Tales from the Rails: Part One

But first, it’s the riveting conclusion to the Montreal Travel Sampler! I went to Tam-Tams, experienced a drum circle one billion times better than it’s Toronto counterpart, went to a punk show in the basement of the apartment next to the squat where we stayed, met three guys from Barrie and spent the night with them in a six-person tent in a lane way, drove home with them the next day, was dropped off with Heather at Downsview station, and chilled the hell out until Friday, June 4, when it occurred to me that maybe I should start packing for this BC trip.

Enter June 5th, 9:00 PM. I'm at Union Station nice and early, mentally and emotionally preparing myself to sleep in a chair for the next four nights. I walk up to the desk at the Via One Lounge (as per my mother's instructions, even though I am not a first-class passenger) and hear, "There she is! It's Rose [my mom], with a little work done. Did you get my message?" I tell her no. She tells me I better check right now. So I listen to the voice of the woman in front of me on my answering machine and hear something something something "might be able to upgrade you to a sleeper" something something something -- WHAT?! My jaw dropped. She smiled and said, "come with me. I've got connections."

"Would it be possible to give this young lady a bunk for her trip?" she asked the service manager at the check-in. "Yes, I think it's possible," she said. From here on out I felt totally spoiled. The upgrade included free meals, not to mention a super-comfy bed. Later my guardian angel said, "this wouldn't have happened if the manager was a man. Even she said so. I asked her, 'would this have happened if a man were in your position?' and she said, 'no, probably not.'"

First-class is a world different than Economy. I got on the train, found my bunk and headed toward the skycar, the double-decker car with a windowed ceiling for your optimum viewing pleasure. I found a seat in the back but quickly noticed there was something similar about all the couples coming up the stairs. I am, on average, at least 40 years their junior. I am easily the youngest adult in the sleeper section of the train, and certainly one of the only females, if not people, traveling alone. Because people were coming in droves, they'd see the empty seat beside me in the back and assume it meant two empty seats. But no, I was sitting there, alone, and they'd turn back and say "oh, okay," and waddle slowly down the stairs again. This only happened once before I felt bad enough to leave. Before I did that though, I enjoyed celebratory champagne and hor d'oeuvres, because hey, they sure as hell don't serve it in Economy. I went back to my bunk and read.




The morning was better. At breakfast I met a nice Japanese guy named Atsuya, and we talked until lunch. Because my meal was included with my "ticket," I had to eat at 11:30 or no meal at all for me. At the lunch table I met Doreen and Mike from Chesterfield, Engerland. I'd say old British people make up the majority of the people on the train, in first-class anyway. They're part of a tour group. Mike was being snippy when we introduced ourselves. "How'd you get on this train? I bet you with Daddy's money she did," spoken without me to the man sitting in front of him. I explained my Via situation, and when we discussed my India trip I made it very clear to him that I'd paid for the whole thing myself, with my own money, all $2500 of it. Not dah-dee's mon-ee. He shut up after that. After I asserted my capacity for independent thought, we were able to become good train buddies. We see each other now and then and he offers a witty remark, or he and Doreen help me finish the puzzle I started. More on that later.

Not only do we, the privileged first-classians, get free meals and beds, but we also have an Activity Coordinator (!!!!) who organizes fun group activities such as wine tastings, Bingo, and evening movies. You know that when I saw "4:00 - 5:00 Bingo" I was ALL OVER THAT because there's nothing in this world I love more than a good ol' riveting game of Bingo. It was 4:30 and I sat in the games room with no Bingo in sight. I was getting panicky. What if there was no Bingo? What then? I saw Adele (our AC) and asked her if the game, and my heart, would go on. She said she'd asked earlier on if anyone was interested in playing and all she got was shaking heads (because they were saying no, not because they're old... c'mon guys...) so she figured no one wanted to play. I wanted to play, I'd been looking forward to it all day, I told her, can we play? Please, can we play? She told me there were two other women interested in playing and that she'd go find them and then we'd have a game. Two minutes later she came back with two precious ladies who looked as excited as I did. We're playing bingo! we exclaimed. A couple sat in the corner, and when they were asked if they also wanted to play Bingo, and they said yes, two cards for them each, please. We practically had a full house.




We played a different game each time. First, one line wins. Then, two lines. Then, a little box. Finally, one whole card. As a bonus, we did a line before lunch – and it was as entertaining as it sounds. The lady in the corner won two lines and received two prizes. She said, "give one to this girl in the back - she's the one who suggested we play in the first place!" Who, me?! Why, thank you! It's nice to be recognized! "Everybody wins!" I exclaimed. (Officially I hadn't won a thing, not even a dang line, but I felt like a winner because I had received a Canadian Maple Leaf patch to iron on to my backpack.) It was very fun.

Before I'd suggested to Adele that we 'round up the Bingo players for a game, I dropped a 500-piece puzzle on the table in front of me. It was impulsive move, but one that inevitably built a sense of community between me and many other passengers. I worked on the ‘statue in front of Rockefeller Square’ for a bit then went to eat my dinner at 5:30 (yes... I'm one of them now) and a woman asked me if she could give it a go while I was gone. I came back and a bit more was completed, a few more pieces connected. The running joke is that I can't leave the train until it's finished, and if I reach Vancouver before it's done, I'll have to come right back to the table to finish. The goal makes five days on the train perfectly bearable.




