chi-pdx (added notes)

Also! Just remembered: As we were getting off the train, somebody said that they were hoping that the wounded chef would get out of the hospital "in two days or so." What happened?!

Amtrak adventures, part. 2: CHI-PDX

Advantages of being in a sleeper car:

1. Sleeping horizontally. Although the seats in coach are pretty huge (I'd say bigger than the first class seats on an airplane), the sleeping is rough. In even the tiniest sleeper, you basically get two smaller-than-twin-sized beds to sleep horizontally in.
2. Unlimited free coffee and bottled water. I think that I drank more water than anyone else on the train, and subsequently, had more empty 8oz water bottles rolling around the floor of the sleeper.
3. Free meals, and with that, free dining companions. We experienced the dining car five times, and so five sets of companions.
• The first night at dinner an older couple that didn't talk much. Going to Santa Clara, CA to visit their daughter. Conversation didn't flow.
• The next morning at breakfast, a woman and her child. Both grumpy. Neither ate much. Neither spoke to us.
• Lunch: An older couple going home to the tri-cities in Washington. They had been visiting their daughter, a dog-groomer/county clerk/telecommuter, who lived in a resort town in Minnesota, which was surrounded by lakes. Near the end of that meal, a different sleeper car lady stumbled up to us, grabbed both Joe and the older man by the arm and told them that there would be a trivia contest at the upcoming wine and cheese event and that we MUST REMEMBER that Montana means mountain and that King David is Jesse's father. Ok.
• Wine and cheese: The sleeper car passengers were treated for a free wine and cheese tasting, featuring Washington wines and mediocre cheeses. We sat wit ha couple originally from Detroit but now from somewhere in North Dakota, who were off to visit the lady's brother somewhere in Washington. Neither Joe, nor I were quite sure how to relate to them, because, uh, the only cheese that she liked was "orange cheese," the only cheese that he liked was, "cheese heads" (??), and both though that the wines were "disgusting and bitter" (except for the Riesling). But, on the bright side, after finding out that they hated all of the wines, they left and told us that we could eat their cheeses and drink their wines.
• Dinner: An older couple from Minnesota, going to Salem, OR to visit their daughter. The best meal companions of the trip. We talked about traveling in the USA and in Europe, discussed what should be done with money (they l, and chatted about what had been going on on the train. It was nice to get an actual talking-to-people experience, when all of our other dining companions had been either oddly reticent or just plain grumpy.

Rumored misfortunes to have happened on this train ride were:

1. The under-the-weather, maybe-obsese chef sliced off a finger, or sliced through a body part, or had some other tragedy occur that involved blood spurting in various directions. A call was put out to the entire train for doctors. A few minutes later, another call, stating that they now had a sufficient number of doctors and nurses. The train later stopped for an hour in an abandoned-seeming area for an hour (to airlift/ambulance the chef?).
2. An incident with a drunk. Rumor has it that some drunk blond guy, who had been drunk for three days, punched the middle-aged lady maitre-de in the face. It may have involved a chase afterwards. He was later escorted off the train by law enforcement.
3. Not sure, but I'm sure something else horrible happened, as when the staff were talking about train emergencies, and someone inquired as to what happened, the response was, "which [what happened] do you want to hear about?"

The best thing that happened on this train ride (other than the amazing scenery) was that, after the wine and cheese tasting finished, the remaining bottles were triva-ed off, and I won! I won a bottle of white wine (Chenin Blanc?), which I later traded to a different young lady who had won a bottle of Syrah.




The question: How many seconds are there in a year?
The answer: 12 (ie: jan 2, feb 2, etc....)

Now you know.

It'll be weird to be in coach on the way back, contrasted to right now when we get all of this sleeper-car extravagance of wine and cheese, free water, and horizontal sleeping.

SYR-CHI

Made it to Chicago!

Last time I was on a train, from New York City to Syracuse, just before the train took off, a crying young lady was told to sit next to me by her mother. Judging by the schoolwork she was doing, I'd guess that she was a freshman or sophomore in college. The other people around and I asked her what was wrong, and she said that a mean, witchy Amtrak employee -- a woman with grey hair, and maybe glasses -- was pushing her and her family around and grabbing their stuff. She calmed down and I sort of wrote the story off to her being young and dramatic.

