It is always hard to realize when you are turning into your mother. Here is reason 439.
My mom is afraid to drive on the expressway. She will drive anywhere on regular surface streets, but will only go on the expressway if it is somewhere she goes all the time. One benefit of this is that when I was young and learning to drive, she taught me a lot of back ways to get places, but other than that it has often caused some trouble.
I am not afraid to drive on the expressway. I am afraid to drive in big cities, Detroit especially. in the past, if I had to go to Detroit, I would get someone else to drive me there. I had driven myself there a few times, and I would always get lost based on a combination of circular streets and one way roads. The combination of not knowing where I am going and possibly ending up in a dangerous area had really limited how many events I would attend down town. It even kept me from ice skating outside around a nicely lit Christmas tree.
A couple of weeks ago I started a new job. Guess where it is. Ding ding ding, downtown Detroit. My first day was the Monday before Thanksgiving. The Saturday before I made my sister babysit the kids and I made the hubby take me for a test run. Before we even started the test run, we stopped at Target for a GPS. In general, I am against GPSs. From what I can tell they never get the destination quite right and if you decide to take a slightly different route, they forever tell you to make a u-turn. But this was an emergency. I was sure that I would be getting lost and/or carjacked every day and that I would need to rely on this untrusted piece of technology.
Turns out I did all that worrying for nothing. Right now I am working at the Renaissance Center in Detroit. My commute contains two major highways and then I exit right in front of the building. Sure, the first day I accidentally tried to take the tunnel to Canada, but since then it has been smooth sailing. The border patrol was super nice and let me turn around with no problem. Also, the area right around the Renaissance building is beautiful. If this is the only area you saw of Detroit, you would wonder why it is always in the news for negativity. The only reminder of blight I see are the abandoned factories on the side of the highway on my way home.
So far I have mastered getting to work and getting home. I have mastered a lot of the building. I can get up to my cube on the 32nd floor. My cube has a beautiful view of the Detroit River, the casinos in Windsor, and the bridge to Canada.
So far I have yet to master anything outside the building. There is a people mover station in the building, so one day I might try that. For those of you not from the area, the people mover is like "The El" or a subway, but I don't think it goes very far and I don't think many people use it. I have been on it once before when I was a little kid. It was brand new then and my Grandpa and Dad took us for a ride. We got off it the same place we got on it, but it was still a great adventure. My friend Tom works at the Compuware building. I think they have a stop too. Maybe one day I will meet him for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe there and I will pose for pictures with all the memorabelia.
Who else works in Detroit? Do you use the People Mover? Do you have any tips for me?
Where are you working now? What are you doing? SOOOOO EXCITING!!!
ReplyDeleteNice, I like the first day where you tried to go to Canada. I had a friend who once told me to meet her at the bar n Windsor and all I had to do was take 75 until it ends. Halfway down I realized that 75 ends in Florida, and all I had was a half a tank of gas. Take a picture if you can of the view, I love shots like that. Oh, and congrats on your new job and don't forget to have Detroit city taxes taken out!
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