Oliver Moss

I got up stupid early for my train. I had one more thing to do in NYC, see what the Metro Lounge at the Amtrak station was like. But, it wasn't open. The whole point of Metro Lounges is to smooth out the travel experience and the weird times and layovers. On one hand, the general Amtrak passenger lounge in Penn Station was nicer than some Metro Lounges I've been in, but on the other now I've missed my chance to see that lounge.

The good news is that the train was a newer Viewliner design with no toilet in the room and nice chairs. The bad news? My door didn't close. I can put up with a lot of jank when traveling on a train, I even like some of the jank, but the door to the room I am going to be sleeping in not being able to close? That's a bit too much for me. Still, I was on the train and the train was moving.

The views were interesting. Lots of woods with what I think were pink dogwoods in full brilliance. Rivers, the length of the New River Gorge, abandoned coal infrastructure, old power lines, thoroughly rusted or crumbling infrastructure still in use… including the most vulnerable point of transportation failure in the US and I somehow missed that one tunnel. B1M video on this crumbling point of failure and the race to save it, if you are interested.



And there were lots and lots of rowhouses. Many old rowhouses with colonial details. Rowhouses that seen to curve gently over the landscape in a way they probably didn’t when built, newer rowhouses all perfectly geometric made of bricks, large windows and roof patios, rowhouses in modernist designs. Rowhouses in neat lines over the landscape like rows of crops, rowhouses in weird short little lines on large plots of land.





Dirty windows and no observation car made taking pics a bit tricky, but I tried to roll with it.





Then, the final day, I woke up in in Chicago and got to go have a shower! I did head out and walk Chicago a bit, but I was also exhausted so I mostly just stayed in the Chicago Metro Lounge. I'd left so early I'd barely gotten any sleep my last night in NYC, and then I hadn't sleep great with my door not only open, but since it couldn't latch it was making noise back and forth in it's track. Also, whatever crud had been wrecking my life was probably already getting it's claws into me.

I may post an epilogue and a few odds and ends I forgot to post about, like the shouting Mennonites. But, my train travelogue is done and all the photo organizing that was tripping me up is done.

I had a bit of a slow start to the day because I'd walked several miles the previous day and was feeling a bit run down. But, I pulled myself up and got myself going anyway. I had limited time there and the plan for the day was The Cloisters, the place I'd wanted to visit for decades.

The Cloisters is a weird place. It's literally chunks of cloisters from Europe made into a giant Franken-cloister, with a scoop of Gothic Cathedral on the side. One is the Cuxa cloister from the northeast Spanish Pyrenees and was founded in 878. They were broken down brick by brick, remade here, with some weathered stone to connect them and also they added in a bunch of stained glass windows from the thousands they'd scarfed up from across the continent. The result is a strange sort of building that kind of reminds me of... have you ever played a video game that has a 'glitched out' or liminal level with assets from various other levels stuck together in weird ways? Yeah, it's like that.

Scoop of Gothic Cathedral seen from the Cuxa section:


Some of the tapestries:


I was far more interested in the doors and the architecture in general than the thousands of artworks in the space. It's all cool, but I was mostly interested in the building and also the various implications of the pieces even being here. The Morgan Museum hoovered up valuable books from around Europe, this place hoovered up mostly medieval art and architecture and then there's the Met which is just... the sheer weight of the Met and the collections there is a trip, But, that is another post.

Doorway into the tapestry section:



Doors:


Taking pictures was a bit tricky because it was swamped with school groups. I'd bought a ticket ahead of time online, which was good because they did stop selling admissions that day. Again, buying tickets ahead of time is how to museum in NYC.

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I started the day just heading out from my hotel to the areas I can see from my window. I'd never been in the Bowery before this trip, but I did recognize some intersections and buildings from photos.







And then I wound up in Greenwich Village, which I had actually ventured into as a teenager a few times. I didn't try to sneak into clubs or anything, so I just went there to buy comics and eat pizza back in the day.





I hadn't planned on going to see Stonewall because I knew the building was partially covered by construction. The park and interpretive center are relatively new and I'm not sure I was aware of them. So, it was another day of unexpectedly intense emotions seeing it. I wish I'd had a chance to go there during an age when I could have met people, etc, but time is what it is.

Then I walked over to Highland, which is a park made out of the old elevated freight track running through Manhattan. I love it. I wanted to go back and explore it more another day, but I ran out of time.



Being up among the buildings like that was so cool:



Also there was a birb:



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I took the Lakeshore Limited to NYC. It passes by the Great Lakes and not far from the Finger Lakes, but not near enough to see them. Turns out, the pictures of the train by the water is the section is goes down the Hudson.

Seeing the Hudson river was cool, but I wish I had more context for what I was seeing. I know there is a lot of interesting and historical stuff there, but I was not connecting the sites I was seeing to the local history I learned back in middle school.

Yup, it was snowing:


Familiar places outside the window:





Train:



Islands in the Hudson had lighthouses:



I don't know what this place is, but how do I find it and live there?




