Amtrak in. Amtrak home. So civilized, never mind that the return train ran 2+ hours late because of the heat.
On the trip in, I sat next to a young man and we got to chatting. He told me he was about to move across country and wa taking his parents on a trip to Washington DC. His parents were seated across the aisle, she in a sari and surrounded by bags of what looked like groceries, him snoozing.
The young man said he'd researched the Acelas and determined that the best seats for viewing are the odd-numbered ones. We were in Row 11 and sure enough, the view was unobstructed. I had no idea but now I'll pick my seats with that in mind--I love looking out the window.
I love to chat with people, if they're willing. And he was. He told me that soon he'd be moving across the country to take a job at a high tech company and live with his girlfriend.
Obviousy at a turning point in his life--moving away from parents, taking a new job--he asked me why I'd choose to live in the Boston area where houses are so expensive when I could buy a magnificent home for the same price or less in Texas. I tried to explain that then I'd be in Texas when all the people I care about are in the Northeast corridor. "It's not about the house." I didn't mention the politics.
We chatted amiably off and on the rest of the way to New York, and as I was leaving my seat, I leaned over and said to his mother, "Your son is very charming."
I was waiting in the aisle when the young man (whose name I never got) came up to me and said that it had been very nice chatting, and wished me well. It was lovely of him.
It was crowded and a family was sitting next to me was listening. I exchanged smiles with the mother and I said something like, "It's lovely when you meet someone nice on the train."
She said, "I met my husband on a train. On this train."
Her son asked, "What's the name of this train?" And I thought, such a kid question. The mother told him its name was ACELA.
A woman across the aisle must have heard because she chimed in, "I met my husband on this train, too."
The encounters left me smiling all through the hot hot weekend. (Plus my granddaughter graduated wth honors.)
Have you had any close encounters with strangers on your travels?
This is lovely, Hallie . . . there's something really nice about unexpected meetings like you've described. Mostly, we drive when we travel, so I'm more likely to encounter someone once we reach our destination or at a stop along the way. I've had lovely conversations with folks at hotel serve-yourself breakfasts . . . once we even met a charming woman who was, just like us, traveling back to New Jersey!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to your granddaughter . . . .
Those serve-yourself breakfasts (hello, Best Western!) are great places to connect, especially in tourist destinations. Otherwise not so much since often folks are there attending a funeral or on business and buried in their keyboard.
DeleteTwice, I drove from California to Georgia, and back again, with my dog Dusty. I had so many really lovely encounters on those trips because Dusty was with me. Stranger would come over to us at rest stops or when I was filling the car with gas to talk to me about her and how much she--an absolute mutt--looked like their favorite dog from childhood. They would speculate about her heritage. Sometimes they would tell me how happy they were that I, a "young lady" then, wasn't traveling alone so that "weirdos" wouldn't approach me. :) I mean, this happened when Dusty and I were on shorter trips, and when we cruised around at home in California, too, but when we went cross country those encounters were more memorable and more welcome, too, probably because they broke up long days of driving, and buoyed me up when I was tired.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your train tale, Hallie. It seems like such a gentle, communal interlude.
Dogs make wonderful human connections possible. I'm never afraid to comment on someone's dog and offer a smell and a scratch... whereas their owners alone? not so much.
DeleteHALLIE: I am glad you had a good trip on the ACELA and had a wonderful conservation with your seatmate. I usually travel by VIA rail 3 times a year to go to Montreal-Ottawa. I have found most strangers don't chat. Even couples/families tend to whisper/speak quietly to each other.
ReplyDeleteI took 6 long flights (so far) this year, and I only chatted with one man on a direct Porter flight from Vancouver-Ottawa. He initiated the talking, I would rarely be the one to do so. He was so giddy about visiting British Columbia, looking for places where he could sail his newly purchased boat. I don't sail but I did understand his desire and excitement for solo travel.
It's easy to read the body language of someone who's not into chatting with a stranger. And I don't really get solo travel. I like to share.
