Making Abe Lincoln Proud

            For the past couple of months I've been toying with the idea of visiting the city of Dallas, so last week I got the itch to plunge forward and made all the arrangements. Although I was able to grind through thirty-hours on a greyhound bus on my trip to Green Bay, going to Dallas was probably going to require a third day hopping around bus stations, and that's a little too much, so I opted for Amtrak. The scheduled rail time was forty-hours with one transfer in Chicago, but riding on the train is much less a hassle than a cramped bus and the time doesn't go as slow.

            The amtrak takes a very similar route than greyhound in the manner which it goes to Chicago; up towards Buffalo, crosses into Ohio, then Indiana, then finally Illinois. We pulled out of New York's Penn Station and travelled along side the scenic route of the Hudson River. I had brought my laptop to write and watch movies on, plus had a book, so there was plenty for me to do to pass the time, but soon enough I felt sleepy and wanted to take a nap. The seat next to me was empty, but I knew that wasn't going to last to long, so I needed to take advantage of the comfort while it lasted. I started to doze off gently when an Indian guy sitting on the other side of the aisle from me had his cellphone sound off with Indian music sound tones. It happened a few more times, so he must have been texting with someone, but it would've been nice if he could've put it on vibrate. After a while I was able to get back into sleepy-mode and as I tried to close my eyes, a baby from all the way back in the car starts screaming loud. That lasted for a good fifteen minutes. When another sleep opportunity crossed my path, a lady got on with two of the most annoying kids anyone could imagine.

            The boy was about nine years old and the girl was probably about four, and to make matters worse the girl had some handheld educational toy in which the volume was on high. The machine would ask questions about spelling or sentence structure, then she had to select the right answer, but the whole thing was way too loud. In order for the two kids to be able to sit near eachother and the mom, this Chinese guy got relocated from his seat by the conductor. That whole process took about twenty minutes with the mom and kids figuring out where to put stuff, what snacks to take out, who was going to sit where, it was a real mess!! To make matters worse, someone started to listen to music with headphones on, but even with the headphones I was able to hear everything from five rows back. The kids kept bickering and fighting with eachother, and the mom was one of those mothers who thinks everything their kids do is cute, so she never had the sense to tell them to quiet down and be respectful to the other people in the car. With my nap dreams utterly crushed, I decided to take a walk to the snack car.

            I went through a few cars, but all I saw were passengers and the resturant car, no snack car. I asked the conductor and he informed me we were on an incomplete train, and were going to combine with another train in Albany that would contain a snack car. Before heading back to my ultra-quiet seating area I stopped off at the bathroom, and was impressed by the amtrak trademarked liquid hand soap. In one of the following stops a lady got on and took the seat next to me, so that little of comfort window opportunity was closed. The lady wasn't overweight or anything, so it wasn't terrible, but naturally its nice to have a whole section to yourself. When we made our way to Albany there was a hour break for the connecting train, so we were allowed to get off and walk around the station. I went to a newspaper stand to buy a granola bar, and as I went to hand over my money, I noticed a wallet laying on one of the candy racks. I handed it over to the person behind the register and walked back to the train. She claimed she'll hold it for whoever comes back asking for it, but maybe it was an early Christmas present for herself. As we pulled out of Albany I saw something I hadn't really seen all winter in New York, and that was snowfall.

            Around 8:30pm that night I was called in for my dinner reservation and they seated four of strangers at a table; the Indian ringtone guy, the Chinese guy who got bumped from his seat, some guy with sleeve tattoos, and lastly myself. With the four of us quietly looking at eachother, especially with the tattoo guy, I felt it was a prison cafeteria or something. The dining menu on amtrak is very limited and the food very plain, I went with the half-roasted chicken with rice. It wasn't nearly as terrible as I thought it would be, but it was still amtrak food. The train started to pick up speed and the rail turbulance as us banging into eachother and the stuff on the table shaking. The Chinese guy then started acting weird, the went to the bathroom a few times, perhaps to throw-up his food maybe. When it came time to go to sleep, the lovely kids were still as enjoyable as ever, so I was only able to get a few winks of shuteye at a time. The little girl was the worst, I don't think she gave up until 1am. I think it was only around midnight when the mother finally suggest she turn her toy thing down a little. Luckily the three of them, as well as the lady next to me, got off around 5am in Toledo, OH, so it was then that I was finally able to get some real sleep.

