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Amtrak Around the Country: Day 10-Where is the Foooooood???

Posted by Alyx Michele on May 30, 2016
Posted in: Travel Life. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’ll be in Chicago for four hours. I’m hungry since I didn’t get to eat dinner, but I just want healthy food right now.

I got a bug bite on my arm. Ugh

Someone behind me is playing relaxing guitar music. I love that!

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I’m so hungry. I am trying to Yelp food, then sushi, but most places popping up say they’re closed today. Wtf. It’s not a holiday. I just realized I should add the open now filter hahaha I’m an idiot. Nope…that didn’t really help either. Sooo many things are closed today, does anyone know why?? It’s a Tuesday…or Wednesday…or a…I don’t actually know what day it is or even what days even are anymore. It’s very easy to lose track of these things.

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It’s snowing and cold and windy as usual, but I wasn’t prepared for the snow. No one here even locals seems to be prepared for the snow though either haha. This is entertaining to watch, but then I realize that I too am fighting the wind and trying not to blow away in it.

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I found a sushi place and walked around the building its in for a while because I couldn’t figure out how to get in. However, it turns out I can’t actually get in without an ID. Sigh, well there’s a person walking around with McDonald’s so at least that’s open, but I’m not really hungry for plastic right now. Sigh oh well, desperate times…I’m in line. Wait!!! There’s a Chipotle across the street, and someone just went in!!! Sure, they had an E. coli outbreak recently but at least it’s real food and not plastic. I got a burrito bowl without the tortilla. I also got chips and salsa on the side, oops. Back to the train station…if I don’t get blown away in this wind because of course it’s blowing against me. AUNT EM! Anyway, I’m here waiting. There is a bird in the gate again. It’s probably the same bird. I don’t get it. I have nothing for you so why you gotta follow me everywhere. I even went to the other side of the gate and knew I would only be safe for a minute or so. Like clockwork, I turn around a minute later and THERE IT IS! Three feet away standing there looking at me. You can’t have my soul demon I’m still using it right now! Go away.

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Train 7
This trip may actually be much better than the last few, at least customer service wise. It seems to be similar to the first rides where they go up to you for reservations rather than you being screwed over, particularly like on the last train.
Greg the train attendant is nice and likes to joke a lot but his laugh is a little annoying.
Katrina, a 19 year old going to visit her boyfriend is nice. We’re having dinner at 7…sad day to have to wait so long but I’m getting the steak! And my mousse!!

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I am glad to be doing this for the experience, (and I’m obviously still committed to more train time as I’m only in the middle of Illinois), however, I’m not sure I would knowingly agree this long of a sitting excursion again, or at least not in the near future by train. I am of course writing this knowing that I am taking a bus across South Africa, BUT I will be stopping along the way for longer gaps of time, and none of those rides are overnight. I do admit that there is so much of the country that can only be seen by train, and it is definitely worth it for the landscape.It’s hard to stay awake. But I’m so worn out and lethargic. More energy gets sucked out of me when doing nothing, so I’d much rather be out and about climbing ice walls (Iceland) or abseiling down a mountain (South Africa) than sitting on my butt while my body swells with water retention. I have abs I swear…they’re just hibernating right now.

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Las Vegas, Nevada is different than Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Southwest Chief train goes to New Mexico NOT Nevada…apparently this mishap happens quite frequently haha.

There have been so many announcements on the speaker trying to get someone to come back and pay for their beer. Where does he think he’s going to hide? They know the room he’s sleeping in…and that being said, can’t they just go to his room and deal with it rather than embarrassing him? Perhaps they can’t hear the announcements?

Dinner with Katrina and some woman in her fifties. She did “life” backwards by raising kids and now getting second degree, then going to Japan in a month to teach English. She asked me about whether I’m ever worried about safety or someone grabbing me. It can happen anywhere, but also there are things I do like hiding my money and being vigilant

They sell comfort kits for ten bucks, which include a fleece blanket and inflatable neck pillow. It’s not a horrible deal but I don’t find it worth it to me right now.

Amtrak Around the Country: Day 2-Trees and Convos

Posted by Alyx Michele on April 23, 2016
Posted in: Travel Life. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Well that was an interesting sleep. I’ve had better and I’ve had worse. It’s now 8:30AM and I’m going to check out the cafe car in a little bit. Some guy wanted to move seats and had the girl next to me hold his beer. It’s not even 9AM dude what are you doing?? It’s 5 somewhere I suppose. For breakfast I had a plain bagel and chream cheese microwaved. Nothing special. It was $2.75 which is around the price I paid for one in college.

