22 June 2010

The Acela Express

Once it was time to leave lovely NYC I had to travel back to Providence, RI to catch my flight home. In all my life I never would've imaged that the tiny and distant state of Rhode Island could come to hold such a safe, sweet place in my heart. Newport/Middletown has been a magical place this summer with people I love dearly gathered there. And it is so beautiful.

Imagine a beach covered in shells the size of salad plates and sea glass gathered by the bag - larger than the size of a quarter, beautiful green grass everywhere with bunnies and red robins, stunning homes dotting the shores, sailboats parked in every bay, and great food and amazingly kind and friendly people, all at the end of an small island where it is nearly impossible to get lost. Big kisses, Rhode Island!

When I lived in Denmark we relied heavily on travel by train, bus and bicycle. Living in the west, a girl doesn't have much opportunity to ride trains other than those at amusement parks. So when I planned to travel to NYC from Rhode Island, my first thought was here's a chance to ride the train!

I had the great opportunity to hitch a ride, with a friend who had come to visit in Newport, down to NYC. The ride on narrow freeways surrounded by trees provided very little view of the surrounding territory and in slow Sunday traffic, after a couple of hours it began to feel as if we were stuck in a big green tunnel. When I took the train I was in awe of all I had missed.

I took the fastest train possible back to Providence, the ACELA, because I knew in total my travel time that day was going to be over 15 hours passing through 5 different states by the time I arrived back in California. The entire train is business class and it was very comfortable and roomy.

I enjoyed everything about the train trip including three fellow passengers. First there was hot shot software regional director or VP sitting behind me who was reviewing Q2 sales reports and Q3 forecasts with each of his sales team. Boy, could he talk the talk. I especially enjoyed the conference call with Accenture. There was obviously some discord there because the meeting had to be rescheduled due to the fact that they didn't receive his latest documents until 5:30 pm the night before.

I kept thinking that corporate spies would've been eating up his conversation, BIG TIME! If I still worked in that industry I would've been writing down every word he was unwisely sharing with us all and turned it over to our sales team as sales leads! Most of the accounts were all former clients of a company I once worked for. Seriously who talks about this stuff in public without a little concern? Hey Mr. Important-Pants, have you ever heard of corporate espionage?

Then there was the girl across the aisle from me whose music was so loud I though the train public address system had suddenly begun to play music after she sat down, which continued until I exited the train. Hey Girly, did you happen to see the sign that said, "All electronic devices should be inaudible to others"?

And then there was the guy behind her, who speaking very loudly and yet pretending to seek privacy and not disturb other travelers by leaning towards the window talked for almost two hours to his wife and father about how he forgot to tell the guys refinishing the floors to sand down an area and make repairs. Unfortunately they had already put down the first coat of stain.

He was very stressed at what this was going to cost him and cursed up a string of unattractive expletives. I had the feeling he was selling the house and the cost of his errors was going to come directly out of his pocket. His name was David by the way. Thanks David. Hey David, did you happen to see the sign that said "No cell phones or loud talking?"

The greatest part of the train ride was the constant and stunningly beautiful views!

 I would recommend a ride on the Acela Express between NYC and Boston any time. It's is well worth the money and full of amazing eye candy! --And the people watching and listening on the train is clearly good, right?!

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