@blondie said in Pay the congestion fee or...:
@Doctor-Phibes I used to commute between Halifax and Boston. I remember Boston being a place having super classy and kind of sketchy neighborhoods. I used to take the trains from the airport to a stop which bisected Roxbury (sketchy) and Jamaica Plain (older, kind of nice). I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but one of my last trips I was carting a heavy hockey type bag on my back packed with text books, clothes, computer parts (I was storing stuff, prepping to move to Alabama). That train stop had graffiti, gang markings for about 2 blocks uphill into Jamaica Plain (by that I mean all the phone booths were shot up useless & houses windows, doors were barred). Anyway, I was wearing an anorak with side pockets and was balancing this heavy duffle on my back getting off the stairs at the station. This sketchy looking guy wearing orange pants and a hoodie approaches and won’t let me pass. He says “Hey, what do you got? I need money to fix a flat tire.” Scared, I was too weighed down & buckled up just to drop my big bag and run. I had both hands together in my pocket. So I reach deep in there and with both hands pull out about $20 in Canadian Loonies and showed it to him. He says, “What IS that? GOLD?” And I say, “Well, yeah. Take it.” And he did and scurried off.
I should keep some Loonies handy, we've got a bag full of foreign money of various types
Roxbury's still a bit sketchy, but Boston as a whole is pretty good by American city standards.