DeleteI sat beside a business woman on the May train trip to Montreal. She worked on my laptop or busily typed on her smartphone the whole time.
DeleteAs for solo travel, it's totally natural to me. I was an only child whose parents had no interest in travelling to other countries. So I did my first solo 2 month European trip at the age of 19. Living alone as an adult, and doing plenty of solo business travel while working for the federal government also made me comfortable in travelling on my own.
That being said, I have no interest in piloting a small boat alone for several months like my recent Porter flight seatmate!
Grace, that could have been my middle daughter sitting next to you. She travels all the time, and works in every possible opportunity to do so.
DeleteAh, I am sure I would get along with your middle daughter just fine.
DeleteIt's crazy how much responsibility was given to me from my very first federal government job at 20. And I had to search for flights, hotels on my own for each trip (pre-internet) before calling the federal travel centre to book/pay for those expenses.
I commented to Elisabeth below how much I also love solo travel. I'm fine to fly and tour and visit with a loved one, but I actually prefer going alone, at least in transit. My imagination can soar, I can do only what I want, and don't have to account to anyone.
DeleteThat's a very sweet story, Hallie. Sitting with someone who is willing or eager to chat can be a blessing or a curse. On your trip, the two women who told you that they met their husbands on that train just doubled the sweetness. Nice!
ReplyDeleteI agree and I love the little boy who wanted to know the "train's name."
DeleteGlad you had a good trip on the ACELA. I'll chat with people if they initiate the conversation. Once I tell them I'm a reader, then we branch into what I read and back and forth.
ReplyDeleteYou tell them you're a READER? Talk about underselling...
DeleteFood - always an opener. People love to talk about their favourite foods and recipes.
DeleteNo story of my own mine, but yours, Hallie, made me shed a few tears of happiness that such encounters can happen...
ReplyDeleteGives one hope.
DeleteLovely conversation, Hallie. When I'm on the Acela, I try to get the quiet car so I can work in peace.
ReplyDeleteOn the way back from Malice one year I sat next to a woman reading what looked like a manuscript on a sheaf of printed pages. I quietly asked her if she was an editor, and she said she was an agent - Meg Ruhlen, whom I hadn't met or seen before! We chatted about the business until the conductor reminded us we were in the quiet car. OOPS. We were both chastised and went back to our work, but I came home with her business card.
I wish the VIA trains would have a "quiet car"! My best purchase last year was noise-cancelling headphones. It was a game changer for those 15-16 hour (of 6 hour) flights. Too bad I did not bring them with me on those train trips!
DeleteMeg is my agent and also Julia’s. An absolutely lovely person and the best agent in the world
DeleteI know!
DeleteMeg Ruley? She's great... too bad about the "quiet." Wish I'd been a fly on the wall to hear your conversation. I usually skip the quiet car though I love that it's there. Sometimes you're on the way and someone a seat or two back starts a meeting on speaker phone. Usually shouting. Shoot me now...
ReplyDeleteRuley, of course. Yes, about the business meetings. Once on a regular Acela car the guy next to me AND the one behind me were on meetings. OMG, I kept trying to figure out what all the acronyms were and what the business relationships were. I had to bite my tongue not inquire!
DeleteI know this is harsh, but people who conduct loud meetings on speaker phone while riding any pubic conveyance belong in Hitchcock’s "Strangers on a Train" getting a poison dart in the neck.
DeletePerfect solution, Andrea! — Pat S
DeleteWe sat with a French woman (chic silk scarf, hair in an artful twist) on the train from Giverny to Paris. My husband told her how much we had enjoyed visiting Monet's gardens. Her hobby was Impressionist paintings and for the hour-long ride, she wrote an extensive list of her favorite places in France to see them, small towns and obscure museums. I still have the list in my trip file and maybe, someday, we'll have a chance to see them.
ReplyDeleteFrench women exude chic! Every time I've gone to Paris I immediately feel so dowdy and SO USA-AMERICAN (not in a good way).