            The train was somewhere in Indiana when I woke up and I saw there was light snow covering the ground. They must really love their basketball in that state because every house has a hoop in the driveway or backyard. As I made my way to the resturant car again for breakfast, I saw that in between the train cars there was ice and snow that must have accumulated overnight. The breakfast turned out great actually as I ordered french toast with sausage. It came topped with powdered sugar and a side of strawberries. When it came time to leave the tip I was debating in my head whether to leave three dollars or only two, I went with two. When the waiter saw me put money down, he put out his hand to give me a big handshake. I never seen a waiter so happy getting a two-dollar tip before, he even offered me a free coffee to-go. Perhaps nobody tips amtrak waiters or something, maybe he was being sarcastic, I don't know, but whatever it is, as soon as he turned his back to get the coffee, I slipped in another dollar to make it three. As we entered Illinois and passed the numerous smoke-stacks and power plants, the Chinese guy started acting weird again. He kept getting up, and as he did, he would bang his knee against the seat in front of him each time. It must have happened at least three or four times.

            We grew closer and closer to Chicago, I started to see the skyline with the Sears Tower, plus we went by US Cellular Field which is where the Chicago White Sox play baseball. Once we got to Chicago's Union Station, I went outside for a few minutes to see the surrounding, but it was rather freezing, so I went back into the station. I had about three hours until my connecting train to Dallas was scheduled to leave. The bathroom seemed like a good idea to kill some time since the toilets on amtrak aren't the most appeasing in the world. There were two toilet bowl stalls, the Chinese guy again in my presense, took one, and the other stall had a mysterous old man inside with a very gruffy-smokey voice. Instead of doing what he had to do in there, he was taking phone calls on his cell. Unfortunately for him, he was telling people that doctors found an aneurysm near his heart and he needed to go to New York for more tests. People were lining up for the toilets and this guy and the Chinese guy were taking forever. Finally, the Chinese guy finished first and I was happy he won because I had no desire to see what was left of the other toilet. Most public restrooms have a toliet seat cover dispenser which you have to place manually. This one, was something new I never saw before. What you do is press a button and a length of plastic covering moves like a conveyer belt and does it all for you. It's a true work of genuis and whoever invited it deserves a Nobel Peace Prize or or Purple Heart or something like that.

            As everyone lined up at the gate to board for the train heading towards Dallas, a slight taste of anxiety hushed over the crowd as the monitor on the wall listed it as delayed. Good news though, the delay was only about ten minutes from departure. While we waited, this lady(I think it was a lady) came rushing in out of nowhere with two bulky bags that hit everyone and ran up towards the head of the line. She must have through she was late, when she was told it was only delayed, she came back towards the middle of the line where I was. One would think she should go to the end of the line, but she stayed in the middle and cut off a bunch of people. The reason I had confusion at first whether it was a woman or not, was he/she/it had a mustache. Once I got a closer look, I came to the conclusion it was a female. She was short, round, and was wearing very raggy clothes. In addition to being filthy, she also smelled real bad. I had to pull the top part of my sweater over my nose in a make-shift gas mask. She was about two places ahead of me on the line and there was no way I wanted to sit in her vincinity on the train, so as we walked towards the train, I let a few people ahead of me to make some distance between us both. When I reached the train's platform, I noticed something drop from one of the people in front of me, it was a wallet. The second wallet I picked up on this journey!!

            I had a feeling the wallet probably came from the stinky lady because she looked very disorganized the way she was carrying her bags and train ticket in her hand, but I had no desire to get within smelling distance ofher again, so I just handed the wallet over to a conductor. This train was slightly different from the one from New York to Chicago, or the one I took last year from New York to Miami. This one had double-decker style train cars with two floors each, and it also had a observation car with lounge chairs and huge windows for viewing. I was able to get a window seat again, and the seat next to me was filled as well by another lady, unfortunately she was a little on the big side, so I had doubts sleep that night would be very comfrotable. As the jumped into the seat next to me, she had a paranoid look on her face and was speaking real low. She had originally been sitting next to another guy, but he was talking loud on his cellphone before the train even pulled out of the station and it must have drove her nuts. Once we were off and running, I made my way over to the observatory car to check it out since I never seen one before. It seemed rather interesting, the only problem was there was a group of about five guys in there drinking alcohol and being extremely loud. Each time one of them would make a comment, the rest would laugh like a pack of hyenas.

