was usually faster on the Tube, as was going to the East End. And God knows I didn't learn a tenth of the available bus routes in the city.

Chicago was sort of the same way. My first year, the only buses I took were the 55 to get to the subway, whatever the bus is that goes to Devon since there was no train out there, and once the 6. Since then, though, I've learned about a lot of very useful buses, that are often so much better than trying to ride the train. The bus down North to Wicker Park. The bus that goes to UIC from the Loop. And always, the joy that is the 6, express to the Loop and back, running often and stopping many places in Hyde Park.

It's hard at the beginning. You spend time looking for a gnome graveyard to figure out where to get off the bus since you've only been there by train before. At least once you forget your stop and end up somewhere you probably never wanted to go. You misread the number and get on a bus that goes miles from where you wanted to go. You discover the bus you're trying to take stopped running two hours earlier. But soon enough you learn how to get wherever you wanted to go, with a minimum of effort and, often, money. And in the meantime, you get to see neighborhoods and people you never would have seen otherwise.

John Banville says that "to take possession of a city of which you are not a native, you must first of all fall in love there." This is perhaps true, but figuring out the bus system is a good start.