Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Train-ing

Having been to Wiltshire for the weekend, I am now in a position to compare and contrast rail travel in the UK to rail travel in North America.


My outward journey to the English countryside wasn’t the overcrowded, three coach affair to Cardiff Central I usually catch.

Therefore the travellers were slightly different.

Not students going home or pensioners with a pass going to Salisbury.

The track suited couple with the case of Stella Artois alerted me to this.

(It’s on offer in Lidl)

They had spent their time on the platform trying to extract each others tonsils’, lingually.

After witnessing this horror, my aim was to sit as far from them as possible.

I failed.

They appeared and sat in the set of four seats in front of mine, backs to me.

This placed me in the unfortunate position of being able to see their foreplay through the gap.

Five minutes into the journey the old couple across the aisle from me had moved and the male snogger stopped to ask,

“D’ye wanna a fuckin’ beer, mon?”, declaring himself one of those pissed up, unintelligible Jocks.

O joy.

She didn’t want one, but this didn’t deter him.

On and on and on he went.

By the time we got to Cosham, I’d had enough.

“She’s pregnant you torpid twat!”

I could see him looking at her.

“That right? You up the duff?”

Thank fuck they realized Portchester WASN’T Chichester and got off.


My outward journey from Vancouver to Seattle started hellishly early.

Many thanks to Schnee for taking me to the station. I really couldn’t have coped with the Skytrain that early.

I had booked online and had been directed to go to the Amtrak window for my tickets.

All good, until it becomes apparent there is no such fucking window.

There is a wooden lectern with an Amtrak sticker but no window.

I am not afraid to ask for directions, so looked around for someone.

Two “Staff” I encountered didn’t have a word of English between them, then I saw the Sikh.

Thinking, ‘Great! Now, some sense’, I asked where the window was.

I was utterly shocked when he too, didn’t have a word either.

How bad is that? I just assumed he’d speak English!

Eventually some bloke turned up at the lectern with tickets.

Then I had to go through customs.

After having my fingerprints scanned and paying $6 dollars to get into America, I was in my window seat on the train.

It was very clean and roomy which gave me the sinking feeling I’d got into Business Class by mistake.

I hadn’t.

My mistake had been in forgetting just how colossal some Yanks allow their arses to get.

This was ‘normal’ size!

Double the width of the British Rail bastards.


On this trip I was the ‘Jock’ everyone wanted to avoid!

The Cascades line is possibly one of the best train rides ever.

They are not joking when they say it hugs the coastline.

At one point I looked out of the window and a Bald Eagle was flying along, at eye level, within touching distance.

I had headphones on a said in that overloud headphones voice,

“FUCK ME! WOW!”

To say I drew looks would be an understatement.

At least it stopped the Korean man next to me believing my leg was an extension of his.

In four hours I was in Seattle being greeted by Prof M who fed me soul food.

Check out the Matzo ball soup.

How beautiful does that look?




Tales of Seattle and the return journey to follow and that, my friends, is a fecking doozy!

Nuns were involved.

‘nuff said.



3 comments:

Schneewittchen said...

Er...the soup looks 'interesting'. The view from the window looks breathtaking!
5 am is the right time to be driving to that part of Vancouver. Even then, when I left you and stopped at the traffic light, (window up) a man came over to try and get money out of me, this is where it helps to speak French. Shout French. And avoid eye contact.

Sleepy said...

Now, if I called it Chicken broth and Dumplings would it be more appealing?

Cheeky fucker! Didn't he even offer to wash the windows?
Everything in 'Foreign' sounds aggressive, especially at 5am!

Schneewittchen said...

No, no, those dumplings look like....well somebody's dumplings.