Today my sister and I went to Montreal. The train ride is 12 hours, and there are only so much of Curb Your Enthusiasm a person can watch and only so much sleep a person could have. So we live blogged our experience on TextEdit, which I am cut and pasting to blogger now.
I am in BLACK font, Janine is in GREEN
It is 3:34, which means that we have been on the train for seven hours. That's a long time to be on a train. Here are a couple of things that one could do in seven hours.
- Watch two Lord of the Rings movies. The obnoxious group in front of us watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. They laughed at the scene where Sam was crying to Frodo. Probably because that scene is excessively gay and they find homosexuality to be humorous.
- Get a good night's sleep. A healthy, happy person needs about seven hours of rest every night. I got about four hours of sleep last night. Coincidentally, I feel like I have cancer.
- Choreograph an interpretive dance piece.
A conductor is telling a lovely elderly couple in front of us that we are right by Lake Champlain, which is the largest lake of all the great lakes. This is not information that one should tell me, because I am sick of being on this train. I've been staring at trees for two hours now. I am sick of looking at trees. I just looked up randomly saw a minivan on the side of the road and it was the most exciting part of my trip so far.
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I thought the most exciting part of your trip was attempting to take a picture of boats. The area around Lake Champlain has a lot of rich people who own boats. It's hard to take a picture of them. However, the train just stopped now in front of some boat anchored in the middle of the lake. Excellent. We're currently writing in the snack car, mostly because we hate the group of people sitting in front of us. They're now in the snack car. At least they're not directly in front of us. I've also made friends with the snack car attendant. He's Burmese and he lives in Queens. He's really friendly, but I think his friendliness comes from needing to keep his mind off of cigarettes. A woman sitting at the booth behind us asked him how he's able to survive without a cigarette for such a long train ride, and he said, "I smoked two in a row in Albany."
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There is a soccer field randomly hidden amongst the trees. I wonder how the townsfolk reach this soccer field. I imagine that they climb down from their treehouses, and then the hike through the forest, surviving on insects and bark, in order to go to this field to kick a soccer ball around.
Unfortunately, I don't think the people in this part of the world have the technology to create soccer balls, so they probably just find some sort of rock and kick that around.
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I'm sure they do. This is still America. We're not in Canadada yet. And then we tossed a bear around in the air for the next five minutes. It's hard to write. I've never been this far north before. Broder has, but I havenot.
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This part of the trip would have been fun had we driven. When I drove up here last year, we could were going well over 100 mph and I felt we were the slowest people on the road.
We're starting to see some signs of civilization here, now that we've approached one of the train stations. There are houses to the left of us. Of course, this is upstate New York, so when I say houses, I mean, buildings made of sticks tied together with vines.
I am only kidding. Whenever I go on some sort of trip, one of my main go-to jokes is how backwards and uncivilized people are in places that I am not from.
I am really excited to go to Canada, however. One of the things that always strikes me about our neighbors to the North is how friendly they are. Maybe it's because I've lived in New York since college and New Jersey before that, but I'm used to being surrounded by assholes, so it's always a culture shock to see how nice people are.
We're about to go through customs, and we're going to be stopping in "a little field with a stool". These are the conductor's words. She makes the whole thing sound like a real hassle, that we have to stay in our seats while the customs officer makes his inspections. I know that this isn't necessarily true. Last year, coming back from Canada, the guys at Customs didn't even check our IDs. They asked us why we were going into America and then we talked about Fantasy Football for a minute before they sent us on our way. We had beer and Cuban cigars in the trunk too.
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Back to that culture shock of nice people: When we were in Indiana in this small nothing town, we were walking in the afternoon to get breakfast. This woman is on a porch and her kids were playing in the tiniest front yard in the world, and she says, "Hello, how are ya?" Everyone in the group who lived in New York for a year had an expression on their face like, "What was that all about?" Friendly people catch me off guard. I would never say hello to anyone. Not even mom.
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I'm sort of proud of that though.
We're going over our game plan for Montréal. Janine's boss drew her a map of Montréal. It has lines on it that are supposed to be streets, and words to describe the street like "cool" and "french". I think I met Janine's boss once, but I was kind of drunk so I don't really remember it all that well. I think we should hang out more.
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I really like that the train makes hooting noises. HOOT! HOOOOOT!!!
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HOOOT!
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HOOOOT!
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HOOOOOT!
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It's 4:37 PM.... Hoot. We're now passing some Elizabeth, NJ-esque scenes. Well, like a cross between Midwest and Elizabeth, NJ. Hoooot! The train is slowing down. H.o.o.t.
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There are a bunch of houses to the right of us. I have always wondered why anyone would want to live directly next to train tracks. This must because they wish to hear the hooting. Hooot!
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I'm going to start calling trains: hoot-hoots. Do all trains hoot?]
