Leaving on a Jet Plane...

       

So.  The Chicago leg of this trip has been a comic tragedy.

Our train to Chicago from Winona, MN was delayed over 3 hours.

First of all, have you ever ridden an Amtrak train?

I'm sure it's typically very respectable and fine.  So the following is only an account of my experience and not a reflection on the industry as a whole.  And, the staff was hilarious and did try their best.

Cool things about trains:
1.  You have 3x the room you have on airplanes, and sliding curtains on the windows!

2.  No security--at all.  Seriously.  Don't even check ids.

3.  Lounge cars.  Floor to roof windows, and skylights make even boring prairie look very cool.

4.  Being able to wander around between different cars, get snacks, and even have a full meal in the dining car.

Not cool things about trains:
1.  No security.  At all.  We could all be axe murderers named Phineas holding a ticket under the name Betty Smith carrying explosives and no one would know or care.

2.  Dirty.  Not clean.  Yucky.

3.  You are in charge of dragging your own junk down the platform, which seems to popularly be in the middle of nowhere.  In Winona, we drug our stuff down by a dirt path along the tracks, in Chicago they dropped me off in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black with 3 flights of stairs to go up to get to the street.

4.  Don't ride a subway with 2 large suitcases and a backpack the size of Brazil.  People look at you *very strangely* and want to know intimate details of your life.  Then, they laugh at you while you try to drag your bags everywhere without offering to help.  One nice man boarding the NCS train in Chicago did help me get one of my bags up the stairs. But that was it.  No where else.  And he wasn't even American.  People wonder why we're moving to Japan...

To top it all off, because our train was running so late, Alan had to literally run for his connecting train to St. Louis.  We weren't able to say goodbye at all.  I'm so thankful he's coming only 3 weeks later rather than the original 3 months.

The fun continued today with a three hour breakfast with some of the other girls on our floor.  They locked us in to the breakfast room with the food, and we had a momentary panic trying to get out.

During our orientation meetings, the entire hotel lost power.  We sat sweating in our suits in the dark listening to speeches shouted down the room.  The bathrooms were pitch black--I'm still not sure if I went in the correct receptacle, but it did flush, so I think I was ok.

We could have all used these today.

We had a romantic candlelit send off dinner due to the lack of power, and spent a ridiculous amount of money for very little to drink at Harry Carey's for our nijikai, or post-party drinking party.  Seriously, my gin and tonic (in a very short glass) was $9!  I did get a slice of flourless chocolate cake that I will not be able to get in Japan, and watched the very strange opening ceremonies on their big screens.

Off to Japan tomorrow at 10 a.m.  Last night in the United States.  Tomorrow--Tokyo!