Murray's Law states:

the metro is organized very well. this became apparent to me several days after my first. on my first day the metro was a terrifying french place and i was in no way prepared for what followed following my little friend. as he led me through the labyrinth beneath the city we passed by buskers and bag-people and other characters that seemed to have jumped from the pages of a neil gaiman novel. Little Friend jumped and wove through the crowd and before long we came upon the great gates of the subway world: the turnstiles. a friend of mine took me on the toronto subway ... rather he took me to the toronto subway ... he left me with a bit of wonderful advice:

turnstiles are bad

and to this day that still runs through my head every time i come by one. he told me this because going through a turnstile means you are leaving the system and i'd have to pay to get in again.

to make this story shorter than it will be if i don't take evasive action i shall abbreviate it by highlighting the main points, appropriately enough, in point form.

• he had a metro membership. i did not. he used his to get me through. and used mine to jump over the turnstile.
• we took a train for a bit. in the end i didn't want to get off. i was happy, didn't want to leave and was perfectly content.
• we changed trains.
• please see point 2 for how i felt about train 2
• after train two and said our goodbyes Little Friend and I were at station 3, still very much at a loss for the inability to communicate. An American was near by and heard our difficulties and came to my rescue.
• as American was helping me along I was very much unaware that Little Friend was no longer at my side; alas, I did not get to thank him.

my stop came two trains later but brought me about as near to my bed for the evening as a person is near to discovering which end of the garbage bag they are holding is the open end. Murphy says it is never the first end, and then goes on to say that it is always the first end just never the first time you try it. I walked to both ends of the street and spoke with several people few of whom knew of a hostel on that road, all of whom felt i was heading the right direction and none of whom could agree on how far i should walk until i might catch it. my favourite was the woman working at a real estate agency who told me to go 500 m up the street and then ask someone who turned out to work across the street from the hostel i was booked at. i was told this 500 m up the street by the someone i asked.

i dropped in to tell her where the hostel was so she could be of more help to the next person but she no longer spoke english.