Tales From the Metro

When and where was the last time you rode in a metro--if ever? Might be nice for some of us to share our experiences as we dream of what the Metro will be like in Dubai.

I believe my last time was in Los Angeles in 2005. It had some of the typically American idiosyncrasies. One could take it from the LA international airport, but it was by design rather less than convenient.

You had to take a bus from the terminal a mile or two away and wait in what seemed like a derelict, dangerous part of town for the train to arrive. Once on the train you had to contend with the occasional drunk and rowdy teenagers. And of course there was no direct run to the center of the business district. One had to get off and change to another train in an even more dangerous looking neighborhood than the first.

Let's hope Dubai's system will be a lot more convenient and appealing.

To feel more at ease I struck up a conversation with a fellow traveler, who seemed like a safer bet to approach. I was the Japanese-speaking American resident of the UAE trying to make friends with an English-speaking Japanese resident of Boston, Mass. I remarked that at least the station we were waiting at had cop cars around it. She said they were there because it was an especially high crime area. On my return to the airport later in the day, the cop cars had been joined by a police helicopter. Not the most comfortable entrance and exit in and out of LA.