Road Trip to Queens

This weekend my friend's improv troupe Tickles (awesome name, right?) was scheduled to perform at The Creek and The Cave, a restaurant/bar/comedy venue in Queens. His group has gigs there often,  but usually in the middle of the week and on weeknights I have a bedtime. Like a toddler. 

This show fell on Friday--a night when I am always WOAH excited to stay up and play late with the big kids--so I was super stoked to go.

In theory, getting to The Creek and The Cave from Manhattan is relatively easy. It's two stops from Grand Central, and you can get to Grand Central from almost anywhere in the city in twenty minutes. Under normal circumstances, I would have been looking at about half an hour of travel time, tops. But the gods of MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) had other plans. 

No 7 trains were running between Manhattan and Queens that night due to what the MTA gods were vaguely referring to over the loudspeaker as "... an emergency." Which, I mean, c'mon. Really? Somebody dared have an emergency at a time that inconvenienced my travel plans? Rude.

This forced me to take an advised "alternative" route involving no fewer than three subway trains. But I would not be deterred. MTA gods be damned, I was going to make it to that show! So, I took the S to Times Square, then the N to Queensboro Plaza, where I got off to transfer to the 7 train, still running in Queens (just not to Manhattan). All was going swimmingly. I was sitting on the 7 with just enough time to make it to my destination and still not be too late for the show. I sighed a contented sigh of satisfaction. Take that, MTA gods. I beat you yet!


Only, I hadn't.


Several stops passed, and I still hadn't seen mine. I pulled out my phone, just to check how many more to go. That's when I realized I'd made the rookiest of rookie subway mistakes. In my hurry to hop onto the 7 train I'd seen pulling into the station just as I'd gotten off the N at Queensboro Plaza, I'd gotten on it going in the wrong direction. Damn you, MTA gods! Not again! 

This is a mistake I made a lot when I first moved to the city. It's easy to do when you're first learning the different letters and numbers for each line. But...I've been here nearly two years now. Major fail.


I got off at the stop just past Woodside (in other words, very, very deep into Queens) and then transferred to the 7 going the right direction. By the time I got to the show I was way late and also felt like a big idiot. This feeling was only intensified when I tried to sneak into a row of empty chairs, then accidentally (and LOUDLY) knocked over a drink someone had hidden on the floor under a chair. 


BUT--on the bright side, at least it wasn't my own drink! And, there was still half the show left to go so I did actually get to see Tickles perform. They were, as always, hilarious. So, a Friday night salvaged. 

At least until I had to make my way back home and the 7 still wasn't working.... I took the G missed my connection to the N and so then decided to take the C... in other words, Friday night was basically a subway-style road trip. Check out the marked up map below to see my completely indirect, roundabout route! Note: "To" route is in red and "from" route is in blue.