Ever since my days as the city's public intern, I've been the go-to guy for all tasks tedious, nauseating, and mundane. That's why The Stranger asked me to spend the entirety of opening day riding the light rail. I did it for six hours. Most of what I saw on the train were people's legs, people's arms, people's screaming children, people crowing "Smooth!" "Comfy!" "Convenient!" and Sound Transit employees glaring at me as I tried to take notes. Parents were letting their children roam freely, and one climbed on my head. Later, I saw a girl simultaneously Twittering and Facebook-status-updating the journey on her iPhone. "Aren't you excited?" she asked. I smiled weakly and nodded. But she did have a point: This thing is better than buses, it gets places fast, and it takes you to locales you never knew existed. For example:

• The enormous Franz bakery sign that you can see when you get out at Sodo Station and walk around. I'd gotten out at the stadium stop and walked around there, too, but all there was to look at were warehouses, parked buses, parking lots, Safeco Field, Qwest Field, graffiti, and traffic—all of it begged me to get back on the train. Between stations, the automated-train-voice woman announced: "The next station is Sodo." Judging from her voice, she sounded well-rested and generally ready to take on the day, like a perky character in a poorly acted film. (The woman who narrates the opening of San Francisco's BART doors always sounds vaguely annoyed by something out of her control, like a fly she can hear but can't trap. Her movie is a tragedy. I like it better.) Though not as depressing as the stadium stop, the Sodo stop is an odd one, too. To your right you can see the post-office central headquarters and an Arby's. To your left: Beacon Hill. I walked around a bit, noticing the generic buildings that compose the guts of our city, the aforementioned enormous Franz bakery sign (imposing, hunger-inducing), and the terribly color-coordinated Tully's headquarters.

• The train rises over Sodo, nearly hitting the Franz bakery sign, and swoops over I-5 before jetting into a tunnel, which is where the Beacon Hill Station is: underground. After taking the elevator up (it's fast!), you can walk around and see one of the few remaining Red Apple Markets, adjacent to a Latino cultural arts center and kitty-corner from a hair salon. My memories of Red Apple involve the one that used to be near Oak Tree Cinemas, where a man once stole my mom's Honda Odyssey. For this reason, Red Apple conjures up conflicting feelings: hunger for delicious produce on one hand, fear of carjacking on the other.

• The University of Washington Consolidated Laundry Operations depot—I'm guessing they clean lab coats, athletic apparel, and Mark Emmert's dirty bed sheets—is near a Firestone tire store, both of which are under the Mount Baker Station. Across the street is Franklin High School. You'll probably want to get out here and walk around because Franklin High School looks improbably beautiful from the station. But be warned: The entire area is pedestrian-hostile. Cars zoom by, and there are few crosswalks. If you don't want to buy a tire, check out the jocks at Franklin High, or sit in a noisy Starbucks in the center of a large intersection, Mount Baker has nothing for you.

• A store that sells only car-related books. I spotted it while walking down Rainier Avenue South, near the Columbia City Station. Inside, you'll find people who need to reprogram their car's air-conditioning. When light rail's completely finished, I wonder if we'll need to worry about such things.

• A pho restaurant in a strip mall called King's Center, near the Othello station. There's no empty table, so the owner squeezes me in at a table where a 10-year-old girl is playing a game on her cell phone. We stare at each other briefly. There's a Vietnamese couple sitting next to us and a group of rowdy teenagers sitting next to them. I order a whole bunch of things I don't usually order at pho restaurants (chicken, something, vermicelli, this other thing), and it's delicious. As I walk back to the train, I pass an Ethiopian church and a refugee center. I wonder, briefly, if anyone there knows the Ethiopian man I used to tutor at Seattle Central. I think he lives near Othello. I miss him.

• South of the Othello and Rainier Beach stations (abandoned buildings, a furniture-rental store, enormous power lines, piles of dirt, a high school), the train flies through trees, over the Metro bus headquarters and the city's muddiest river, before gliding along next to I-5. We are nearing the mothership: the Tukwila International Blvd Station. Entertainment in Tukwila runs the gamut from cashing checks at Moneytree to watching freeway traffic. I wander into an Indian grocery store called Bollywood Videos & Groceries, which smells like Clorox. I briefly consider buying The Rhythms of Punjab on DVD (Indian version of Backstreet Boys). The store's owner, sensing I might not be in her shop for nonironic purposes, is appropriately hostile.

• On the train back to Westlake Center, I sit next to a more diverse group of people than I ever see in my regular life: an African-American couple from Rainier Beach, two Vietnamese women from Othello, a lesbian couple from Capitol Hill, and a Somali family from Beacon Hill. Most of them are talking to each other. Just like in a real city. recommended