I woke up thinking about trains. Well, not really trains but some of the people I have seen, or met, on trains.

I never remember people on airplanes. Some guy posted a comment on the Chow Bella Books website that he met me on a plane on the way to Venice. But I don’t remember meeting a guy on a plane on the way to Venice, at least recently.

So why is it that I have so many memories of train people? Is it because you are facing them for so long? In Austria and Germany it seemed every single person got a sandwich for the ride and ate it in front of me, getting crumbs and pieces of cheese and meat all over themselves. Then they’d get off at the next stop and the next sandwich-eating Austrian would get on.

Then there was the nun who let me sit next to her on a crowded Intercity train from Milan to Venice, in a seat reserved for someone else. I was so exhausted (I had just flown in) that I kept nodding off on her shoulder. Finally I passed out with my head on my suitcase. I bet all the people in that tiny car, remember me.

So I think I started thinking about all the train people because I woke up thinking about packing. I want to pack light, and I started thinking about this wacky couple I met on the Eurostar from Venice to Rome once. They had just got married, and they were on their honeymoon. She was a rich girl from Manhattan and she really stuck herself in my head because she said some really weird things, like how she never made her own coffee, but instead called a coffee shop and had it delivered. I sort of quizzed her down on this one – “you mean you call, and they bring a to-go cup of coffee to your front door EVERY DAY?” To me this just seems totally bizarre. For one thing, it is almost as easy to make a cup of coffee as it is to call someone on the phone and order it.

Another weird thing this girl told me is, she grew up in Manhattan but had never ridden on the subway or even taken a cab. She only went around in “private cars.” Hmmm. Why would you admit that to someone? If the end of the world comes, people like this are gonna be the first ones to go down.

Mostly though I remember this couple for their insane amount of luggage. And their itinerary. They had each chosen three cities they wanted to visit. So they had been to Paris, had just left Venice (the husband complained about the price of the breakfast at the Danieli hotel – I looked at him, looked at her, and thought homie, just get ready for more of the same) and were on the way to Rome. But from Rome, they were going to Athens, then SHANGHAI. I forget the other city – St. Petersburg? Copenhagen? Buenos Aires? Something like that.

They had trunks. They actually had TRUNKS. I thought trunks went out in the 1930’s. They had two or three trunks, and a few suitcases, and who knows what else. The husband had to keep getting up to go and “check on the trunks.”

I can’t even imagine carrying around that much stuff through Termini station, much less from Athens to Shanghai. But I guess if you can call and have your coffee delivered every day, you aren’t going to be the one doing the moving and lifting. That poor guy, he might have married into money but she’s going to make him work for it.

As for me, I’m packing light. Though I think I might bring a boom-box on this trip.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 12th, 2005 at 9:08 am and is filed under Tales from a Strange Land. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.