From the Californian Zephyr part 2

16th August: Glenwood springs. We have just stopped somewhere in e rockies not far from Glenwood springs. The scenery today has been amazing! Much much more interesting than the first part. The trains here are huge, every now and again we pass a train with over 100 carriages of freight, roughly about a mile long.  Running late today because a crane fell on the track. Unlike in the U.K there is no compensation for being 3hr late, they actually state on the website that they are not responsible for running on time.  Anyway what's 3hrs on to a 60hr train journey. Plenty more curious characters on board today. 

3pm: I'just had the most ridiculous conversation with an American from Chicago, who is in the military. He is heading to Glenwood springs for some sort of reunion. He, like many Americans, thinks that the world revolves around them and it took some time to convince him of some of our differences. For the second time in two days I had to explain that not every country in the world uses the same plug sockets for example.  He just about died of shock when he saw my U.K phone charger and it's three pins.  Guns of course according to him are a basic necessity and we in the U.K are crazy to not have them. Ahh but then the medical science expert that was on yesterday would no doubt believe meditation would heal a gunshot wound anyway, so they are probably all fine. Now across the other side is a mother and teenage child, and t hey both have the most expensive looking camera's I've ever seen with all sorts of different gadgets to go with it. We just went through what is considered to be the most scenic part of e trip, and there they are Sitting playing cards!  Behind me is some annoying idiot who made a big song and dance about how he got a seat on the side of the train with the best view. Well he is looking at nothing other than the side of a mountain now. I'd have sympathy for him if he hadn't made such a fuss bragging about his view earlier. He has got one of these ridiculous cowboy hats on, I can't believe people actually where these things. Earlier, I was joined by two texans, which was obvious from the struggle that they had to go through just to fit into what I would say are pretty gigantic seats. They were nice though. They too had an expensive camera, but sadly did not know how to turn the timer function off, so they no doubt left with expensive shots of the best scenery 10 seconds after it had passed.  

6pm: The man in front of us is clearly loving this journey, as most of us are, however he just cannot keep it too himself. "wooow, ohhhh goshhhh, ooooh. Maryln, look, isn't it stunning, it's soo amazing , wow just look out of the window, god it looks so good when you look out of the window"(as supposed to looking out of ....?)  Marlyn seems slightly embarrassed to be sitting next to him (rightly so), and it has just become clear that she obviously did not agree to this trip. She just looked away from him with a look of disgust on her face. If she wants a divorce, I think she better wait another 25hrs before she tells him. 

8pm: In my room now thanks to an early upgrade.  Marigold is my room attendant. She is really nice and helpful. She just talked me through the function of a basic light switch. "the white button on the wall there, thats your light switch. Push it to the left, your light will go off. Push it back to the right, and your light will go on." I only wish she talked me through the air conditioning situation, its sliding control switch truly stumped me. The train journey couldn't really get any better, except it just has because my room is like a little observatory and I can lie here in the dark looking at the stars, they are soooo bright! 

From the Californian Zephyr

6 hrs into the journey so far, sitting in what they call the observation car, for the obvious reason that it's good for observing the scenery go by with the big glass windows up the side and roof of the train. There is quite a mixture of people here. At the moment, one man who is travelling by himself is talking to a couple about how he is an expert medical scientist. Meditation, he believes, is what all GP's should be recommending more often. Obviously this would cut costs to healthcare, but the true point of the matter is its proven ability to cure everything. Wow, we are so last year in the U.K. On the other side of the carriage, a sort of Texan American is sitting he looks ready to shoot someone, but I'm not too worried. He has started on the  alcohol a few hours ago, and keeps making jokes that aren't funny. His joke about crossing the Mississippi did confuse me though, and if he knew that then I'm sure at least he would be able to laugh.  It turns out that your really can't miss the mississippi.  It is rather wide. But before that moment, i was ready with camera fearing that I'd missed it each time we whizzed by a small trickle of water.  The view tonight is stunning. The sun is slowly setting inn thesky, which is now a nice orangey red colour shining over the state of Iowa, which in itself looks rather bland from here, but nevertheless I'm enjoying it.  A few places in front of me, a couple have obviously long ago decided never ever to cut or indeed touch their hair ever again. I've heard that if you leave it long enough, hair will start to clean itself or something. Well I don't know, but it's long, and smelly, its fine.  Further down is a German pair of guys who are traveling together across the states.  I met one of them earlier. He seemed a nice guy, he studies electronics in Germany. The second German that I've met today studying electronics.... Strange. Anyway, it turns out that they don't have much to say, and actually he is glued to the window with his camera. I wonder if you could somehow add the value of seeing such wonderful sights against the value of having great pictures of it, which is better? It seems to me that he has missed out. The point of being he is surely to sit back and take in the view, the rest google images can deal with, but I understand this, we all do it. God knows why. I tried to take a picture of the Mississippi and all I have is the blur of the bridge as we crossed over.  
Now back at my reserved seat, there is another collection of curious people. I haven't seen them in hours actually, they might think I've left, which is making me nervous because I have a good window seat there.  The thing with being on such a long train journey is that you obviously don.t want to be surronded by anooying people.  I kept telling myself that they weren.t annoying until one woman started discussing the issues with bears in Scotland (they had just watched Brave) Another woman decides to play her music. I suppose we have all been invited to listen to it, as she has opted not to be polite and use headphones.  Meanwhile, the couple on the other side proceed to slag the film off, which would have been ok until they claimed that the bears in the film were too far, since it was too scary.  The only other slightly annoying thing is Stacey from the dining car. She makes an announcement every now and again about dinner reservations. She speaks really really slowwwwwly and loudly going on about all her different options for eating, repeating everything at least twice as she goes. I thought it was an American thing but the guy next to me seemed to find her strange so I suppose it's not. 