I am now hanging out in the observation car during the daylight because I can. As annoying as the 6.5 hour delay was, if the train was on time, it would have been pitch black through most of Northern California and maybe even part of Oregon. I definitely would not have seen Mount Shasta without the delay, so yay for everything happening for a reason!

Something to note: In addition to delays due to mechanical issues and people getting themselves hit by trains, there is another major factor causing delays. Freight. These are called Z trains, and they actually own the tracks…Amtrak just rents them. If a freight train is coming, Amtrak trains have to pull over and wait for the Z trains to pass through. It happens…a lot.

Apparently the train was also stopped because there was a suspicious bag or two bags in separate locations? They had to call the bomb squad just to be sure.

Let’s talk food! You do not need a reservation for breakfast in the dining car, but you do for lunch and dinner. (Some trains are better at coming around to you than others…and some actually get annoyed if you go to the dining car to make a reservation)…not consistent customer service. Also if you are not with a group of at least 3, you will be eating with other people at your table. Sometimes people are awesome! Sometimes they take care of your meal! Sometimes they are…not so awesome or boring or racist or whatever the f$ck. It does make feeding time much more interesting and entertaining, even if it is not so entertaining at the time. I don’t recall having any awful experiences with anyone I sat with, but others I have sat with told me stories of their unpleasant experiences. I got off lucky in that regard!

We are near Mount Shasta now at 12:16 PM. We are in the mountains and you can feel the chill seeping through the spaces open to the outside atmosphere, and can even here the rapids like the ones shown in the above photo.

 

I got to eat lunch while having awesome views of Mount Shasta. The hamburgers here are actually not bad! Bacon and cheese is optional. But when bacon is involved…is it reeeally optional? I didn’t think so. I had lunch with an older guy named Norm and an older woman who had no teeth. They were both really nice. Norm occasionally made some sexual comments…not about me, just in general. Still though, I don’t really need to hear about your fetishes or see certain types of videos that fill your Facebook newsfeed when you scroll through to show me a video of a jazz band we both like. He did end up paying for my lunch though, so thank you very much for that!

I went back to the observation car, took a nap, and admired more scenery as we travel north up through Oregon. There is a little kid unattended, running around like a maniac…after there have already been 7 announcements about not running and parents having to keep an eye on their children. Stooooooppppppp.

I am now talking to another woman about her life. She was married for ten years and then decided she didn’t want to be married anymore, so is now in a long term relationship of six years with a guy in France. She still doesn’t want to be married though. It seems to be working out well for them as they are both happy, so all power to them! We were talking about societal norms and relationships still working even if they are not conventional, and then the lady from lunch randomly blurts out “I’ve been married to the same guy for 34 years!” Cool? I am sorry, she was nice, but ummm….we were kinda in the middle of a conversation and not only was it not ideal for you to interject that way with one comment, we certainly didn’t really want the rest of the conversation to revolve around your life. Conversation is about balance…and it would have been fine if a balance existed.

Fifteen minutes before dinner so I have just enough time to do some “laundry” in the sink with my biodegradable laundry soap sheets.

It is my first dinner of many on a train so why not go big or go home. Steak and red wine it is! The wine was gone well before the food came haha ooops. The steak was actually perfect, the rice was delicious, and the veggies were much better with a little salt added. The woman with the French boyfriend joined me for dinner, and we sat with a dad and daughter. The daughter spent dinner drawing a really cool cross section of a ship! She then proceeded to explain everything, which was all normal until the very bottom of the ship where there was a slide and a pool of mud noodles. Yum? The woman with the French boyfriend is allergic to corn….which is in everything. EVERYTHING. It was kind of ridiculous hearing the list of everything she can’t eat or even use.

This is chocolate mousse topped with chocolate flakes encased in an edible chocolate bowl. I cannot even begin to describe how freakin delicious this thing is. I had one almost every day I was on the train haha.

The corn lady is also a theater person! It was really cool talking to her more since I don’t know many people where I live who can actually hold a knowledgeable conversation about theater.

