As usual for me there is too damn much to share and not enough time! I just finished a nice long siesta in my bran-new apartment. I really needed the break from the first hectic two days of my journey out here.
See, traffic was real bad getting to the train station and Allison and I arrived there with almost no time to spare. We got there at 7pm and the train was leaving at 8pm. I felt like a Darjeeling brother (Whitman) because I had a total of about 5 suitcases and a bike that I was taking with me to New Orleans. Checking luggage in was insane because I had 3 bags and the bike. Long story short, I had to disassemble parts of the bike so that I could get it into a bike box. We arrived at the gate as they were yelling out "New Orleans! Train 59! New Orleans!" It was a storybook finish.
The train ride was long and boring. In coach seats it began to get uncomfortable. That night I just felt like sleeping. In the morning I was informed that the train was about 2 hours behind schedule. I did some reading of this Warcraft book to feed my WoW addiction, and that helped pass the time. The train ride was just about 21 hours.
I got here at 5 pm yesterday, and was picked up by one of my roomates, a girl that (to my surprise) was in the graduating class of '08 at Knox. We got all the 5 bags of luggage into her Prius (hybrid) and I saved the bike for later.
There was a BBQ that night which some Americorps members were hosting, so I loaded all my bags inside the door of my 4 person apartment and turned right around. The high tech/sorcery of the Prius' GPS got us kind of lost, but we arrived around 6 and just as the party was starting.
The air is humid and hot down here, but it's not hard to get use to. Last night after the BBQ I worked on tweaking my bike back to working shape. It was frustrating because I taking apart the bike undid some parts which I could only guess as to how to put back together. But I asked for a blessing from Allison via text and lo! I fixed it. Sleep at 11:30, I was out.
This morning got up at 7:00am and was doing fine. Still had that newness adrenaline. Me and all three of my housemates biked 10 minutes to a ferry that takes us across the Mississippi
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and then about 20 minutes of more urban biking got us to our first day of orientation. They fed us muffins and subs, and we were out before 2pm.
I need to get some food now, as I am half starved and still need to look up placed to "make" groceries.
It's so good to hear from you! Awesome man, awesome!
yeah t-man! i envy the traveling and new experiencing you're up to. yep, go with the waves and keep-a-sailing.
-charlie
Yeah Tony! Man your a true orc! Keep it up! Must be fun in new zones. Don't give up!
awesome news T-roc. Never give up. Never surrender.
Glad you made it down there OK. This whole year sounds like such a great experience!
Bike commuting is a great way to go - I think it would be fun to replace the train part of mine with a ferry. There aren't so many ferries between here and Lake Michigan, though. Nice job fixing the bike yourself.
Nice Darjeeling reference - I imagine you in some old-guy sunglasses, chasing the train down with all of your suitcases and bike, leaving Bill Murray in the dust.
good job tony i'm proud of you. god bless you
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