The "Phoren" train ride

En route DC – NYC, I originally penned down this post in a notebook as the moving train made it more and more difficult to write and even more difficult to read later on.

This makes the first time that I took a train outside of my home country and quite frankly, the experience is very different.

Booking at the very last minute, we had still gotten “business class” tickets for the Acela Express train from Union Station, Washington DC to Penn Station, NYC. I was too excited to experience this voyage, well, before I found out that there was only business class and first class on the train. No Coach/Economy class on the train ???

DC’s Union Station, as we entered, gave the air of an airport rather than a train station, with its souvenir shops, Starbucks & Dunkin Donuts (of course), a Victoria’s Secret store among other apparel shops and infinite number of eateries. And just like at an airport, we waited at a lounge, till about 15 minutes before the departure time.

At 6:15 PM, the gates swung open and we walked through a tunnel and set our eyes on the majestic 2124 Amtrak Acela Express Train waiting for us.

With a Starbucks Cappuccino in my hand, I climbed up the 6 coach machine and started looking around for seat numbers.

Just like the movie theatres over here, there is no concept of reserving specific seats for passengers. Everyone has made peace with the First Come First Serve system and are quite civil about it.

We found 2 vacant “business class” seats and stowed away our luggage in the overhead compartments.

As the train embarked upon its journey, making its way through the states of Maryland and New Jersey, I pulled open the front table and started scribbling.

Frankly, I feel like an idiot sitting with a pen and paper because everyone, and I mean literally everyone around me, is Apple branded.

My cousin sitting in the window seat has an iPhone 5S, the pretty girl on my right, (mid - twenties, has a pretty cool job) is working on a Macbook Air and an iPad mini. I’m quite sure she has an iPhone in her bag.

The middle aged couple in the front have apple tablets and even the train conductor is scanning the barcodes printed on our tickets with an app on his iPhone. 

Me on the other hand, have a pen, a notebook, 2 magazines and a sucky BlackBerry Curve which doesn’t even catch the train’s Wi-Fi signals.

The 2h45m ride passes by in a jiffy as we pick up our luggage and get out into Manhattan’s cold and damp air.

Until the next flashback …