When the bunkers aren't beds they transform (with the help of an attendant) into coushy seats. The change transpired while the passengers dilly-dallied in Winnipeg. We were given four hours to f around, and I spent most of it trying to update MY BLOG but blogger was DOWN so I was pretty pissed. With the remainder of my time (which was only half an hour) I found a place to buy stamps - that is, Shopper's Drug Mart - and sent my first postcard to my family. If you would like me to send you a postcard, which I hope you do because they're fun to find and write on, send me your mailing address. I would be happy to blather on to you in another format.



I spent a second meal with an Alaskan couple, originally from California, and this time we all had the same thing for lunch: vegetable soup, bruschetta with cheese, and lemon sponge cake for desert. It was a tasty meal. The only problem I have with train food is that the portions are so big, and with little to no burning of calories, I'm just getting chunky and constipated. I skipped breakfast this morning (the only vegetarian option is blueberry pancakes and while delicious, they’re unnecessary for the 20 calorie per hour activity of sitting and reading or writing or talking - which may burn up more calories depending how steamy the topic is) for an apple - fruits are better consumed alone anyway, and they hit the spot real good. That was around 8:00 this morning, and by noon I was starving.

The conversation was nice, as usual. Those two are perfect for each other. With their white hair, blue eyes, and cool temperaments, they're genetically predisposed to prefer Alaska over California. We discussed the difference between the skycar in First-class to the one in Economy, and we both agreed that the crowd over in Economy was way more fun. "This isn't our crowd, trust me," he said. "We don't usually do this, this segregation thing, where we're sectioned off from the 'poor people'. This is our honeymoon so we decided to splurge, but usually we're with them."

The Prairies are not generally a place people look forward to traveling through, but the idea of flat lands in which I could see everything for infinity had excited me greatly for days. Having spent the previous night and day in the rocky terrain of Ontario, I was quite excited when I woke up to this:



Another topic of discussion was how a flat space might affect a person psychologically, as they grew up here. Grounded, practical, earthy, but the sky's the limit. When the sky is clear, a dome of blue envelopes the upper half of our view, while green dominates below. Green and blue, my favourite colours. The sky was clearest during lunch so I was beaming the entire time. The sea of green may as well be the ocean, I thought, and was then reminded of a dream. On May 19th (I checked the books for this), I dreamt I was taking a small cruise ship to Vancouver, not a train, and that I'd misinformed everyone about my method of transportation. I walked onto the empty boat and set sail, looking out of my bedroom window at a big, beautiful, calm ocean. As I sat looking out the window of the train at the vast green ocean in front of me, I thought that perhaps I had planned my trip to BC too short. I mentioned this fear to the table. "You'll know when you get to Vancouver," the woman said. And that was the end of the conversation.

I took a shower this morning which is always a memorable experience on the train primarily because the drain at the bottom of the stall is not so much a drain but a hole onto the tracks. I can see and hear the rails underneath me, which can be a bit scary at times. The faucet is one of those push-for-an-interval-of-hot-water type of taps, similar to those in public pool washrooms. When I felt fresh and clean enough to grab my breakfast apple from the dining car, I was pleasantly surprised with who I saw toiling away at the puzzle:



Mike and Doreen! Ah, Mike. What a sweetheart. It turned out it was his birthday on Monday, so we sang Happy Birthday to him in the dining car during dinner. He’s funny, and very, very cheeky. Extremely cheeky. Which is to say he’s a horny old man. We were doing the puzzle together (he said to me this morning, “if we finish this puzzle together I get to tell people that I made it with a young woman on the train”) when I had to leave to hang out with Atsuya, the 29-year-old Japanese feller I met the day before. Mike kept telling me this guy was going to make a pass at me, and I told him nobody was making passes at me, except him.

But it turned out that he WAS going to make a pass at me, and it was decidedly awkward. We watched the end of a movie, a ridiculous movie – Old Dogs staring Robin Williams, John Travolta, his wife, his daughter, and Seth Greene in the most PG shit I’ve ever seen – and after all the credits roll by Atsuya is just looking at me. "Yes...?" I say. He struggles to speak. “Do you mind if I kiss you?” he says. Well, shit. “Yes,” I say. He starts to smile and laugh like butterflies are flying out of his stomach. “And by that I mean no, you can’t kiss me.” He tried to explain away the situation, but I was already very uncomfortable and ready to leave, so I did.

After Saskatoon there was word of a singing duo passing through the cars with the sole purpose of entertaining passengers. I had seen them running around, they were barely older than me, and I heard an attendant ask what kind of music they played. "Folksy!" one of the pretty girls blurted as they sped to the next car. Then there were announcements about their upcoming performances on the train. They started at the end of the train and made their way forward. Mike had gone to see them in the last car and asked me if I'd seen them yet. I hadn't. He gave me the exclusive information that the girls were getting a free train ride in exchange for playing music for passengers. I thought this was the most amazing thing in the world - entertain people, get around for free. So if you are a musician or an entertaining person with a desire to travel by train, I highly suggest contacting the Via head office in Montreal. Maybe we could collaborate or something. I liked the train before, but after watching the girls - who go by the name Davida G - I liked the train even more.



Get ready for the next post, 'cause we're going to the rockies!