6 of 30 - Eleven Hours With Amtrak

[aggienaut]

   The following is the harrowing tale of my epic journey across the state from Davis down to Orange County. Read it here now so that when it comes out on movie you can be "in the know!"

   I woke up this morning at 6:00am, on my couch, next to an empty bottle of wine, an empty bottle of champagne sparkling wine, and a gorgious blonde, minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off.
   Plan was to catch the 7:25 bus, only we got to the Davis train station just as the bus was pulling out. Kristy and I fast like fiah had to beat the bus to Sacremento, where I got on the bus just in time. Kristy is excellent.
   Stupid guy interrupted my saying goodbye to Kristy (on phone, she couldn't park) by standing in front of me with his hand out like he was important and I needed to show him my ticket to go further.. but no the stupid man is like "hey can borrow a dollar for a hotdog?" and I'm like "uh sorry I'm in a hurry" and then he's like "well then can I borrow a smoke?" and I'm like "no sorry I'm in a major hurry!" and get on the bus just in time (8:05am). Stupid man. As if I wasn't stressed enough already.
   At about 9:00 we got to Stockton, where I got on Train 712 when it pulled in ten minutes late at 9:30am. As a many-time veteran of this train it seemed unusually crowded at this point. I sat me down at a table with three rather swarthy gentlemen. The guy next to me studied for some "wine appreciation" course. I of course had just had my final in viticulture & enology ("grape-growin" and "wine makin" respectively) the other day, but I didn't say anything. None of us ever said anything to eachother.
   At 1:10pm I realized I'd forgotten a to bring home a certain shirt I'd have liked to have and my beloved Soviet (KGB specifically) flask. Also somewhere in here I had a breakfast burrito. They used to have excellent cheese danishes but I don't think they carry them anymore as they haven't been present on the last few trainrides I've been on.

   At 1:40pm we all disembarked Train 712 at the end of the line, Bakersfield, and got on busses. From my experience it seems like one generally meets alright people on the train, but weird people on the bus. I dunno, there's something about busses and weird people. Busses were less crowded than they often are. Seems most of the crowd on the train earlier wasn't travelling large distances.
   At 2:26pm we passed a completely overturned car on the side of the road, and as we went up the grapevine¹ at 2:30 I saw a deer. An EVIL pirate deer²!

   We arrived at Los Angeles' Union Station at 4:15pm. Union Station strongly resembles a cathedral inside, in shape and spaciousness.. was it originally a cathedral? I'm too lazy to research the subject but if some other smart alec wants to look it up I'd be duly pleased for about five minutes. Also there are weird things in the station like some doors up near the ceiling...
   Anyway, I'd been there about five minutes when I was trying to buy a cinnamon roll (the danishes from this same place haven't been to my liking in the past), but both employees were mumbling incoherently. Then five minutes after that, at 4:25, I was photographed for the second time (earlier was right after getting on bus). And my mohawk looked like shit today )=
   At 4:45pm I was asked for money again, this time from a guy who sounded like The Godfather. I gave him some change.

   At 5:10 my train out of Union Station finally departed. This train had Mr movie-phone announcing the stops. At 6:09pm the train pulled into Irvine station four minutes early. And thus I shall conclude this narrative 12 hour after it started.


Other Train Stories
   As I said I've ridden this train many times before, either north or south. Often-times I think its completely un-noteworthy and doesn't even make my most underblog posts. Two stories worth relating do however come to mind, both of which took place in the dark pre-history before I discovered livejournal.

   Kelly
      Going home for the summer two years ago I rode with this girl Kelly on the segments from Bakersfield to Irvine. A few weeks later I actually went to visit her in San Diego and we hung out and it was cool. I'd never tried that whole "oh you're from ___ do you know ___?" game, because its dumb at SD is friggen huge, but as I told stories about my friends in Davis it became apparent that by some freak coincidence we DID have friends in common. So we went and visited them and they were like "wtf how do YOU two know eachother??" It was cool. I visited her a few other times but when I tried her number much later after not talking to her for awhile neither number worked so as of now I've lost contact with her )=

   Wine
      Going up right before school usually has a lot more students on it because everyone starts at the same time at Davis and other schools start around the same time too as opposed to going home where I always have the last final and am the last one out. Anyway this one time I was sitting with two or three other students and this one girl is like "hey I have a bottle of wine lets drink it!" but none of us had a corkscrew, so we ended up going down the aisles looking for one. In the end I don't think we were successful.


Related
   Return from Christmas Break - Discussions with a former cheerleader on the train


¹the ascension of the Five up the southern rim of the central valley of California.
²no basis for assertion.

Comments

union station

[thetalesend.livejournal.com]

Los Angeles Union Station (Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, to be precise) is located across the street from Olvera Street, where Los Angeles was founded in the 18th Century. It was originally designed to consolidate passenger terminals of the Southern Pacific, Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe and Union Pacific Railroads into a single station. Today, Union Station is truly unified, with intercity Amtrak service, commuter Metrolink, subway Metrorail, several local transit bus lines including the MTA, and downtown DASH shuttles. Dating from 1939, this grand railroad passenger terminal was the last of its kind to be built in the United States. The exterior is a successful merging of Spanish Mission, Moorish, and Streamline Modern Styles. This station is often used as a movie location. source:http://www.laavenue.com/unionstation.htm

Re: union station

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

If it wasn't built from an existing cathedral I think the must have consciously tried to make it look like one.