I have tried, but the story of last week-end must be told in person. It was so impossibly bad that after 3 pages in Word, I just stopped trying. I will occasionally supply a random memory, but the full trip must be experienced through Ed's recount.
However, let me say that it was interesting to go from Hong Kong to LA to the train so quickly. I handled it very well, until the next morning after coffee and a crappy Amtrak breakfast. We got back to our room, and the plastic bathroom and suddenly my insides exploded.
I went into the bathroom and proceed to make noises and smells that would kill small children and drawfs (little people - whatever). So as I am sitting in this tiny room, know that Ed and our neighbors could here everything - the porter knocks. "Going to clean up the room, "he says.
I yell to Ed "Noooo!", but the porter doesn't care. He has been doing this 32 years so don't worry. So I am in the crapper, in the throws of death, revisiting breakfast, Hong Kong and maybe Thailand and Eddie is trying to talk to the porter to give me a second to pull it together. Now I have the trots and I am trying to hurry. Eddie and I leave and the Porter makes up the room and we go to an empty room to wait.
I am embarrassed beyound belief. I mean, I know there isn't anything I can do about it. And better the porter than me or Ed. But still. I am afraid the old porter is going keel over. "Headline: 32 year veteran of the rails killed by smell from compartment E. Perpetrator still at large."
I gave him a $20 tip.