NYC Subway - ugh.

I found this amusing today in an article in the travel section of the NY Times.

The article discusses what tourists think of the NYC subway system.  It took me three months of living up there, taking countless subways to see apartments I could possibly sublet (what a nightmare that was!) for me to finally figure out how most of the trains worked.  And even then, I would still slip up getting on in the wrong direction or a local instead of an express.  I imagine the subway is even more overwhelming and disgusting for tourists that are coming from abroad, since just about every industrial country besides the US has a well-run public transportation system in place. 

But if you're only here for a few days, how to survive? Take taxis and tour buses? You can't really claim you've been here until you've swiped a MetroCard and received a “swipe card again at this turnstile” message and a courtesy jolt to the pelvis, or experienced the utter discombobulation of emerging back onto street level and having no idea which way is north or south or east or west.