The Rail Less Travelled.

Reading week 2007 - NEW YORK CITY

I randomly suggested to Karen and Ann that they should go to NYC for reading week instead of somewhere warm. Apparently this meant I was going along. Super. We assembled a crew:
Ann - I had a class with her in first semester of first year, we lived half a floor apart.
Ashley - Ann's roommate from first year. I didn't really know her before, but she's quite cool.
Karen - I met her in first year, she eavesdropped on a coversation I was having in the elevator and we subsequently went to a concert together. She lived on the same floor as Ann and Ashley.
Hana - Me... I'm always here.

Monday, February 26

Ann and Karen came to sleep over at my place the night before we left. We went and got a dairy queen pizza.


That's right, we're going to consume that whole thing right now.

Let's get a better picture of that cake:

Happy 25th Ann, Karen and Hana... that was the hardest thing we've ever had to say to a person. In case you were wondering, it was quite tasty. Skor.


Tuesday, February 27

The plan: leave the house at 6:40 am, arrive at the GO Train station by 6:50 am and catch the 7:00 am train to Union Station.

What actually happened: left the house at 6:53 am, arrived at the train station at 6:57. I ran inside to get tickets while Ann and Karen tried to stall the train. The train departs at 7:01.

We arrived at Union Station at 7:38 and found Ashley waiting for us. We checked in with Via and proceeded to wait in line to catch the train. We board with no problems and find out we're on a super-nice Amtrak. They're soo much nicer than Via trains.





Some more photos from the 13 hour train ride. That's right, 13 hours. ARgh stupid lack of passports.




you can recline your seats. You can even turn them around to face each other.

Karen began her journal:


Around 12:30 PM we crossed the border.

Niagara River!


Buffalo.


We stopped at the border for a while, people got off and photographed. I photographed them.

Ann and Ashley napped. Karen and I were bored so..this is what happened:


We ate hershey's kisses and tossed them at Ann.




How much does it look like they're spooning?

At some point we hopped off the train.


Later on in the evening, around 6:00 or 7:00...

We made friends with Bob the conductor.


He let us play with his hat.









We got into Penn Station around 11:45 - late. The train got pretty bad, the bathrooms were super gross and it was ridiculously hot. However, we did hear some old woman ask her friend, "did you squeeze that?"

When we got to Penn Station, we proceded to take the subway, which happened to have a fire on the tracks, so we went to another track to catch the right train, only to see that our train was on the original track. Argh... cab it is.

Upon arrival to the International Student Center (not centre) we found out that they messed up our room and such and that Ash and Ann had to sleep in a smelly co-ed room. The girl's room/floor was four flights up. Argh.