            They were in their late twenties or very early thrities, plus it seemed one or more of them served in the military because they kept making these 'whu-ra' marine chants. Then they kept doing military chants about some airforce base or something. I don't think they all knew eachother because it seemed like some one them were introducing themselves as served in the navy. It was a real nutty group, one had tattoos all over, the other was dressed nicely with a tan Humphrey Bogart-style trench coat. The one with the tattoos stood out amongst the others, he was the loudest and most vulgar. He was Caucasian, while the rest of the guys seemed African-American or Hispanic, but he was saying alot of racist stuff. What made it surprising was there were African-American passengers as well in the observatory car, plus families with kids. He was also telling people he served in Iraq, got shot twice and stabbed once. They wouldn't quiet down for a second and the stuff that was coming out of this guys mouth was becoming unbearable, so I just left the car and returned to my regular seat. A short time later I heard the conductor being called over the loudspeaker to come downstairs, something in my gut told me it had to do with those rowdy guys. At this point were still in the State of Illinois, but things got really interesting when we pulled into the station of Springfield, Illinois, which became the hometown of President Abraham Lincoln.

             I looked out the window and I saw the leader of the rowdy pack, the racist marine, in his jacket that had a big American flag on the back. He was next to the conductor and from what I determined, it seemed like he was being kicked off. He was also stumbling in a drunkard state and each time he would try to walk back onto the car, the conductor would block his path. Then two police officers started to approach from behind and the conductor handed the problem off to them. After about thirty-seconds of talking, the marine raised one of his hands towards the cops and they immediately threw him to the floor, faced-down. As the train pulled out of the station he was being handcuffed and likely headed towards a night in the slammer. We all saw it from the window and there were 'oooohs' and 'aaaahs' coming from the audience. That was certainly the talk-of-the-town for the bulk of the remaining ride to Dallas. I went into the observatory car again to see what became of the rest of the group, and they were still there drinking and laughing about the incident, but the atmosphere wasn't as chaotic as before. Plus, it seemed as if maybe they weren't all together as they were making fun of the guy who got thrown off and were making references as if they just met him that day.

            My dinner that night was rather quiet, it turns out with was just me and this older gentleman by the name of Carter. He had grey hair and looked to be approaching seventy, but what threw me off was when he told me he had a son in the eigth-grade. At first I thought maybe grandchild, so I rephrased a question to him about it, but he answered as in a son. Since it was only us two for dinner, the chef took care of us himself. He actually looked like legendary boxer Joe Louis. When the first dinner roll he brough me was too hard to bite into, he came over with two more fresher ones and told me when he was my age, he used to eat like a horse. Of course now the chef has diabetes(I wonder why?). By the time it was to get to bed, there was still a buzz about the guy getting arrested. It seems one of the guys who was sitting in the group was with a wife, or girlfriend, and a small boy in a seat across the aisle from my location. Then in couple of rows ahead of us were these two ladies with heavy southern accents. The ladies wouldn't quiet down at all and kept ramling on about all subjects, the guy let his kid watch a movie on his iPhone, or some smartphone, loud with no earphones, and as I figured earlier in the day, the lady next to me wasn't making it comfortable for me to be able to fall asleep. Although I did discover an important fact, as the guy told the southern ladies, the mother of the little boy walked out on them when he was only three-months old and her excuse was she couldn't take it anymore. The lady next to me used her fur coat as a blanket and looked like she was being mauled by a leopard. The movie from the cellphone, the southern ladies and their lame jokes, and leopard lady taking up half the space of my seat, I had no choice to go to the observatory car to attempt sleep.

            The group was still in the car, but out cold sleeping and snoring loud, probably from all the liquor they consumed. I hardly slept at all that night, but I do recall waking up in the town of Texarkana, TX, which is noted for half of the town being in Texas and the other half still in Arkansas. The sunrise was quite interesting was the sky had a red glow to it which I never really seen before. The deeper we got into the Texas, the more I saw fields, farms, horses, and cattle. Once the group of guys started to wake up and chat amongst themselves, as well as the one who was seated near me, more of the story started to piece together about the guy who was kicked off. The conductor came over to them the night before to take statements because the guy made complaints to the police that we was put in a chokehold. I'm guessing what happened was he kept mouthing off in the observatory car as when I heard him, eventually either one of the guys in the group or the guy who was actually seated near me, had enough, and there was some type of physical altercation. Since the marine-guy was the loudest and most drunk looking, the conductor selected to kick him off. One of the southern ladies heard him say he wasn't a marine, only that he was in the national guard, so who knows what the deal was, I was just happy to be off that train when we finally reached the Dallas version of Union Station.

