March 15, 2007: From Here to There

Dr. Goth:
So, the adventure begins. I’m at the train station in Wilmington, Delaware, waiting for my train to Philadelphia to meet up with Ms. Kitty then continue up to Newark, NJ airport. This morning I watched a fabulous friend defend her Master’s Degree successfully. You go girl! I only got a little bit of sleep last night because my pup wasn’t feeling so well. He gets nervous when he sees the suitcase come out. He woke me at 3:30 and 5:30 to go outside. I had to give him some pepto to calm his tummy, poor baby. He also crawled into my suitcase this morning while I was getting ready to leave, as if I should pack him too! He wasn’t feeling well the last two nights, exactly when I pulled the suitcase out of the closet. I guess I was torturing him without knowing it, I hope he’ll calm down while I’m gone. Of course, I’m only home two days when I get home from Ireland, off again for the weekend to a friends wedding. Busy busy.

I just saw a sign in the train station that states that this station has been here from 1907 – 2007, wow, it kinda looks it too. Old metal beams, tile floors, musty smell. There is also an interesting mix of people in here. There is a group of youngish people, looks like they’re sending off one or two friends on the train. A police officer with his dog, the dog however seems more interested in being pet by the officer than checking out the people. Such a cute doggie, I know I know, he’s working, blah blah. Whatever, the dog is cute. There is a couple sitting in front of me, older and nicely dressed. She just put on some new nylon knee-hi stockings, her other ones were torn near the ankle. There are a group of punkish looking kids too, sitting just near me. I can hear their whole conversation. They are debating the issue of parents giving expensive items to their children. One insists that parents of means should not spoil their children (right on sister!) and the other is of the opinion that if you have it “why not?” It’s a pretty well thought out conversation, I’m impressed. However, I am a bit disturbed by the fact that the music in the train station is from “Shindler’s List,” really this should never be played in a train station.

Finally, my train is coming. I go up the escalator to the platform and wait for it to arrive and board the train. I find a nice comfy spot, near the café car. Just as we begin to pull away, Ms. Kitty calls to see where I am, I’ll be seeing her in ~20 minutes at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. The ride is quiet and I watch the cars on the highway running parallel to the train, they seem much slower from this vantage point. Soon, we’re arriving at the station. There are a LOT of people waiting for the train, I’ve saved Ms. Kitty a seat beside me, but in front of me a man sits and immediately begins talking to me. Ms. Kitty finds me and we begin our train ride to NJ. The very gay, strange, verbose man never ceases to talk to us. At one point he’s handing over his business card to her. He finally left one stop before ours. Talk talk talk, that’s all that man did. He seemed nice enough, but really, how can one talk that much? And about so much stuff! You name it, he talked about it. So finally, we get rid of Mr. Gay Chatterbox and we arrive at the Newark, NJ International airport. We are four hours early since we didn’t trust the trains being on time, but they were. We found our way to the ticket counter only to be ushered down the hall to another ticket counter. Which was just fine, since it went much faster. Then through the security lines, disrobing everything except the undies (hell, it feels that way!).

Next on our agenda, to find a girl’s priority: Alcohol and Food. Oh yes, you would think it would be shoes and shiny things, but remember without food and alcohol (beer for Dr. Goth and wine for Ms. Kitty) a girl just can’t shop well. Thus we found the Sam Adams Brew Pub. I order THE only non-meat item on the menu and a Guinness. Poor Ms. Kitty goes to place the order and has to deal with the psycho counter lady. When finally she returns, the Guinness tastes “off” and I’m frankly not caring since I’m starving at this point. At least I’ll get a decent one in Ireland. We sat at a table with some guys at the bar, all waiting to go home to Charlotte, NC, but their flight has been delayed over 3 hours! Nice guys, but a bit poor on conversation. I really don’t care since I’m shoveling a mozzarella panini in my mouth so fast all I can do is nod. Ms. Kitty is much more civil, eating as a normal human would. Well, at least one of us isn’t gonna starve any longer! Once all this is done, we bid adieu to the stranded passengers and go look about the terminal. Heck, we got here 4 hours early, so we go see what else is around. We walk down to the next terminal wing only to find a plethora of food we would have rather eaten, like SUSHI!!! Damn. As we are walking, we also sniff out the Ben & Jerry’s store. Yes, I wanted some ice cream too. So we stood in line for what seemed like an eternity for some. There was only one woman working there, so we cut her some slack for the delay, especially since it was a few customers being excessively picky causing the delays. Me? I got a plain strawberry ice cream and Ms. Kitty got a banana rum ice cream. Both were quite tasty while we slowly walked back towards our gate. Now, before those of you who know me yell at me for eating real ice cream, mind you it was a single small scoop in a cup and damn it, I’m on vacation!!!! Really. So we walked around a bit more, I called Dr. Bellydancer, the Goddess of Michigan and texted Mr. Fabulous, to say we were getting ready to leave. Ms. Kitty called her Mom and cousin as she painted her nails a super sexy brick red. Since our seats were in the very first row of the coach section (did you really think it would be first class?), we had to wait til the end to board. Of course, while we waited Ms. Kitty tripped over some lady’s suitcase while staring at a cute guy, ya goof! So finally we got on board, got settled, got blankets, and waited for take off. Luckily the flight wasn’t too bad. No big bumps, and they remembered my veggie meal. So off to sleep for the ride over the pond, resting my head on my pillow propped up on Ms. Kitty’s shoulder (I had a center seat, she had window). When I wake up we’ll be much closer to Ireland, so sweet dreams, this will be a wonderful adventure. Yes, quite.