DeleteLovely story! I too enjoy chatting with strangers on trains and planes. I once sat next to Tom Chapin's wife on a plane ride back from the east coast and had a lovely conversation. On a train between Edinburgh and Leeds, I met a woman (whose name I have long forgotten) and we shared really intimate details of our lives (the wine she was drinking might have been a factor). Then there was the small world experience--we were 4 college students traveling from Amsterdam to Brussels on the train when an older woman joined us in our compartment. She was very friendly and spoke great English. She was on her way from Iran, where she had been visiting family, to her home in Luxembourg. When we told her we were students at Lewis & Clark in Portland, OR, her face just lit up. She was the sister of one of our favorite history professors.
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing coincidence! On my first trip to Paris I ran into someone I knew which seemed unbelievable.
DeleteI work in a place where I meet many people. I have had people recognize me in many places from the Plaza in Santa Fe NM to O’Hare airport to someone who had seen me in London and thought I looked familiar but didn’t realize how she knew me until she saw me when she came home and found out we were both in London at the same time.
DeleteGreat story, Hallie! I love traveling by train and I'm happy to find fellow train-lovers here. When I go to NYC from Route 128 in Boston I have my rituals: get a muffin or donut from the little cafe; always sit on the left side of the train for the billion-dollar views of the New England coast; wait till you see the NY skyline then pack up like crazy and get ready to move fast, fast, fast in NYC.
ReplyDeleteThat's where I hop the train south, too, Becky Sue!
DeleteBack Bay Station
DeleteI go from 128, too! The woman who runs the Dunkin' Donuts there is lovely.
DeleteIsn't it fun to chat with people you'll probably never see again? On my way from Italy to Austria by train an American couple, and a German woman, were also seated in my car. We chatted the whole way, and I learned a great deal about where I was going, with some tips from the German on what to do when I got to my next stop, Munich. The Americans lived on a ranch in Colorado, in an area I had spent time, so we had common ground. The miles flew by.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most fun trips was on a flight to Colorado. The man sitting next to me and I began talking about something regarding that flight, but ended up having a really fascinating conversation that GRACE would have enjoyed, about water and energy, and impending crises around both. Turned out he was also on his way to visit a daughter (my middle daughter lived in Boulder then), and he was also involved in energy somehow, as Robin still is. He gave me his card and said she should look him up. Less than two months later they were at the same conference, and they met for coffee, and a dozen years later they are still in contact. He's been a valuable mentor in some ways.
And when we were on safari in Kenya on Christmas Day in 2022, the mom of another family at the same camp struck up a conversation as we were waiting for a performance by a local school. I wish we'd done so sooner, because she turned out to be a former US Congresswoman, who had unsuccessfully run against Ron DeSantis in his first bid as governor of Florida. She is now an assistant secretary in Biden's Department of Education, which I only found out as we were all waiting at the airstrip for our flights back to Nairobi.
One more story, this one from 1976. On a flight back from a buying trip to NYC my boss and I were amused by watching several people making their way to a row ahead of us to chat with someone sitting there. It turned out to be the gold medal archery champ of the recent Montreal Olympics, Darrell Pace, who lived in Cincinnati at the time. We got to see his medal, too.
DeleteOh yes, I would have enjoyed being on that flight to Colorado. I travelled to Boulder CO many times to go to workshops & conferences to speak about my drought/water availability research projects.
DeleteMy favorite thing to do with strangers is ASK QUESTIONS - it's amazing what you discover.
DeleteBeing from Cape Breton, where we are famous for liking to socialize, and in spite of being an introvert, I can tell you 2 short stories.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter moved from Ottawa to Halifax quite a few years ago – I hate to think how long as it strains my brain. I drove to Ottawa to help her move the perishables, because being March, they could not go in the moving van. That was things like plants, animals, and anything that might explode – huge group of things there including javex. It involved several trips in the elevator. As expected, each time I struck up a conversation. Laura commented that I met and chatted with more people in 24 hrs that she had in 3 years – don’t get me started on grocery check-outs.
