On the road again

We took the train to our honeymoon destination.

We'd got to the station in good time. It'd been over five years since I'd taken this mode of transportation and about the same since I'd been in the station. We spent our time milling about, I remarking how things have more stayed the same then changed. (That seemed to be a predominant theme that weekend.)

I thought I was being a smarty pants waiting on what I remembered to be the departure side of the station when DH, getting anxious that we were getting close to the departure time, asked one of the station personnel what time they were putting out the sign for our stop-over desination. The guy pointed to the very very long line that I'd mistaken for passengers departing for another desination. D'oh!

So we hustled to the back of this very very long line, all the while, me playing Julie the cruise director explaining what could be expected from this trip (for example, it'd be next to impossible to find two seats together).

We climbed aboard and low and behold we DID find two seats together. While etting settled in and regailing our good fortune, a well coiffed woman came up to our seats and said we were mistaken and were sitting in HER seats! What? My mind had moved into vacation mode by that point and really didn't get what she was saying. Apparently during my five year absence, delivery of train service had changed and they were now assigning seats! Woo hoo! That meant DH and I DID have a seat together.

We found those, settled in with our magazines and books (I think I took a nap) and had a comfortable and uneventful ride to the mid-way point at which time we got out, went above ground for an hour and prowled the streets of the city as much as our already over-stuffed luggage would allow us. Boy did we look like tourists ... slightly dishevelled and unstylish in bland winter gear in comparison to the above ground earth walkers!

We got some street food (roasted chestnuts!) and returned to below ground to catch the train for the final leg of our destination. We were running a wee bit slow and DH was getting antsy about missing the train. Having left his watch at home for this trip, I continued in the roll of Julie, advising him from time-to-time how much prowling time we had, hoping to calm his nerves as I ducked into a shop to search for provisions (after all we were travelling in a sardine can in the middle of winter with a specific supply of food stuffs - I didn't want to get caught in between switches for a few hours while getting the stomach grumblies).

We rolled onto the train with about 10 minutes to spare and settled in for another few hours of trip. Again, it was fairly uneventful. The universe and everything seemed to be cooperating with us, open its arms saying that it was ok to come after all.