Trains!

I just pulled up a new page, ready to compose, when I glanced in the corner and saw that I was logged in under David's account. Good thing I noticed! I wouldn't want him to get credit for contributing to the blog without actually writing anything. Whew! (Post anytime, David. After all, this is "our" blog).

Okay, now that I've embarrassed my husband (love you, honey!) I'll move on to chronicling our latest adventure. It has been so cold the last week that we have been staying indoors a lot. By Saturday David and I were both itching to get out, so we decided to go to the Transit Museum in Brooklyn. Only we weren't smart enough to double check the hours it was open, so we arrived a half hour before we could get in. Since it was nearly lunchtime and there was a pizza place nearby that we wanted to try, we thought we'd get lunch first. We were too cheap to spring for a cab so we walked a mile in the frigid temperatures and nearly froze to death. (Well, David and I nearly froze. Michael was nice and comfy in his stroller muff and weather shield). And we got to the restaurant to find that it hadn't opened yet, either! Of all the luck. So we stood out in the cold for 15 minutes until they finally decided to open the doors. By then my gloved hands were so frozen I wasn't sure I would ever be able to use them again.

And for all that, the pizza wasn't that great. (Patsy's is still winning the pizza race).

But back to the Transit Museum. It was actually really fun. They had taken an old Subway station that was no longer in use and turned it into a museum. I'm not sure why I think this is so cute, but I do. We enjoyed reading about the building of the Subway system. It turns out that, for the most part, they did not tunnel under the city. Most of the system was built using the "cut and cover" method, meaning they dug huge trenches for the subway tracks and stations and then rebuilt the roads over the tops of them. Fascinating. We also learned that the busiest station is Times Square, which is used by 33 million people every year. And NYC transit brought in $2.7 billion in subway fares in 2006. I love little useless facts like that.

The best part of the museum was a collection of old subway cars that you could explore. Michael was in heaven running from one train car to the next. And he got to "drive" a bus, which was so fun for him. We bought him a subway car that is compatible with his train track at home, so now he has his very own "1" train.

Watch out, pedestrians!