             Maybe the observatory car isn't such a great thing after all....

The Next Time You Go to Haiti

            Over Labor Day Weekend of this year I traveled to Haiti to visit my lady who was working there at the time, and it also happens to be her country of origin. I had an American Airlines flight from JFK Airport in Queens, NY to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti which takes approximately three and a half hours.

            First the Haitian Airport, I got off the plane and had to go down an escalator which passes by a Western Union sponsored greeting band, I gave them two quarters of pocket change I had. Then you cram onto an overcrowded bus with no air conditioner for about a 75 yard ride to the customs area. Once in there, what should be about 5 lines to check-in was a 14 line free-for-all bonanza. People were trying to cut in front of eachother, there was yelling, pushing, and of course no air conditioner in there as well. Finally, it gets straightened out and I'm on a real line which leads to an immigration officer. He stamps my passport with barely looking at my face and a way I go. After that is the luggage area which is another whole bonanza in itself, but luckily I only had carry-on. Next stage is the airport exit, you step out of the sweaty airport into 95 degree weather and have about fifty airport workers in grey uniforms swarm you like you just poked a beehive. They all grab for your bag and want to offer you services like getting a taxi or using their phone. That's about a 30 yard march you have to go through which feels more like 2 soccer fields. Luckily she was there in time to pick me up and I saw her face in the awaiting crowd. There was a UN(United Nations) officer who mumbled something to me(maybe asking if I wanted a cab I think), but I kept my head down and walked right past him.

          When she saw me she asked why I looked so stressed...

          The driving in Haiti is somewhat hectic, seldom are there traffic lights or stop signs, but overall drivers manage to cooperate with eachother to keep the flow going. Since the driving laws are laxed and almost every car has broken or missing side mirrors, its imperative to honk your horn constantly. In some parts of Manhattan that's a $300 fine. Basically the air is filled with the sounds of honking horns and caribbean music. The toughest obstacle to driving isn't the numerous tap-tap buses(4x4 jeeps converted into mini-buses) or abundance of taxi motorbikes, but the abundance of potholes in the streets. It's almost impossible for a car to go too fast because every few feet is a huge hole in the street. Another item with driving is that the majority of vehicles on the road are from the 1980's and 1990's, meaning most of the them have seen their best days pass a long time ago and are breaking down constantly. There's always cars and trucks on the side of the road needing water, a tire changed, or something looked at with the engine. Once in a while you'll see a vehicle from 2004 or 2006, but its not often. There were two trucks, one a Mayflower and another North American, both US moving companies, that I wish I knew the backstory of how they ended up in Haiti.

          I was driving there my first day and had no problems adapting to the driving environment, the only snafu was the jeep I was driving also falls into this category of having seen its best days already, and stalled on us numerous times. One time we planned to drive to the beach with the jeep and had driven halfway there when the jeep basically died on us. Luckily we were on a busy enough street and were able to ask around for a mechanic. Someone said there was someone named Edgar down one of the allyways who fixes cars, and we walked down a dirt road which led to a bunch of houses, of which we found Edgar the Mechanic, the mechanic shop being his backyard with about 3 other choppy vehicles laying around. He had his assistant go purchase some piston-rods or something for the motor, in fact I don't know what he did, but he was only able to partially get the car running again. At the time I was more worried more about not getting to the beach than the jeep working again, which I pretty much gave up on. While he(and onlookers passing by) was trying to fix the motor, I was watching someone get a haircut with a straight-razor and on a front porch about 10 kids were huddled together to watch TV.

           The jeep started up again, but nobody felt confident it could go more than 20 feet without breaking down. We told Edgar we were heading for the beach, and I guess he had no other plans for the day because he offered to drive us there himself. We had to give him money for gas and and extra $40 for his troubles, but he drove us to the beach and back to his house where we kept the jeep for the time being. Edgar's favorite musical group is Air Supply, and as a result he had the word 'Air Supply' painted onto the upper part of the front windows for all his vehicles. Naturally, while we rode in his jeep he played his Air Supply CD on the radio. I only know of one Air Supply song, how someone could be that much a fan without them having more than one hit song baffles me.