The best may have been flying home for Christmas one year from Regina to Sydney. I was taking a genetics class at the time (1971) where we were conducting studies on fruit flies. My flies still had not had enough generations so they were to come home for 2 weeks with me. They were grown in what used to be pint milk bottles on a yeast medium. The hole was stoppered with gauze to let the air in and out. Because they were a living thing, they of course had to be kept warm, so I popped them inside my parka, thought nothing of it, sat down and proceeded with the long flight from Regina to Toronto. A very friendly business-type man sat in the next seat. We chatted about this and that through the whole flight, but I did notice that he watched me carefully, and did tend to sniff a lot. Finally, he could stand it no longer, and said something. Apparently, I smelled like a brewery, as the yeast fermented and fruit flies buzzed about in my coat. We both laughed about it eventually, and I am sure he had a tale to tell his wife when he arrived home!
Margo, thank for my first today grin…your fruit flies will make me smile the rest of the day. Elisabeth
DeleteHallie, your story is charming! I could picture it so well. It's sad that your didn't get his name, but oh well. When you use this story in something you write in the future, you could make up a name for him. I agree about the train, however I do not recommend taking it to Florida during a school's winter break.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I have met interesting people and had lovely conversations with them, but right now nothing comes to mind. Unless it was Manuel, that I exchanged smiles with on the subway when I was in high school. I still remember him telling me he "just got off the boat" and could I show him around. This was the early sixties and I was with my mother and her friend and we were headed home. I've thought about that little meeting in all the years since. I've thought about what boat he was talking about and came up with a couple ideas. Even at the time I knew enough not to believe that whatever he told me was the truth, but it was still a fun memory.
In 1976 he most definitely could have just come "off the boat." Wasn't that around the time that refugees from Cuba came to the US. I was teaching elementary school at the time and we had numerous kids from Cuba who were recently arrived
DeleteThis was more than 10 years before that, but it is one of the things I thought at the time. I also thought about PR - I don't know what the political situation was there.
DeleteHallie, you commented that you “didn’t get solo travel”. I’m the flip side of that, I don’t get why folks need to travel together. To enjoy travel, I need my own eccentric schedule…e.g. 2 hours before the “door closes” arrival at the airport…and habits of silence … during breakfast or at least through the first cup of coffee. I do like random connections, like your young man on Acela, learned about sunflowers moving throughout the day, following the sun on a cross country Amtrak adventure. “Happy trails” all. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteI also love solo travel! I can indulge in my imagination and musings, doing only what I want.
DeleteOh yes, we are in sync about reasons why solo travel works for us.
DeleteSO with you!
DeleteYou have to be careful who you pick to travel with, that's for sure. Otherwise it could end up being a version of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.
DeleteI love spontaneous meetings. When I was on my semester abroad, my roommate and I went to Italy on the train during our Spring break. On the train from Rome to Florence, there was a lovely middle aged lady in our compartment. We talked and she said she was from Stockton, CA. Oh, I said , I have an uncle there and I told her his name. Oh!, she said. He's the head of my department. So we had a lovely time talking. I had only met Uncle Lloyd once but letters kept us all in touch. When we arrived in Florence, we ended up sharing a bedroom in a nice Penzione. She was most knowledgeable and we had fun touring with her.
ReplyDeleteThis was a lovely piece, Hallie! I’ve had so many good conversations with strangers on trains and planes. Only one bad experience when the man in the next seat on a 12 hour flight to New Zealand was an over zealous Bible thumper and tried to get me to be saved! Needless to be say I slept a lot!
ReplyDeleteOuch.