We got pushed aside by 1 maaaybe 2 Z trains, so that isn’t tooo bad I guess. But it is now 2:13AM and I’m less than ten minutes out from the train station. Yay! I get to hangout with Aunt Jody during the twenty or less minute car ride then we are both going to sleep. She is leaving at 5 AM to go to the airport, headed for Baltimore…and yet she still is picking me up. Thank you so much Aunt Jody, I really appreciate it and am very glad I still get to see you. Any amount of time is worth it!

Sometimes I question what I am doing, and/or why I do what I do. Then I remember the answer always starts out with “why not?” or “because I am insane, obviously.”

Tomorrow is family time and exploring downtown Seattle! 😀

 

*Today’s Stats:

Train name-Coast Starlight

Train quality- No complaints that stand out. The bathrooms were clean and orderly.

States covered- California, Oregon, Washington

The Light at the End of the Tunnel…Oh Wait, That’s a Train!

Posted by Alyx Michele on March 24, 2016
Posted in: Through My Eyes. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

“Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you were supposed to be?” -Danielle LaPorte

“And are either of those people who you really want to be?” -Alyx Michele (me), in response to above.

I can easily travel by myself, and I have been doing so, obviously. However, I have always found a way to occupy myself in order to avoid the self-reflections required to open and sort through the issues in my “mental box” that have been locked for many years. Whenever I would acknowledge the presence of the box, I become Brad Pitt in Se7en for a split second asking “Ah what’s in the box?” and just as quickly decide, “Nope, just kidding I don’t want to know right now.” And the box continues to exist ignored. Lot’s of things go in, but nothing comes out. Well, they need to. The box has needed to be dealt with for a long time in order for me to truly understand myself and become the person I want to be.

I  spent all of college focusing on academics and the surface issues (residual effects of my parents’ divorce and body image issues mainly), rather than spending my time and energy chasing boys and what not. If I didn’t spend my time and energy on “me,” I would by no means be the same person writing this today. I can say that I am proud of the person I have become, and am excited to continue growing into the person I want to and CAN be. Life is a work in progress, how we see ourselves and the world is a work in progress, the world itself is a work in progress.

The only thing blocking me from the final frontier of progress is my avoidance of opening the Pandora’s Box of my past experiences and thoughts. Until a few days ago I was kind of freaking out about the fact that I will finally be processing all of this stuff now, but not anymore. After a few conversations with a friend (mainly her knocking sense into me haha), I wrote a list of the things I at least think are in the box so I know what things to start with during the processing and reflecting. The list wasn’t actually as long once I condensed it into themes, which were not surprising either. And all of the themes really just contribute to the question of what I really want for/out of one main aspect of life. Honestly, I feel that most of the work is already done, simply by that. I put the list away and will not be looking at it until I am on the train, and will continuously condense and cross things off as I go through and think about everything.

Thinking is good. It helps with the creative and learning processes with everything, but this time those exercises will be geared towards those pesky, shelved internal issues that have been put on the back-burner for so long. I have discussed before that I feel the best way to learn about one’s self, and the majority of my maturation and self-discovery process has occurred whilst traveling. And so the time has come. Just me, a few train rides, my thoughts, and random strangers (some of whom will most likely become lifelong connections).

After a long conversation with a dear friend, I feel much better about the situation. I think. We will see when the time comes. But as she said, “You’re the only one who can do it and address it and fix it. It is directly tied to how you feel about yourself and your life, so it will be what you make of it.” She is exactly right. I am going to find out a lot of information about who I am today, and how exactly my past experiences have affected me at various stages of my life.

When we receive information of any kind, there are two main choices: take action or ignore. I am choosing to take action: make any necessary adjustments, set reachable goals and achieve said goals. Ignoring problems does not make them disappear or easier to deal with. It just makes dealing with them that much harder if/when you decide to do so. But it will be much more worth your while to actually deal with them, otherwise the person you really want to and CAN be will never become a reality.

That being said, I am still very excited for this trip and look forward to seeing some friends and family I haven’t seen in a while, as well as witnessing some awesome landscapes. This will be a good trip and I will definitely be much closer to the person I want to be, as that always happens when I travel. I highly recommend others do this or something similar as well! 🙂

Well, I am on the first train now! Stay tuned for my writings on the food, scenery, interactions, and everything else!