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I think that's a solid idea. Usually, when I go to work, I take the N hoot-hoot. Sometimes, I take the W hoot-hoot.
There was that time a month ago that the hoot-hoots weren't working properly, so everyone was late for work. That was a hoot.
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I don't take any hoot-hoots to work anymore, because I live within walking distance. Consequently, I will just say "Hoooot HOOT" whilst I walk.... It's not the same... :(
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I think it still works, because the hoot-hoots hoot because they are warning pedestrians to get out of their way. So whenever there is a person in front of you, you can just yell "hoot hoot!" and they will instinctively get out of the way.
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Usually one would just say, "Excuse me" or "Beep beep". Flowers are pretty.
We're almost at the broder of America and Candida. The woman behind us is crazy.
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THATS A WOMAN? She sounds like an old man!
Wow.
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That's what too many cigarettes do to you. Anywho, we're stuck at customs until we die. The woman behind us pissed off the Indian family sitting in the front of the car, because she told the mother (?) not to go to the bathroom. The son (?) continues to give her dirty looks. It's disconcerting. We're traveling with four friends: Piggy, Dangles, Slumbers, and Fet Alf. I was kinda worried that they would ask us to bring out bags to the search car, because it would be odd trying to explain them to Canadian customs. Thinking back to the epic movie, "Chipmunks Great Adventure," Klaus and Claudia used stuffed Chipmunk/Chipette dolls to smuggle diamonds and money to locations all over the world. I would hope that Canadian customs hadn't just watched that movie, since it'd prolly heighten their suspicions. Luckily they weren't at our house last weekend.
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The customs people are mysteriously taking passengers to the snack car for mysterious reasons. This shit is taking forever.
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A couple just had a fight in front of us. The Indian family is really interested. I think this is their soap opera alternative.
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Bridget apparently had a talk with that guy in front of us. Bridget is some girl in their group. They had a talk about the thing. It sounds scandalous.
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In all honesty, I feel bad for Bridget. It seems like it was an ongoing teasing thing all ten hours of this train ride so far. Bridget is now not sitting next to that guy, because it was "The last straw." She took the computer. They're in a fight. I saw what they were watching. It was "Little Miss Sunshine". I think he needs to apologize. It's the only way they can mend their relationship. Please, that guy, consider it.
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Fuck Bridget She needs to toughen up.
I sort of think that maybe she was just kidding about being angry, but now that guy has moved to the other seat and is trying to be apologetic about the teasing. What a disgrace. He should leave her on the side of the road. There are plenty of fish in Lake Champlain.
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Yeah, and they're in a big field trip type group. It would make things pretty awkward for everyone. In other news, the toxic fumes from the ajar bathroom door are now making my eyes tear up. Or maybe that's just the emotion I feel from the fight Bridget and that guy have just had.
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I just looked at that guy's passport, and his name actually is "That Guy."
I think I could piss in my coffee cup and throw it at the windows and it would be less disgusting than the bathroom is right now.
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The bathroom is like Manny.
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I actually need to go to the bathroom right now, because I just drank a cup of coffee. I am determined to stay in my seat though. I can't describe how disgusting that place is, but Janine's description is fairly accurate.
Poor Manny, he's over 300 miles away and he still can't get a break.
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The hoot-hoot is very quiet when the engine is shut off. Someone smells nice. Bridget just took her bag and stormed off. Their friends are now talking with the Indian family about Bridget's fight with that guy. Apparently Bridget isn't "the joking type". Bridget is serious. She's seriously mad.
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That Guy followed Bridget to the Snack Car, and is now walking up and down the aisles.
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Yo, I just glimpsed That Guy's face, and she's totally out of his league. Just sayin'.
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Yeah, That Guy looks like an old homeless man. Homeless.
Homeless.
The hoot-hoot is back on track and we are an hour and twenty minutes away from the great city of Montréal. Exactly an hour and twenty minutes away, according to one of the conductors.
The conductor seems very nice, which probably means that she isn't from New York or the Tri-State area.
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The Fray's "Cable Car" has been in my head ever since we got on the hoot hoot. Now that I'm listening to it, it kinda speaks to the situation between Bridget and That Guy.
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Where'd That Guy go wrong
He lost Bridget, somewhere alone in the bitterness.
And he would have stayed up with her all night (asking her questions about "That thing")
If he knew how to saaaave a liiiiiife
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I feel like I wasted a day.
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We pretty much did. It's 6:31 right now and we're about an hour and fifteen minutes away
from Canada. We've spent almost 12 hours on this goddamn train.
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I am slightly sad about that. But what else could we do!? What else!? What? Else? Whelse?
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Where did we go wrong?
We lost a day, somewhere along the Canadian Border.
Now we have to stay up in Montreal all night.
If we knew how to save a life.
(I don't know what to write for the last line to make it work.)
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It's almost dark out. Dark. It gets dark early in Canadada! Summer's over. Hoot hoot.
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