The train to Chicago was about 45 minutes late getting into Syracuse. There was a huge mob of people waiting to get on, freezing our noses off in the 10 degree cold. After a bit of chatting and joking around with other travelers on the platform, the conductor stamped our tickets and let us on. I chose two seats in the middle of the car for me and Joe, and was about to put my bag up overhead.

A short, grey-haired lady with glasses and a scowl approached me and demanded: "Why are you on this train? This is a full train and you have to get off so that I can assign everyone seat numbers!" I gave her a deer-in-the-headlights look and said that I was there with my boyfriend (who was still working on getting on the train) and that the conductor told me to go here. She gave me a glare and grabbed the handle of my rolly-bag, starting to move it toward the direction of the door, before she realized that all of the other passengers were pouring in. She swiftly snapped that we should take seats 55 and 56, and went on to glare at other passengers.

There is no way that this woman was not the same woman who made the last train's girl cry (particularly, because both were Lake Shore Limited trains, so that train's final destination was also Chicago). Wow.

Later it snowed on the train. In the train? Inside of the train! In the walkway between cars. At night, whenever anyone walked between the cars, my toes felt a cold, cold draft.

Another very important discovery was made concerning Amtrak's cafe car system: They sell a "single serving" of wine for $5.25 and a "half bottle" for $13.00. Last night, it was found that two "single servings" actually equal half of a bottle of wine.

See, Amtrak? I'm on to you!

Now, we're in Chicago waiting for the second train that we need to take: The Empire Builder. Two nights and parts of several days will be spent on that one, but this time around we'll have a tiny roomette, all of our meals for free, and maybe even coffee and newspapers. And an observation car!

snow!

We finally have snow here in Syracuse! All of my classmates and I found it a bit hilarious that every single other place had snow while we, in the snowiest large city in the United States did not. It was pretty crazy, though, when I saw it snowing both horizontally and upward today.

escaping my studies and my troubles, fleeing westward

 On 16 December I'm ditching Syracuse, getting on a train for 60+ hours, and fleeing to Portland. Well, sort of. 


This semester ends in less than a month and I am 100% ready for that. I enjoy studying public diplomacy here, but 15 credit hour semesters at graduate school are just insane. For anyone curious: here's the wikipedia link which sort of describes the subject that I'm studying. Hint: it's not propaganda anymore (or at least it shouldn't be)! An upside to this semester, almost making up for the 15 credit hours, is that it hasn't really snowed yet (well, once, but flurries) and might be warmer now, in November, than it was in October. 


In another weird turn, I found out that, although I'm fulfilling all of the stated requirements for my scholarship, I am not fulfilling the unstated, imaginary requirements that I was supposed to somehow infer from the application, so I'm dealing with that. To make a ridiculous analogy and throwback to the old days, I feel like Harry Potter, in that I've stumbled into some weird world with no stated rules and people are telling me that I'm destined for greatness (thanks iSchool) but not actually giving me any solutions for how to deal with the actual problems that exist within all of this.


Anyway, December 16: getting away from it all. A 13 hour train ride to Chicago, a 46 hour train ride to Portland (Oregon), a week in Portland, then back to Chicago (by train, of course) to hang out and celebrate the onset of 2010. It should be a good time. Will eat, blog, hang out with friends, and make it back in time to head to DC to attend a professional conference (er, I hope.) and see friends.  Woopwoopwoop!

garlic is more important than most other things

Joe and I took MegaBus to New York City for the weekend of his birthday. I got "arguably the best garlic in the known universe" as my souvenir. I think I'm planning on roasting it and spreading it on bread. Yum.

french (in action!), happy birthday to me.

I'm starting my 23rd year by adding more French to my life.

Since acquiring a set of French in Action DVDs, I've been meaning to start actually watching them rather than letting them languish on my bedside table. For those not in the know, French in Action is a series of 52 (?) episodes made by a professor at Yale as a tool for French instruction.

They sometimes are hilariously dated (made in 1986, they are my age!) yet also right on the mark. In episode two, which I watched today, the main character, Mireille looks somewhat dismayed that her friends are eating lunch at ELEVEN. Quelle horreur!! Also, there's a romance, a mysterious suited man following people around, and parts where the professor teaching the class walks out of his classroom and into the action. Awesome. And Mireille's outfit is really cute (red high-waisted skirt, white shirt cut low in the back).

One thing I found weird about this episode was that Mireille shook hands with two of her male friends rather than exchanging bisous. Especially since she knew their names and seemed to be in the same social group as they were. I got made fun of anytime I tried to shake hands with anyone in France.  Hmmph.