DeleteHalf a century ago, when I was studying in Florence, I wound up sitting next to an Italian girl my age, from Pistoia. My Italian was rudimentary; her English was not existent. But by the time we disembarked in Rome, we'd become close friends. We corresponded for years (in Italian). She invited me to her wedding; I couldn't go, but sent a gift. She sent me a bomboniera, a custom that had not made it to the U.S. then. When I went back to Italy a few years later, I stayed with her and her husband and daughter in Pistoia, met her whole family, and wound up traveling with her sister to Vinci and Elba. We corresponded for many years, but then, as sometimes happens in midlife, lost touch. I've tried to find them since, even enlisting the assistance of an ex-pat friend who lives in Tuscany. No luck. And alas, I haven't been back, and now doubt I ever will be. Still, I have wonderful memories of the friend I first met on that train.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great encounter! And you certainly made the most of it.
DeleteI take Amtrak down to NJ twice a year to visit with my sister and her family. I usually read when I’m on the train. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken more than a couple of sentences to another passenger. If I’m not reading, I like to listen to the conversations around me. Several years ago, I overheard a conversation between two women who were sitting across the aisle from each other, a few rows away, . My ears perked up when one woman mentioned the name of her high school. It was the same one that I went to, and nobody has ever heard of it! She graduated about fifteen years before I did, so our paths would have never crossed.I was too shy to get up and tell her that I graduated from that school, too. I think it closed in the early nineties. I regret that I didn’t say anything.
ReplyDeleteDebRo
Oh, that's so sad! A missed opportunity.
DeleteFrom Diana: Many wonderful stories about meeting strangers on your travels. Over the years, I met many strangers on my travels, Hallie, Love that the train has a name - ACELA.
ReplyDeleteThough I have met many interesting people on my plane and train travels, this story does not take place on a plane nor train, I was at the Royal Opera House at Covent Gardens in London to see the Royal Ballet. I bought the cheapest ticket, which was 27 pounds at that time. I was sitting next to this family whose son was in the Royal Ballet. We were chatting, This was an evening performance. When they found out that I had taken the train from Oxford to London, they said they would drive me back to Oxford because they did not want me to travel alone at night on the train, They lived in Aylesbury and they drove out of their way to bring me back to Oxford. That was really a kind thing to do.
OMG that was so kind of them! Wow.
DeleteI have found that I am more likely to have conversations with people when I am traveling solo.
ReplyDeleteOn my first trip to Europe, I had several interesting encounters. I had a Eurail pass so I spent a lot of time in train stations and on trains.
The first route was going from Amsterdam to Copenhagen and then on to Norway.
I had arrived early to the station in Amsterdam because I had been walking all day and was too tired to go any further so just headed to the station to wait.
I went up to the waiting area which at that point was deserted since the train wouldn’t arrive for several hours. A scruffy looking man came in and sat down next to me (there were plenty of empty seats).
He tried to engage me in conversation which was difficult since he didn’t speak English, but I could tell by his motions with his hands that his intentions were not honorable. I tried to ignore him by concentrating on a puzzle book I had with me and I had no place that I could move to because there were no other seats or people in the area. I didn’t think he was dangerous, I just thought he misunderstood my reason for being there by myself and that he assumed I was “available”.
I eventually had to look for another area to wait and found a place further away with other people around.
Since the Eurail pass was a first class ticket, the cars weren’t as crowded and later on I met several other people. There was a couple from Australia and two Americans. We were all going across Norway and I told them about a scenic side trip through the fjords. We wound up traveling together for several days.
You're so right... traveling alone (or with a dog!) nets far more interesting encounters. One is afraid of occasionally befriending an ax murderer, but as my daughter Molly, an intrepid traveler always tells me: "9 times out of 10 people would rather help you than kill you."
DeleteIt's rare that we don't meet new people when we go down the road a little ways to a favorite winery. Our dog Jack is always an ice breaker. We've had the best conversations with total strangers and found so many things in common. We've talked to a couple who were touring in their RV and it turned out they live in the same little town in Texas that my husband moved to from Houston. Another time we met another dog lover from Asheville, NC and he gave us all the dirt on the wines from the Biltmore. Hilarious!