 It's great though otherwise. Lots of chit chat with interesting people, lots of nice views. Comfy seats. What better way to spend a 24th birthday. I wish Stacey could do me a mojito. 

On the runway

Heathrow, gate 26: if there is anything to say about anyone, then a 777 full of Americans is probably the place to look. Already, an

Abundance of meaningless phrases are being thrown about 'thank you so much' ' I appreciate that' 'you are so welcome' How much is 'so much' anyway? The woman at the front of this economy class , you can just see straight away she is the type that phoned up to make sure she got the seat with extra legroom. Although its non of her business she is quite happily interfering with everyone else's seating arrangements as they walk by. Shush woman, no you do not work here. Meanwhile, everyone else more or less fall into the following categories: we have the loud Americans - both the pleasant and the unpleasant. The stroppy British, standing waiting politely whilst muttering to themselves about the stupid people in front who are struggling to find their seat. I wonder, is it the letters or the numbers that they struggle more with? Or perhaps it's the challenging combination of the two. Well it's all happening to the nice relaxing moonlight sonata,   which is now playing for the third time. Ready for   takeoff! Oh, no hang on, someone's on the wrong flight. I am sympathetic with the man, I tried to find gate 26A before realising that was my seat number. 
 Whilst this is all going on I've now realised my  spontaneous $5 purchase for live tv to watch the  Olympic closing ceremony has been wasted since  it will only show live American tv, and the  Americans aren't getting to see it live. :-( 

White Ace in the morning

8am. Kings Cross: A man gets on with a bag of bamboo sticks.  He stands there with a couple of them in his hands and out of the blue has just started waving them about like a mad man.  What on earth is he doing? He is now waving them up and down at the tube map as if the map has just done something to offend him. Maybe he is colour blind.  Surely he is going to hit someone, sit down silly man!

Another woman is sitting doing some knitting and has obviously made a lot of effort to look British today with bright red and blue colours on. She could be a tesco employee though. A man is reading the paper and has headphones in.  He is sitting next to a woman who is also wearing headphones and is staring at her feet. Everything tells me that these two do not know each other apart from the fact they are actually having a conversation. He doesn't look at her and I can hear his music. How does this work then?
Finsbury Park: Orange orange orange appears to be the theme of the group that just got on. Two with orange t-shirts, one with orange flowers in her hair and one with orange sunglasses, the Dutch have arrived! Somehow their arrival on the tube has gone unnoticed and they are blending in quite well.  (More so than the British/Tesco employee sitting opposite!)
Meanwhile, a woman is drinking from a 3 litre bottle of something. It has caught my attention a few times. She is trying to be discreet. What is she drinking?  She must be about 50 or so, very smartly dressed although her hair is a mess. She is trying to sort the hair, I wish she wouldn't though because there are bits of god knows what falling out of it, why can't people sort themselves out before traveling! In her bag is a fancy looking diary and some other documents. She has taken the diary out twice and shuffled her documents about, but hasn't actually looked at any of them. The bottle is now by her feet, hidden in a bag.  Ahh, I've just seen 'www.drinkaware.com' written on the side. She bends down to take another drink, trying to hide what I can now see is 7.5% cider at the bargain price of £3.45! Now that is happy hour prices, but at this time of morning??  I wonder how many other people are currently drinking before work?

Who gets the seat?

Piccadilly line, 1pm: Hot and sweaty on the tube today, as always. Papers scattered everywhere but nobody seems to care. Everyone is reading, the girl next to me had a smile on her face, I feel like she wonders what I'm doing. 

Holborn: A mixture of old and young people get on but no seats are available and none offered. An old man stands looking almost a bit bitter at this lack of respect, which is conflicting with his aggressive tough man look suggesting he'd be offended to be considered weak enough to need a seat anyway.   A woman pretends to read the metro whilst peering over the top looking about either to see where she is or because she is amused with the rest of us. Just made eye contact with the man opposite, he looked back awkwardly, it's not acceptable for men to make eye contact according to this man. 
Russel Square: Tourists get on. They can only be tourists. They look thoroughly unsatisfied, Londoners know not to bother with that look anymore and by the looks of things they just made the mistake of declining to use the lift in the station. They no doubt believed they could easily manage the 175 step spiral staircase in the station, a mistake people only make once at this stop I should imagine.  Meanwhile, I wonder if the sleeping guy down the other end has long missed his stop? An older woman checks her diary. It looks empty from here but some people do like to try and look important!

 

Kings Cross: A woman with a bright orange top gets on, she looks like one of these busy body types, fussing about with her iPod as if it were alive and might respond differently to being handled so violently. She glares at it, and shoogles it about, hoping for it to play a better song perhaps. I'm sure the iPod is unaffected by this although Apple might do well to consider setting up a support group if not for the products themselves, for the owners who treat them like some sort of broken wind-up toy.

Holloway road: Messy guy gets on all covered in paint. Think he is drinking beer, which is ok.  I think afternoon drinking should be encouraged in the summer (and winter). But then he takes the daily star out and as if it makes it more acceptable, flips it to the sport side. As if the backside of such a paper would have any more credibility. A rather big guy gets on, he is perched on one of the side seats with a grin on his face. He manages to make himself look a bit guilty, a morning spent at Dixie chicken, no doubt. I personally prefer KFC. Mmmmmmmmmmm.