D.C. and finally getting to Boston.

After dozing off at 2 in the morning, the sleeper attendant woke me up at the butt crack of dawn for breakfast. I'm like what time is it and he said "6 AM". Good god man, I'm on vacation. We were due to arrive in DC by 7:30. So off I went to get breakfast. I sat with this little old lady who said she only travels by train for fear of flying. She said train travel use to be horrible. And the food use to be just as bad. I told her it was my first train ride and so far its been pretty pleasant. I ordered a cheese omelette with biscuit and juice. And since I was in a sleeper car now, it was all free. Sweet again. By the time I got back to my roomette, everything was made up. The bed was folded away and all the stuff I used during the night was replaced (water, tissues, and such). I grab all my stuff and got ready to get off in DC.

Since I had a few hours to kill before I boarded another train for Boston, I decided to walk around a bit. I have to warn you, the Amtrak station and the DC Metro station all link up together at this one location....it was huge. You could so easily get lost if you weren't careful. Lucky for me, I use to spend my summers in DC so I was pretty comfortable with using the Metro. I walked outside to get my bearings. Right next door was the United States Postal Museum. And if you looked straight ahead down the main road, you can see the Capital Building. And unfortunately, you also notice all the bums that are still in DC. I don't think they will ever deal with that issue correctly.

But since it was frigging hot already, I decided to walk back inside, grab a soda and newspaper and chill for a bit. As I was reading my paper, a Brazilian couple that sat across from me the day before came up. They asked me where I had disappeared to during the night. I told them I grab a sleeper for a really good deal. When I grabbed my bag the night before, they were already passed out so they didn't know I was relocated. Apparently, my former seat mate was so smelly that his odor had actually awaken some people during the night. I felt bad for them as I inwardly smiled to myself.

Finally the train for Boston arrived. There were a shit ton of people waiting for this train. I was thinking man this is gonna be crowded as hell and good luck getting a window seat. But lucky for me, when I bought my ticket online I decided to upgrade this portion of the trip to business class. The Brazilians and I walked off towards our sections of the train. As we reached their section, I saw that it was packed full. I however was ushered further up towards the front of the train, where business class was located. As I reached this section, I noticed that a few people were in business suits. But that was all there was. Four guys and one lady in business suits and me in shorts and t-shirt. We had the whole cart to ourselves. So everyone spread out and got comfy in their own little section of the cart.

The ride up the east coast was really pretty scenic. Except for when we got to New York. Just a bunch of old buildings and abandoned industrial sections of town. As we waited to leave, the conductor asked us to clear off everything on the seats next to us. Since this portion of the trip the train was booked full and all seats would be needed. I'm thinking "crap". By now there were only three of us left in the business class section. So we looked at each other and gathered up everything that we had spread all over the place. Them and their laptops and newspapers and spread sheets and whatever. Me and my soda cans and candy wrappers and magazines :-)

As we were pulling away from New York, only one other person came into our little kingdom. Everyone smiled and out came everything that was previously gathered up. As we continued north, we started to hug the coastline a little more. Man, there are a lot of sail boats in this region. I thought South Florida was bad with the amount of boats that are down there. Due to some track work, there was a 45 minute delay after we left the Rhode Island area.

I finally arrived in Boston a little before 7 PM. Now this is where the train trip turned ugly. I went to claim my one big bag that I had checked in while in Deerfield. As I handed the baggage guy my ticket, he asked me which train did I get off of. I pointed to the one that had just pulled in. He looks at me and said "hmm, your stuff might not be on that train". I'm like "what the heck". He said "yeppers, the luggage for that train arrives the next morning". I'm like "what kind of crap is that". He said "they didn't tell you this in Deerfield or DC". So Maureen shows up to meet me and off we leave. We stopped by a CVS so I could get a change of t-shirt and some shorts to sleep in.

Right off the bat, I love Cambridge. This is where Harvard is located. Maureen happens to work at Harvard as a programmer. Her apartment is super cute. Except that it is on the fourth floor with no elevators. But everything you might need is within walking distance. So I showered and changed and we grabbed dinner at a local bar around the corner. After that we called it a night.