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.
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