Coming into NYC - The windows were super dirty. Annoying, or did they add to the atmosphere:?



Then I arrived and was in Penn Station, an absolute monument to the fact that modern NYC and the NYC I grew up next to are very different places. It was bright and clean and lovely, and not the dangerous hellhole it used to be. Me, being me, I stopped to take some pictures. Then some guy comes up to me.

Him: I was on your train
Me: Okay
Him: Are you also looking for the baggage pick up?
Me: Nope
Him: Because you look lost and it’s dangerous to look lost in this city.

As he said that last part he went from standing slightly closer than I’d like to way too fucking close. I switched to the local dialect and assured him I am fine, and am in fact from the area. That isn’t exactly what I said, but for this post I’ve translated it from New Yorker back into standard American English.

The man may have been on my train, but I doubt it.

Why does this keep happening? I arrive in a city, step off train, and immediately something fucking happens. I decided to just hoof it to my hotel. The lack of traffic in NYC these days is surreal. People talk gridlock sometimes, but old school NYC gridlock was on a whole ‘nother level. Even during ‘low traffic’ times, it wouldn’t be unusual for a light to cycle without a car even being able to move. You’d literally sit through green lights because the cars on the other side of the intersections hadn’t moved and you had no place for your car.



I enjoy staying at CitMs, but it’s starting to feel odd how I am staying in the same room, different view. The system remembers my lighting preferences, like the shade of purple mood lighting I want in the bathroom. Same layout, décor, etc. As it starts to become familiar to me, it’s strange to be having the same room different cityscape.

I had an early flight, but didn't think it would be too hard to get there. The light rail to the airport was having issues with the airport stop being closed. Also, the train I needed to take to that train was having ~staffing issues~ so there are delays of up to 38 minutes. So, I planned on a rideshare and just leaving extra time in case it took a minute to get a car. It took almost 20 minutes for Lyft to find me a ride, and then it said that pick up would be in another 20 minutes. It took the guy 30 minutes to get to me, but I chalked that up to Lyft’s estimates often being overly rosy.

Shortly into the ride the guy started describing to me his plan for a democratic economy based on divination using the art of college art students to predict the future. With his plan, we’d go back to the 20 hour work weeks we had in the 40s and earlier, before gender equality broke everything. He just kept talking, from how his divination method has been proven using it to predict silver prices.

Also, he drove an EV and it’s battery was low. There was a large screen on his dash showing the warning. Halfway through the ride his hazards came on automatically. I was just listening to ramblings, watching the battery tick down and also watching him miss 5 turns. The trip took way longer than it should have and I was already in 'if security is backed up, I'm screwed' territory. Also, I was seriously worried about his car dying before we got there and being stranded with this guy somewhere in the dark.

Then he went quiet for a bit. Then he started to apologize over and over again because he drank caffeine and every ‘future reality’ in which he drinks caffeine things go bad. He also started talking about seeing things. I should have made him pull over and launched myself from the car, even though that would mean missing both my flight and my train connection. I don't know if it's because I'd had two hours of sleep and was completely tunnel visioned on making my flight somehow, but I talked to him, got him calmed down and got him through the last few turns. I wish I hadn't. My report on him would have been taken more seriously by Lyft if I'd ended the ride early, but also like... would they even really care? Nothing works like it should now.

When he got there I told him to see where the nearest charging station was, the airport had to have one. He said he was fine to get home. I told him I didn’t want him stranded. He wouldn’t listen.

Then I got inside and got my boarding pass. I had trouble because I was so stressed from the ride I was literally shaking. It had been about 45 minutes of sheer stress. When the kiosk pulled up my info said ‘first class’ and my boarding class was ‘pri’ for priority. I figured it was just a boarding categorization thing. PDX’s redesign means that we have fast security, shoes stay on, and you have to pass slowly two at a time through a large area with sniffer dogs.

I made my flight, just barely. And yup, my seat was in the first class section, which is not what I’d booked. I went back and triple checked. I had booked seat 3A, but I'd booked the 'extra legroom' option on a small plane without a first class cabin. This is weird, because my impression is that surprise upgrades, like 'oops we changed planes and now you get to try first class' used to be a thing that happened, but not anymore. It was a marketing strat to make flying seem more exciting, twenty years ago. Maybe for reasons they are bringing that back, especially for Alaska Airlines flights out of PDX?

Anyway, the important part is that I was offered champaign as soon as I got on. I don’t typically drink before 7 AM, but if there was a day to do it. I felt a lot better after that. I was able to eat some of the food in first class, including some of the snacks. The food they offer is almost never edible to me, so I ate some because I could. I had champaign, orange juice, coffee, bacon, fruit and potato chips for breakfast.

I may break up my trip into a stupid number of posts, but yeah, just this post had gotten long enough. I still feel shitty about not launching myself from that car, but like what if the guy tried to stay with me? I just wanted to get to that airport so badly.