Day 1: MONDAY

...started out dark, as I suppose most days do if you're awake early enough to see it. Mark left my house late Sunday night, after helping me with some last-minute things and dropping off some DVDs that I had asked to borrow for the trip. I went to bed late, promising myself that I could sleep on the train, and my screwed-up internal clock wouldn't let me drop off until about 1:30 a.m. That's early for me, except that my alarm was set to go off at 3:00 a.m. so I could finish throwing things in my bag and leave promptly at 4:05...

I dozed through both alarms, woke up (miraculously) at 3:44, dashed in and out of the shower in a sleepy haze (ordinarily I would have skipped it for the sake of time, but since it was my last chance to take a decent shower until Wednesday night, I figured my travel companions would appreciate the effort), and managed to get out of the house only two minutes after the car pulled into my driveway! This didn't leave me much time to say goodbye to Lucrezia, who was very groggy and didn't understand why we had to be awake when it was still dark outside. (She's not a morning puppy; she doesn't like to get out of bed until at least 11 a.m. They say pets and their owners resemble each other...)

We rushed downtown to the train station, because they'd told my mother to be there at least half an hour before departure. We arrived a good 55 minutes before scheduled train time, and after sitting around for a while, were informed that our train was running at least an hour late. (Of course.) I talked to Laura for a bit, read all of Tactics vol. 2 (why the HECK is Sugino a woman in this translation??) and still had time to doodle in my sketchbook before we heard the train arrive – then we stood in line to haul our luggage upstairs and board the train. By this point I was getting VERY hungry, but the only food in sight was the snack bar with its bottled soft drinks and popcorn machine. Not exactly breakfast material.

The ride from Indy to Chicago was fairly uneventful; I slept fitfully for the first half of the trip, and when my body refused to rest because it was Morning and Daylight outside, I pulled out Minekura (my tablet laptop) and played a few rounds of the Slime Game. When I started confusing simple things like chi and sa, I realized I was too tired to be thinking in Japanese, so I poked around with some Monster soundtrack scans in Photoshop to see if I could make a desktop background. I've confirmed my long-held suspicion that all Adobe products are evil.

At Union Station in Chicago, we checked into the Metro Lounge, which is reserved for first-class sleeper passengers and is much nicer than sitting on the floor in the general waiting area. Free soft drinks, squishy chairs, televisions, and power outlets for those of us who can't bear to be separated from our electronic gizmos. Laura updated her CIA website and answered phone messages, and I worked on my manga a bit. We also hit the food court for lunch (FINALLY! By this point, I was starting to gnaw on the complimentary plastic cups).

After we ate, an older couple walked by behind us speaking Japanese. Laura and I had been debating a linguistic question, and Mom, always helpful, volunteered to go ask the nice Japanese couple the answer. As it turned out, they spoke very little English, so they couldn't communicate well with her, but they were very eager to converse with us. Laura and I stumbled about, embarrassing ourselves HORRIBLY, and frequently had to be corrected for our improper use of words. They talked to us about dog training, about the difficult cost of living in Tokyo given the rent costs ($2,500/month!) and standard professional salaries ($2,000/month), about how much safer Japan is than America for a single woman on the streets, and about the relative size of houses and sidewalks between the two countries, and the impact on pets in such a tightly packed, stressful environment. We mostly listened and nodded, and contributed to the conversation only when asked direct questions. But the couple was very nice, and encouraged us to travel to Japan (they praised Tokyo highly, but told us that at our current level of Japanese, Osaka was far beyond us. Having heard the Osaka dialect, I'm inclined to believe them. Of course, after today's conversation, I'm beginning to think that ANY part of Japan is beyond me...) ^_^`

After 40 minutes of chatting (more accurately, listening closely to their words, picking out the bits I knew and murmuring a few broken phrases that I thought applied to the same topic), my brain hurt and I was dreading going back to the Slime Game. Fortunately, they were starting to call for check-in by that point, so we had to pack up.

We boarded the Empire Builder – Mom, Dad and I in a deluxe compartment (with private bathroom, but only two beds), and Laura and Jon were upgraded to the family compartment (which is the whole width of the train, and has four beds... what's wrong with this picture?) – and got under way. I'm still trying to work out the physics of sleeping in this room. Right now, it looks like I'm going to sleep *under* the pull-out berth, in a space that is maybe seven or eight inches off the floor. I have about two feet (the width of the bathroom door) in which to set up my bedding and wriggle under the lower berth. I just hope I don't want to roll over at any point during the night.

It's currently 3:34; I've been up for about twelve hours. On the long couch across from me, Dad is reading The Indianapolis Star. Mom is stretched out with a pillow, making up the sleep we didn't get last night. It's sunny, and we're passing lovely green fields and trees in what I suspect is northern Illinois. Our next stop is somewhere in Wisconsin, I think. Our dinner reservations are at 7:15, and I'm free to do whatever I want until then. I think I'll read The Count of Monte Cristo for a bit.

There are few things more relaxing than being on a quiet, gently rocking train, watching scenery go by. It's a shame this route, and almost every other long-distance passenger rail service, is being shut down this year because the government is halving subsidies. Why can't they just privatize it, or charge a few dollars more per ticket? I hate to think that no one will be able to travel like this in the future.

We just pulled into the station at Milwaukee, WI. The tracks run along the riverfront and pass by clean antique building fronts. This is a non-smoking train, so smokers are stepping out on the platform for a hit before we get under way again. Fortunately, we on the train don't have to breathe the polluted air – a marked difference from our previous long-distance train trips to California and New York, which probably took a couple of years off of our lives due to secondhand smoke.

I do miss my dog, though. I hope she doesn't get too lonely while I'm gone.