Boston to New York: A Friday Evening With Amtrak

Boston's South Station is only minutes from my fabulously located apartment so I left for a 5:20 train about two minutes passed 5pm. Since I only had one small bag – I'm an exceptional minimalist when it comes to packing – I decided to walk. The whether the past few days in Boston has been a little frightening. While I did enjoy the walk over to the station sans a winter coat or even a light sweatshirt, I felt guilty doing it. There was a sick feeling in my gut that by allowing myself to enjoy the unseasonably warm whether I was somehow contributing to it's global warming roots. Apparently I'm anti-global warming and pro unseasonably warm whether, is that hypocritical? You be the judge.

I arrived at the station around 5:16 without even the slightest hint of traveler's anxiety. There are about 6 Amtrak automatic ticket machines directly across from the tracks so I was confident that in four minutes I could walk towards the track and pick up my pre-paid ticket all in one-felt swoop. I really don't understand why most airlines have not figured out how to properly implement automatic ticket machines in this fashion. Why should the machines be place next to the ticket kiosks – it defeats the purpose of the machines – not having to stand in the kiosk lines. I understand there is the added problem needing to check bags but then there should be two sets of ticket machines – one for people check bags and one for people without bags. And maybe even an extra line for people who can't decipher the diagram of the credit card insertion procedure. I love those people. But anyway, Amtrak doesn't do this. I actually didn't even notice if there were kiosks with people manually selling tickets? Do people still do that? So I swiftly inserted my credited card – sidenote: some of us don't even need to glance at the diagram, ahem, ahem – grabbed my ticket and boarded Acela #2319 en route to Penn Station.

I put my suitcase in the overhead compartment above but took at my book and wallet. I often pontificate on the decision of whether or not to take out your wallet. How do people feel about this? If you're not carrying another bag with your wallet, cell phone etc would you just leave it in the pocket in your suitcase and put your suitcase in the overhead bin? Sometimes I'll leave it in the suitcase because I have other valuable things in there so it seems stupid to only take out one thing. I feel like, if I'm going to take out my wallet, I might as well also take my camera or computer or even my favorite sweatshirt. Who am I to pass judgement on the value of these objects and construct a hierarchy of which objects are worthy of being taken out? But this time I took out my wallet – only because in the off chance that I was asked for idea, I didn't want the whole train knowing that my wallet was in the overhead bin. Did you know that Federal law enables Amtrak to ask for idea while collecting tickets? I believe that's a post 9/11 law but please correct me if I'm wrong. Does anyone know if the same law allows for random searching? I don't think it does. Nonetheless, my ticket was collected, my bags were not searched and the only thing asked of me was that I sign the top left corner of the ticket – relatively painless.

I made it to the first stop, Back Bay, without a seat partner. However, a man who I would guess is about 55 and enjoys stuffing his face with popcorn quickly joined me. He ate a hige bag of popcorn with, as far ac I could tell, one breath. I noticed he had a system of taking large nose breaths after one handful was swallowed and before the next approached the mouth. The only time he stopped the popcorn eating was to talk on the phone. He was actually a good phone talker – not a screamer. I could have moved to the quiet car but I was too lazy. Instead, I opted to learn way too much about my seatmate and the people around me. It turns out that the 55-year-old popcorn stuffer was a real estate agent from Hartford Connecticut. You may be asking, "oh did you have a nice conversation?" No. I just listened to him talking to, whom I would guess was his sister or grown daughter, (he wasn't wearing a wedding ring) about the process of selling her house. The woman was frustrated with the crew doing repairs but the popcorn stuffer was telling her there was nothing she could do. Great advice. My attention quickly drifted from his conversation to the two man sitting behind me. They were both from Indian and with a firm – they may have been Venture capitalists or something vaguely related to lots and lots of money but it was hard to tell. There were to English guys behind them who were also part of whatever business they were in. The two Indian guys were working on finishing some proposal that included calculating debt and required access to numbers that only a client who worked for Bloomberg could get them. After listening to their banter and observing the interaction between the two Indian men and their English colleague I decided that there was somewhat of an exploitative relationship bubbling under the surface of this business that is vaguely related to lots of money. The Englishmen was the one with access to the client and coveted numbers - the two Indian men did not even know that the such access existed. The Englishmen was also demonstrated his ignorance of whatever calculations the two Indidan men were performing and was really just checking up to make sure the report would be done by the time they got to New York. They performed a sort of friendly banter but I decided that the Englishmen was just pretending to have any interest in the two Indian men's social life. He made a few distant comments about a gentleman's club in Time Square – I gagged – and the two Indian man made a vague social suggestion that they should all hangout. Somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

By the time I was done imagining what was most likely a very inaccurate landscape of the inner workings of this business that is vaguley related to lots and lots of money – we were in Penn station. I realized I had forgotten to pee and since I much prefer the Acela bathrooms to the nasty Penn Station bathrooms I made a quick stop at the fancy Acela toilette. And so that is where I ended my journey from New York to Boston – the Acela #2319 toilette.