Pushing Past Your Expectations is Easy When You Don’t Expect To

Posted by Alyx Michele on February 26, 2016
Posted in: Through My Eyes, Travel Life. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Today, a coworker and I went on a hike as we had planned since the beginning of the week. Neither of us have hiked in a while, so we figured an easy ranked hike of 3.6 miles in a nearby county park should be a good place to start. I wouldn’t rank this hike as easy, due to the high amount of steep inclines, but it was still doable. The scenery and company was worth every second. We even saw a frog! (Although she isn’t too fond of frogs). We saw more birds (my arch nemeses) than frogs though so good for her. Ha!

 Anyway, we were hiking along our merry way not paying attention to how long or how far we’d been hiking. We stayed on the trail…well A trail. It just happened to be a different trail than the one we started on. We were uhh well umm  hmm seeing what else the park had to offer? We felt good enough to extend our trip? Okay fine we got lost. We ended up hiking 3 more miles than what we set out to do, and we survived. I took calcium magnesium so I don’t wake up to the soreness due to lactic acid build up. As we hiked three extra miles, the duration of our trip was extended as well….past sunset….when the park closes.

 

city vs where i was standing-my spot wins

And so after some laughs, some snacks, some phone calls, and a $45 parking ticket, a police officer came to unlock the gate so we could drive home.

 

Hacienda Trail, Almaden County Park

Life is never boring around me, I’ll say that! I cannot stress enough how important it is to be prepared for anything…so even if it is a short hike, I always bring food, water, water filtration system, flashlight/headlamp, and first aid kit. Sh!t happens. Be ready. It’s character building.

 

just keep hopping, just keep hopping

Morals of the story:

1. Don’t doubt yourself, just do it. Go that extra mile…or 3..

2. Always be prepared. #GirlScouts

Misadventures with Alyx: The Car Key Saga

Posted by Alyx Michele on January 20, 2016
Posted in: Through My Eyes. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

Thursday, January 14 was a fabulous day: clear blue skies, with just the right amount of sunlight, and a nice crisp breeze. Morning workout completed, delicious pre- and post-workout meals, with gourmet-style lunch and dinner also prepared to take for the long day ahead of me, followed by hanging out with coworkers at a really cool bar that has every game and console that has ever existed! What could possibly ruin this day? Honestly, even what did happen didn’t ruin the day because I luckily had a chunk of time that allowed me to take care of everything in a timely manner with more to spare.

I pull into the office early to get some writing done before my students start showing up, I check my painting in the back seat of my car to see if it is dry and ready for the next layer (it is!), I get out of my car, lock close the door, start walking away, and “Well Sh!t,” my keys are in my car. For the past I don’t know how long I haven’t been carrying a purse because it is so much easier to just have the essentials (Driver’s License, credit card, an emergency $20, and apparently not keys) hidden in your pocket. Needless to say, I didn’t have my spare key on me. It is in my purse. I knew exactly where it was in my apartment, too. My AAA card is also in that purse with the key.

Have no fear, awesome coworker is here! I borrowed K’s car to drive to my apartment to go get my spare key from my room, then drive back to the office like nothing happened. If the thought hasn’t crossed your mind by now, where do you think the key to my apartment was? If you guessed locked in my car with the other keys you are correct! Quick-thinking me knows that I can get the office to lend me the master key, that is once I get to the apartment. K’s gas light was on, so I put some more in and then continued on my merry way. (She paid me in a delicious watermelon moonshine cocktail drink thing at the bar later).

I arrive at my complex, park by my apartment, then walk to the other side of the complex to the office. I told them I locked my keys inside my apartment because, well, I don’t actually know if that sounds any better than in my car. They need my apartment ID, which is in my apartment somewhere temporarily buried in the midst of Iceland packing/partial unpacking. I offered up my Driver’s License for them to hold hostage instead. They obliged. I ran back to the other side of the complex, entered my apartment, got my spare key, then started running back to the office before stopping myself since I could just drive back to the office since it is on the way to the exit. DUH! I gave the office the master key back, they asked how it happened. If you don’t know me by now, just don’t bother asking questions like that because more often than not, even I don’t have explanations for some of my experiences! But it makes for a more entertaining life, if nothing else.

Lessons to learn: Don’t do that again, but if it happens, there are ways around using AAA sometimes! But…just don’t be in that situation.

If anyone is having a bad day, just remember to keep smiling because there is a silver lining somewhere, you just have to find it through cynicism-turned-sarcasm and light humor!