Hello everyone, meet Madrid public transportation

So after giving a private english lesson out in the suburbs of Madrid I decide on a whim to find an alternate route back home.  One of the hundreds of cool things about Madrid public transportation is that there are usually about 5 different ways of getting to where you want to go.  Unlike lots of metro systems that just spider-leg out into the suburbs, Madrid has metros that run circularly, connecting lines to each other even outside of the city.

So when I head home I keep going the same way I came, hoping to catch another train at the end of the line that will take me back into the city.  Navigational success!  I arrive at the correct station.  And what’s more, there are DOUBLE DECKER TRAINS that run on this line.  So much amazingness I can’t even handle it.

Ecstatic with my little detour so far, I hop on a train (did I mention that they were double decker?) sit myself down upstairs and wait.  I wake from my public transportation dream when my train switches directions and starts moving backwards.  A minute later it changes directions again.  This is strange, but I’m comforted by the fact that two other people are in the car with me…  This turns out to be faulty logic.  We pull into a train yard.  Stop.  Lights turn off and back on again.  Before I actually get a chance to freak out a guy in a uniform comes in and tells us we were supposed to get off at the last stop.  I have failed at my daily goal of not trying to not look like a dumb foreigner (or just trying not to look dumb in general).

The uniformed man guides us through the lot of parked trains until we get to the station where we all sketchily climb out of the lot and up onto the platform.  Alright, fun adventure over.  Let’s go home.  Four different trains, five different metro stations, and about 1 hour and 15 minutes after I left work, I am back.  All for the very reasonable price of about 2.20 euros (if I break down my monthly pass by day).  Oh Madrid metro, sometimes I really don’t like you, but what would I do without you?