Mick
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2011-02-21 23-24-07
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Ticket to Adventure: Need One Awesome Train Riding luana swinger Buddy! In short, I am looking for someone, who like me, is fascinated with the train riding aesthetic. There is just something sublime about boarding a train and then just leisurely traveling from one place to another, seeing the world slip by outside our window as we glide on rails to somewhere new. Note how I said we. Because, potential train riding partner, going somewhere on a train adventure is significantly more enjoyable with a partner, a companion, a true trainmate. Are you such a girl? Do you just want to be the one to always go first in Ticket to Ride? By all means, please, read on! Now, I am well aware not everyone immediately has the stamina suited for the truly long train trips, so I have come up with the following train-ing regimen which we will undertake to prepare ourselves for the FINAL EPIC TRAIN TRIP (to be discussed in detail later). Step 1 - Take the Caltrain from San Francisco to Gilroy. This is a minor investment of both time and money. It can even be done on a weekend! Undergoing this somewhat underwhelming journey will enable us to determine whether we're even remotely compatible and whether future train rides are in the books. Or at the very least which books are to be discussed on future train rides. Step 2 - The California Zephyr from Emeryville to Chicago. Now, this, as far as I can tell, is the most enjoyable train journey possible within the US of A. $ dollars will get us 2 tickets and a private cabin for this 52 hour trip that takes us through most of the continental US. This experience will include a harrowing ride through the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas, a glide through the endless plains of Nebraska, and across the Rockies to the former punk rock capital of Salt Lake City. I'm not quite sure if there are on and off privileges, or whether the train food is any good, but we can plan the details of the trip later. Our preparation complete, our relationship tried and true, we should be ready to take things to the next level. Passports in hand, and somewhere between 2-3 thousand dollars later, we'll be boarding... Climatic Finale - THE TRANS SIBERIAN EXPRESS. Now I know it's a pretty hard choice whether we want to take the Trans Manchurian or the Trans Mongolian branch to start with, but I'm confident that with a true trainmate, as you're likely to be, having read this far, we'll be able to reach a reasonable consensus. At any rate, no matter which route we choose, our journey will see us through parts of China, which due to previous work circumstances I have plenty of friends in, and through the frozen steeps of Siberia, where my knowledge of conversational and written Russian will come in handy. We'll certainly have to disembark in Ulan Ude to check out Mongolia in its entire splendor, as well the beauty of such Russian towns as Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, and Yekatirinburg, right on the Asia/Europe border. Upon the conclusion of our journey in Moscow, we'll tear up a little at having left the train on which we spent much of the week, but then cheer up, secure in the knowledge that although we've completed the greatest train journey known to man, for as long as trains keep running, we'll still be able to ride into more exciting futures... together.
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