May 14, 2001 (Day 68)

May 14, 2001 (Day 68): Amtrak chartered bus, en route to Chicago – 9.20am

Health: still fat. Tired from the early morning. Coffee atop a tired body is perhaps not the best way to start, but I am feeling all right.

Morale:  OK. The last couple of days have been a series of goodbyes. This entire trip has been a sequence of arrivals and departures. Here the departure was even harder. The refrains of “when are you moving back?” still echoes. For the last many years, we have “parachuted” in for visits. People change, get older. Friends and family remain close, but we are all different people. My niece and nephew will never be this young again. My older relatives are still around. My father may even be retired by the time this trip is over.

The departure weather did not incline us to stay longer: muggy and overcast. It promises to be unpleasant and in the 80° range. Nice to be on our way.

I called the station this morning to find out when our 8am train was due to leave. At that moment, it was only one hour and 46 minutes behind schedule. When we got to the station at 8.15, the train was there but there were also a number of chartered buses queued up. Not a good sign. Due to the track conditions, they were holding the train in the Twin Cities until about noon. They brought in buses for those who have connections to make in Chicago. All those who had connections boarded first. There was plenty of room so we got to hop on as well. We are due to arrive in Chicago about 5pm, only about a half an hour behind schedule. I have no idea when the train will arrive.

I must give Amtrak credit. They are helping the passengers to make the best of a not ideal situation. The bus is a comfortable, long-distance vehicle. Everyone has been given a bag of snacks to tide them over until we stop at the Burger King at Wisconsin Dells, where everyone will get a $5 credit towards lunch. While it is not the same as a train ride, they are doing the best they can for their customers. Well done!

We are not jammed into the bus, so it will make for a comfortable trip. Apart from a group in the back – who are reading poetry together – most people are keeping to themselves. They are their own atomic units; arms crossed, facing forward. Some drift into a nap.

As we drove out of the Twin Cities, we passed the hotel where the party was. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to see the “Chasing Fogg” sign still on the marquee.

Last night, Anna and I did a recap of the trip so far. We are in agreement that things have gone – touch wood – without major problems. Departing Stockholm was the most stressful due to our divergence of opinion on each other’s problem solving abilities. The problem with the rubles bothered me most because it felt so out of our control and I was uncomfortable to dismiss the trouble as “only money”. The amount of money would not have jeopardized the trip, but I could not look out the train window and see others living conditions and simply dismiss it as “small change.”  It was a learning experience. Perhaps one I should have been keener to learn since being stuck with only Chinese non-convertible currency on the ChinJif could have been problematic.

Arriving in Beijing a day early with no local currency and getting money changed and making our way to our room was a non-event. For that reason, I consider it a success. There were a couple of curves thrown at us but we knew what we needed to do and – sharpened by experience – we calmly set about getting it done. That was a situation that may have proved daunting for many others.

Chicago, Congress Plaza hotel – 11pm

There was an interesting group on the bus. While many took the opportunity to sleep, some were entertained by the late-teen poet from Montana, flush with the wisdom and experience that only one that age can have. I too remember being 21 and knowing it all. He was on his way to New York to visit family, after which he was heading off to Israel to work for 60 days on a kibbutz. This was going to be his first trip out of the United States. This, his second day away from Montana, was the longest he had ever been away from home. He was a pleasant sort and others were interested in his trip and its logistics:  where was he going, how long would he be there, what would he be doing, how would he get there?  Considering his stated experience, this will be quite a trip for him. One couple asked how long the flight was from New York to Israel. When he responded, “Twenty-eight hours,” I had to intervene, especially when the answer did not strike his interrogators as odd. I asked how many layovers he had. He replied that there were none. With finality I said, “Your flight is not 28 hours.” He protested, but then we started doing the math and considering time zone differences and whether his arrival time was AM or PM. Without a doubt, this will broaden his world.

When we stopped for lunch, there was an exchange of stuff between buses. One of the passengers on the other buses had video tapes so we watched the Robert DeNiro-Ben Stiller film, Meet the Parents on the monitors. It was an OK film. It helped to pass the time.

As we pulled into Chicago and became stuck in rush-hour traffic, I button-holed one of my traveling companions into a discussion of mass transit. Poor woman.

We got into a very windy (but temperate) Chicago just before 5pm and hopped a cab to the Congress Plaza hotel – a remodeled early-20th Century hotel across the street from Buckingham Fountain. Sadly, the window on our room offers a great view of another window in the hotel instead of the lake, but it has a coffee maker so things will be fine. Hot water was a bit of a premium, though. Still, it is tough to beat the location.

We went on a little walk and stumbled on a store called the Savvy Traveler. Being total geeks, we had our picture taken there. Along the way, Anna commented that the Chicago lakefront reminded her of the Bund in Shanghai. After a pause, I could see why. There were a lot of early 20th Century buildings arrayed by an open space next to a body of water. The water allows one to see the panorama of buildings, instead of them being hidden behind each other.

As we feared, it was harder to meet up with some of our friends. Amtrak listed the train as being over four hours late and did not mention that there was a bus also being run along the route. The late hour when we were scheduled to arrive dissuaded a number of people from coming into town. It was also tough trying to raise some of them by phone, although I did manage to reach my friend, Sue.

But Julie and David made it in, so we had a great night talking with them. I realize I have got to work on my trip stories. The questions our friends ask are tough. What was the most exciting part?  The answer is “all of it” but that sounds like a cop-out answer. It has been a constant change since we began. The most unusual thing is how inured we have become to things being different, changing. On this trip, the things that are normally common feel truly unusual like seeing things in English, and seeing friends and family. It is not as though these things were unexpected, but they are not the sort of things one encounters during a trip; one tends to encounter them after the trip. This trip is exciting to me because of its broad scope. While riding an elephant is an interesting event, going all the way around the world and all of the changes that such a journey encompasses thrills me. But it is hard to distill this essay into a short answer.

Excerpts from Anna’s journal included

• ChasingFogg15
• Chicago
• Minnesota
• Travel
• USA