ReplyDeletewine definitely greases the skids
DeleteI normally travel to my sister twice a year, once in my car, the other by plane. Me, myself and I in my car make few stops at the rest stops along the way but really don't have a lot of interaction with others. By plane, well, that's another story. Since I usually have a book, I don't interact with others much until I take a book break and pull out my crocheting, I get few questions and respond. I love it when the kids watch with a "not sure what that lady's doing" look on their faces. I just smile at them and keep going. Last year I tried the train, overnight. Once I was up and awake, I kept my door open and watch the world go by outside my window and walking up and down the aisle. Deana
ReplyDeletetrains really are the best for connecting with the world around you. Though bus travel is a close second.
DeleteWhat a great story! I am one of those "don't talk to me I have to work" people--and always get the quiet car. Nevertheless I have had some wonderful things happen. One of which was this truly pompous woman in the Acela train seat in front of me before I realized about the quiet car. She was talking SO loudly on her cell phone, and I could hear every word. It was so anoying I almost called the conductor, but then it it became incredibly interesting, and I wrote down every word she said! Most of which were devious, nasty, gossipy, and truly conspiratorial. That because the basis of my short story "All Aboard" which was wonderfully published in a terrific anthology.
ReplyDeleteSo-- thank you, Acela!
(and yes, so cute about asking the train's name..aw. That little boy must have been a Thomas the Tank engine fan!)
An “every cloud has a silver lining” tale, Hank. And, yes, I thought at once of Thomas on seeing that question. Elisabeth
DeleteI love that, Hank! I once sat in front of a couple who were breaking up. Wish I'd taken notes.
DeleteWhen my son was about 3, I took him on the train to Boise to visit my sister. He was SO into Thomas and friends that he introduced himself to people on the train as "Edward", which wasn't his name.
DeleteOn my most recent trip (work to Salt Lake City) the hotel, a Hampton, was dog friendly. Met a very nice woman carrying dog treats for her two exhausted pups on the elevator.
ReplyDeleteI know if I was traveling with Koda I'd meet all sorts of people. He's that kind of dog.
I tend to have my nose in a book. Sounds like I am missing out on some lovely exchanges.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you can have some amazingly serendipitous experiences with strangers while traveling and having a captive audience. Sometimes it's good to be stuck in one place/seat for a while. It seems that most of my interesting conversations have come up due to books. I know the one concerning Stephen King did. I was sitting next to a young man who told me about hanging out with some of his friends at the gate where you entered a carnival set up on a country road. A couple of them worked there that summer. Well, who comes driving up and gets out to talk to them but Stephen King. He was writing Joyland at the time and doing some research. He talked to the "kids" about the carnival, and if I'm remembering correctly left after talking to them. I would have thought he would have gone on in and looked around. Maybe he did and I've gotten that part wrong, but I was under the impression that he just wanted to pick their brains. That had to have been an awesome experience. If I hadn't been open to talking to a stranger, I would have missed his story.
ReplyDeleteI don't have close encounters on Amtrak because I always, always sit in the quiet car. I swear, taking the quiet car from Boston to NY is as good as a spa vacation.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I would up getting to know an amazing New England writer, Donna Rae Menard, when we were numbers two and three in the rebooking line after our flight from Portland to DC was cancelled. We agreed to share a taxi to Logan Airport (Boston) talked the WHOLE way there and also got to also enjoy spending time together at Malice. That was about the most fun I've ever had on a trip.
I'm with Julia. It's the quiet car for me! Probably because I'm always on deadline and would be working. I do love train travel and am longing for the U.S. to have a bullet train like Japan. Wouldn't that be something?
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ReplyDeleteYears ago, I smoked a joint with a guy on the train heading to a class reunion in Colorado.
Enjoyed these travel stories. I haven’t traveled alone much. I would like to take a train trip sometime. I’m more of a nose in my book type of traveler, but trying to be more of a chatter.
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