Subway Series: 1

A pleasant surprise at Carroll Street -- a banjo player near the President St. entrance (and a good one, too). I was not too cheery to be getting on the train at 7:30 am, but he helped me out. I dug into the bottom of my Chinatown bag and gave him some change. He deserved it for a job well done, especially in the sweltering hades-like heat of the summer subway.

It was another sleepy morning on the train. Thankfully, I got a seat -- otherwise I surely would have fallen flat on my face with exhaustion. People either read or napped on each other. When they could, that is -- it was a rather noisy train. Not from the customers talking but from the blaring conductor's speaker.. you could just tell the poor guy was a morning-radio-DJ stuck in the role of subway conductor -- he SO wanted to talk to us, and we so didn't want to listen. He would make announcements not only at each stop but in between stops, thanking us several times for riding New York's MTA and wishing us a pleasant day. It's probably a good thing that no one knew which car he was in because his happy days would be way over had anyone from that train found him.