Walking the Escalators

I love walking.  Many of you know this.  I feel like I could walk for hours and hours without getting tired (and I have, right Bec? :-)).  If the weather is nice and I have the time, I will walk there.  It's my preferred method of transportation.  The woman I live with, Sharon, thinks it's strange that I am from California and I love to walk (she also thinks it's strange that I am a girl and I don't like to shop).  I tell her it's Kyrgyzstan that made me love walking.  My walks to and from school everyday were some of my favorite times, and when I needed to get out of the house or process things with God, I would go across the street to the forest and walk up and down the road.  How I love walking.  Let me count the ways:

1. It's good for me!  I feel so much better when I'm active.
   
2. It's good for the environment.  No harmful emissions to contribute to global warming when you're trekking by foot.
3. It's good for my bank account.  Walking, of course, is free!  No need to pay for that expensive gasoline, or, in my case, a metro ticket.
4. I get to be outside.  I love being outdoors, especially in beautiful places.
5. Walking creates space.  In a culture that rushes constantly from one thing to another, walking puts some distance between things.  
6. I can think when I walk.  Goes along with the space that's created.  My mind can process when I'm not rushing around.  
7. I can talk with God when I walk.  Some of my most treasured times with God happen when I'm out walking.

I love that I live in a city where walking isn't just possible, but necessary.  Everyone walks here!  You walk to the metro station, you walk from the metro station to your destination, sometimes you walk even if you could take the metro.  I live 1.3 miles from school and even though there is a bus that picks up about a 10-minute walk from my house, I'm planning to just walk to school as much as possible.  Why not??

What does this have to do with escalators?  Well, another one of my goals here is to walk the escalators.  Every time you enter or exit a metro station, you take an escalator, and there are 2 distinct ways to do so: standers on the right, walkers on the left (sitters, as in the picture above, are very rare).  I want to be a walker.  Not because I'm in a hurry; just because I love walking, and why not take the opportunity to burn a few extra calories? :-)

Cheers to being a walker!