Which is one of the most memorable train journeys that you recollect?

Many years ago I was traveling in Scandinavia by train. The train crossed the border between Denmark and Norway. There were a couple of German girls across from me. I was trying to chat them up but my German wasn’t the greatest, and their English wasn’t very good either. When the Norwegian customs/immigration official came by, I ended having to translate the Norwegian’s English into German for the German girls. I just thought that was funny because my German was so bad. But at least it worked.

Dresden to Prague. I had a new fancy passport with holograms. The guys with guns had never seen one before when they were checking and they thought it was fake. So after about 30 minutes and numerous calls they said it was valid. Scared the shit out of me. At one time there was over ten armed guys surrounding me.

I had a few photocopies of my passport on me. I give one to the people I was traveling with hoping it would help if I was detained and I told them to go straight to the embassy.

I traveled from Crestline, OH to New York City. A friend had driven to Rye, NY to be with her mother in her mother’s last days. She was too upset to drive home alone, so she got me a train ticket to come to NY and drive home with her/help drive. I don’t know how she did it, but I ended up in the “handicapped” car as AmTrak then called it. I had my own little room! The window was about 4’ high and easily 5’ wide. My seat could be converted to a bed that was perfect window height.

I plopped down with my Walkman (before Ipod, kids) and listened to tunes as I watched the countryside go past the window. It was fall and I went through some of the most beautiful areas on my trek. This trip will always stand out in my mind.

My other “memorable” train trip was from Kobe, Japan to Fukuoka on the Shinkansen (bullet train). I had just moved to Japan and I was going to visit a family friend. I spoke little Japanese at the time and my father had written scribbles on a piece of paper and I was to get off the train when the scribbles on the sign matched what was on the paper.

It was a great trip. The lady came around with a rolling cart and announced lunch (o-bento) and stood there and rattled off all the different kinds of lunches she had. I only recognized one of the choices (taco), so I picked that. So picture a 15 year old girl, riding a train in a foreign country by herself opening a small wooden box to find out that “taco” in Japanese means octopus. I opened the box and, there on plastic grass, was an entire octopus. I cannot tell you how it was prepared as I did not eat it. I put the lid back on and placed it into the seat back in front of me. I did manage to get off the train at the correct station, but was a bit hungry by the time I arrived.

San Diego to Redding, CA to testify at a CA Fish and Game hearing on mountain lion protection. I remember crossing the Grapevine with Mannheim Steamroller’s “Come to the Sea” on my Walkman.