Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Seattle and beyond...



Back on the train. 8 hours seems like nothing after the 30 hour jaunt.
Mark says he has a light feeling not getting into the car and driving. It’s true – I’m really relaxed again. Nothing to do but eat, nap and laugh at Mark narrating Clash of the Titans when the headphones don’t work (“Why didn’t you get me one of those cool fake beards, too? I will kill you!” “Wait wait, do not kill me. I can find you one of these fake beards if you put down that sword!”)

We settle into our seats, this time facing one another with a table between us. We buy salads and soups and orange juice. Zora gets 2 bags of Skittles with some of the $20 her grandfather gave her before we left. She shares some with us, mostly the green ones.

Zora likes this one train better than the last one. It has only one level, but plays movies and the doors between cars slide open automatically when you pass your hand in front of the sensor.

We enjoy a 55 minute layover in Seattle. I now consider a 55 minute layover an extreme sport. We tear through town, speed window shopping, looking for trouble. Found it at …an art opening! Handmade local artisans display their wares (see photo of Zora wearing locally made hat) and as long as you put your name on the mailing list they give you free wine! We try on hats, take a few pics, gulp down our wine, do more speed window shopping, ask a guy hawking tickets to the game at the stadium (next to the train station) how he likes living in Seattle, and run into the train station as they are signaling to the engineer to close the train doors. Now I understand why the conductor gave us the evil eye when I said “Just going for a quick walk!” 50 miinutes earlier.

Two hours later, as we approach the border, Zora starts asking everyone who passes our seats if there are Canadian. If they are, she does a special Canadian dance for them.

Here is the song: “C eh N eh D eh, CA-NA-DA!!!!” (I have the dance on the camera, but haven’t figured out how to upload it to this blog...)

Just when we think we will arrive on time, we are stuck for an hour waiting for a drawbridge to close. I see a bridge I hadn’t seen before, brightly lit. A Sky train goes over it and I realize that since I lived here, commuting in this city has drastically changed thanks to all the new forms of public transportation, the Sky train in particular.

Our train stops downtown near the Cambie Street Bridge where my father used to live. Zora confesses that she used to think it was the “Candy Street Bridge” (I knew that) and once she licked it just to check (I didn’t know that.)

My stepmother, Joan, and her partner, Larry, pick us up. It’s good to be home!!!

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