Thursday, July 08, 2010

If Love Was a Train

Train travel should be better than it is. It's great in theory - but so is cold fusion.

While the company would clearly pay for my flight from Philadelphia to DC, it seems silly when the train ride is only 90 minutes. Way shorter than getting to the airport, through security, sitting, taxiing.....etc etc etc.

And way cheaper. And I can work - and make calls. Especially when I upgrade to Business Class. No reason I should sit with the riff-raff.

The reality, trains move more than I think they should. It's fine when you're just sitting there, but when you have a laptop open and trying to do a PowerPoint, not so easy. And if you ever have to use the restroom....yikes. When the train originates in Boston and now it's four hours later - let's say the bathrooms at Union Station smell better than this thing. Hot. Stale. Piss. (sorry gals - it's just the way it is.)

But a few pics for you all. Since I was clearly bored.

Amtrak #85 as it pulls into the 30th St. Station in Philly. I got to the terminal at 16:22 for a train that left at 16:30 - oh, and I had not purchased my ticket yet. I get there and the sign said "all aboard". They weren't, I mean, since I wasn't.

This is somewhere past BWI, two stops from my final destination (not the horror movie). Another train passed us and it wasn't even an Acela. WTF??

The joke is, we ended up stopping about 500 ft from Union Station, as there was a back-up of trains due to an earlier power outage. We sat for a good 40 minutes. I could have walked it 10 times over. The bigger joke? Train after train passed us because we couldn't pull into the station. Fuckers.

These are the tracks (some of them) at Union Station. The guy to the left made me laugh - not in a good way. He wore a cigarette behind his ear most of the train ride. Really? Do people still do that - and better yet, WHY?

Here I am at the Union Station Metro stop. Awaiting the Red line to Shady Grove, though I wasn't going to Shady Grove. Just a three station ride to Metro Center, where I changed to an Orange line to McPherson Square - then a few block walk to the hotel.

While I stay here at Washington Plaza a lot, I really try to stay here during summer - since it is one of the few hotels with a pool, outdoors at that. Yeah, the water was about 87 degrees, but if you get out of the bath water, you can let the air cool you down. And no, I'm not smiling. I'm sure if this were a Brettcajun pic, he'd say he was just looking butch - so I'm going with what I think he might say. Yeah - that's it.

I also swear my chest is way more defined, but it ain't showing up in this pic. I blame the photographer.



Song by: Michelle Shocked

4 comments:

Cubby said...

What's in your other hand?

david Joseph said...

Nice nip slip.

Brettcajun said...

LOL. Thanks for the reference. I am ALWAYS butch except for when a Ke$ha video appears at the Bourbon Pub... then I let out a high pitched squeal. LOL.

anne marie in philly said...

you are correct about a smelly bathroom on a hot day. and yes, the train does keep a rockin down to dc.

the train passing you past BWI is a northeast regional. around here, we have acela (the more expensive train) and the northeast regional (the least expensive train). both get you where you wanna go in the same amount of time; you have to decide if paying double or triple the price is worth it.

oh yeah, and without having to take your shoes off, go thru 60 bagillion detectors, get prodded like cattle, etc. more civilized travel, IMHO.

ummmmmm, shirtless pix at the end...ummmmmm...