            The beach is my favorite part of the country; turquoise colored warm water, clean sand, and big green mountains in the background overlooking the whole area. It would rain on and off, but it was a warm rain without lightning and everyone remained in the water. In the US, a lifeguard would blow the whistle immedately and everyone would be forced out. This beach had no lifeguard, and I have a feeling none of the beaches in Haiti have lifeguards. As a result, frequently jet skis and boats come a little too close for comfort near the swimmers, which could be risky. For food options there's resturants that serve lobsters and other foods on the beach, plus there's typically trappers walking around with crabs and lobsters they just trapped. They can cook it for you on the spot if you want. When our day ended and we went back to Edgar's to pick up our troublesome jeep, the vehicle did start and we were able to drive it back home miraculously, but not without it stalling about 10 more times on the way.

            Nights in Haiti are probably the times you need to be on your highest guard. First of all, you must be in a vehicle, there's no strolling around on foot or taking a walk in the park. There's plenty of places to go to eat or dance, but again its best to go by car and move quickly in and out. One night we went to a dance hall to watch live music, another night we went to an outdoor pizza lounge(surprisingly good pizza), another night a club, and finally there was a time someone was having a rooftop party of beers and live music(more of an informal nature). The best part of Haiti at night is seeing how low from the sky the stars are, I never seen them like that before, and so many bright stars there were. Before going to bed we had to set up a mosquito net, it was my first time using one, and for some reason it had a calming affect which made me fall asleep quickly.

           As for tidbits on Haiti, it is amusing to either walk or drive around and have chicken, goats, or cattle pop out of nowhere. The streets are overloaded with market vendors selling items such as fruits, vegetables, water, cellphone cases, art, pottery, etc. With that the streets are also overloaded with beggers, mainly made up of women and small children. I remember one kid came up to our jeep wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt(probably had no idea who she is). Another time when we were leaving a club it must have been like 3am, and still a small kid was fully awake and asking us for money. I also found the supermarket interesting, especially the one guard holding a baton and another pacing around with a shotgun. In fact, the place we were staying at had an armed guard with a shotgun, and getting back to the airport for a moment, there too were guards walking with...that's right, shotguns. I guess its the offical gun of Haiti. As for other measures for security, basically all homes and compounds are behind large brick walls with fortified gates. The highlight for that was a school near Edgar's house which had a high wall with jagged broken glass bottles sticking out of the top to influence potential intruders to not try to climb over it. I never knew anyone wanting to get into school that bad.

           We did walk by the refugee camps which are made up of tents and make-shift homes. Many still remain there since the aftermath of the major earthquake which struck in early 2010. There are efforts to clean up the damages that were caused by the quake, some areas have had rubble removed, but in other areas the destruction is still visible. The tent areas give off a foul smell, in fact many of the streets in Haiti are tainted with bad odors, either from the open sewers or homeless/poor people relieving themselves in public far too often. A few blocks away from the tent area we walked up a hill and came upon a nice outdoor cafe and we each ordered up some ice cream. She had passion fruit sobert which was served in a frozen passion fruit core carved out, and I had the better coconut ice cream neatly packaged into a half coconut shell.

            Fires are a common occurance in the country, every few blocks there always a bunch of tires or a pile of garbage being set on fire. I'm guessing since there's not many sanitation trucks passing by, the only other option is to burn the trash. Fire's opposite, water, is a precious resource in Haiti which can't be taken for granted. Since water from the pipelines have some sort of contamination most likely, the only safe water you can drink is bottled water and water pumped from the resource centers. And when taking a shower, you must keep your mouth closed. There's a cell phone company called Digicel which I supposed is the main cell provider in Haiti, they must have alot of sponsorship dollars because you can't go anywhere without seeing the word 'Digicel' on a wall, or even on government street signs.

           Though there are police jeeps and small police stations every now and then, overall you have a feeling you're on your own in terms of security. Although there weren't any dangerous incidents while I was there, I still like having the ability to dial 9-1-1 in case of emergency and not relying on shotgun-toting guards and broken glass on top of walls. It is a very poor country, and as a result there's a lacking infrastructure of stable government services such as security, sanitation, road maintenance, parental & child welfare, schools, healthcare, food, and so much more, and its all quite visible once you leave the airport.

          When I got back to New York it felt like I hadn't been there in a long time, even though it was only a few days I spent in Haiti. It's certainly a different feel amongst the two countries. The simple relief of driving my car from the airport to my home without fear of it stalling was a good feeling, but it was also nice not to hear about Hollywood celebrities for a few days. When I got home I was able to take a shower without worrying if my mouth was open or not, but I wish I could go to that beach every week. For weeks after the trip I still had the noise of honking horns and caribbean music stuck in my head, that's how impactful those sounds were. Until next time...