The stores that are in the mall include Penney's, Costco, Walmart, Bath and Body works and a few smaller stores. I bought some olive oil and a blu-ray disk in Costco while Susan ordered her glasses. Then we headed back to the station, this time going behind Target which I think was shorter. There was a huge line but the nice Homeland Security man advised us as to how to avoid the crowd and we got on a train relatively quickly. It was full leaving the station and got fuller at 7th Avenue and Central/Camelback. We got out at Campbell to have lunch at Pane Bianco. Unfortunately it is closed on Mondays. It is open until 3 Tuesday-Saturday. So we walked to the Indian School stop. There were a bunch of people waiting and when the train came it was so full that few go on. We then waited another 20 minute or so for a train and when its doors opened it was no better. We got anyway, to the protest of some of the people inside. Welcome to mass transit, folks, get used to it! The problem was that over the weekend the volunteers were making sure that the trains left the endpoints only partially full so that people could get on elsewhere. There was no one to do that today, so getting on it was very difficult. But get on we did. We got off at Encanto and ended up getting lunch at Schlotzky's, where it was nearly two and there were a bunch of non-business-types eating. I attributed it to the metro but the proprietor grumbled that it wasn't helping him one bit and would not. Anyway, we walked home from there, 3.5 hours all told but an interesting experience. We had planned on riding to Tempe for dinner tonight but decided to wait for Friday when they started charging people and the crowds would thin out. Still I might try my trip to Mesa tomorrow morning if I get up early enough.
Monday, December 29, 2008
More Metro
Today we decided to go to the Eye Masters at Christown to order some new glasses for Susan. It took 14 minutes to get to the station and about a 3 minute wait for a train. This was the first day of regular hours for the trains, which started at 4 something in the morning. There were no more volunteers to help people but the trains are still free through Wednesday night. The train was a bit crowded but we were able to get a seat by lowering a 3 seat panel that was folded against the wall. The seats would have been filled if people had known what to do... We got a the end of the line at 19th Ave/Montebello around 11:20. There was a small line of people waiting to get on the trains. We saw several TSA and Department of Homeland Security people on the platform. Although the station faces the mall, it is not completely an enclosed mall anymore. The stores that face 19th Avenue (Target, Ross, some others and some new still empty stores) do not connect to the mall. You have to go all the way around to JC Penney (in what I think was the Monkey Wards when we shopped there 20-25 years ago) to get into the mall. 
The stores that are in the mall include Penney's, Costco, Walmart, Bath and Body works and a few smaller stores. I bought some olive oil and a blu-ray disk in Costco while Susan ordered her glasses. Then we headed back to the station, this time going behind Target which I think was shorter. There was a huge line but the nice Homeland Security man advised us as to how to avoid the crowd and we got on a train relatively quickly. It was full leaving the station and got fuller at 7th Avenue and Central/Camelback. We got out at Campbell to have lunch at Pane Bianco. Unfortunately it is closed on Mondays. It is open until 3 Tuesday-Saturday. So we walked to the Indian School stop. There were a bunch of people waiting and when the train came it was so full that few go on. We then waited another 20 minute or so for a train and when its doors opened it was no better. We got anyway, to the protest of some of the people inside. Welcome to mass transit, folks, get used to it! The problem was that over the weekend the volunteers were making sure that the trains left the endpoints only partially full so that people could get on elsewhere. There was no one to do that today, so getting on it was very difficult. But get on we did. We got off at Encanto and ended up getting lunch at Schlotzky's, where it was nearly two and there were a bunch of non-business-types eating. I attributed it to the metro but the proprietor grumbled that it wasn't helping him one bit and would not. Anyway, we walked home from there, 3.5 hours all told but an interesting experience. We had planned on riding to Tempe for dinner tonight but decided to wait for Friday when they started charging people and the crowds would thin out. Still I might try my trip to Mesa tomorrow morning if I get up early enough.
The stores that are in the mall include Penney's, Costco, Walmart, Bath and Body works and a few smaller stores. I bought some olive oil and a blu-ray disk in Costco while Susan ordered her glasses. Then we headed back to the station, this time going behind Target which I think was shorter. There was a huge line but the nice Homeland Security man advised us as to how to avoid the crowd and we got on a train relatively quickly. It was full leaving the station and got fuller at 7th Avenue and Central/Camelback. We got out at Campbell to have lunch at Pane Bianco. Unfortunately it is closed on Mondays. It is open until 3 Tuesday-Saturday. So we walked to the Indian School stop. There were a bunch of people waiting and when the train came it was so full that few go on. We then waited another 20 minute or so for a train and when its doors opened it was no better. We got anyway, to the protest of some of the people inside. Welcome to mass transit, folks, get used to it! The problem was that over the weekend the volunteers were making sure that the trains left the endpoints only partially full so that people could get on elsewhere. There was no one to do that today, so getting on it was very difficult. But get on we did. We got off at Encanto and ended up getting lunch at Schlotzky's, where it was nearly two and there were a bunch of non-business-types eating. I attributed it to the metro but the proprietor grumbled that it wasn't helping him one bit and would not. Anyway, we walked home from there, 3.5 hours all told but an interesting experience. We had planned on riding to Tempe for dinner tonight but decided to wait for Friday when they started charging people and the crowds would thin out. Still I might try my trip to Mesa tomorrow morning if I get up early enough.
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