Monday, March 19, 2007

I ♥ my Soyuz

My trip to Savannah was via Amtrak, and since it was a 13-hour ride, I got a sleeping car for the way back. The term for the cheap sleeping accomodation I bought is the "roomette," which makes the accomodation sound cuter than it is.

On the plus side, it's a private room with two beds and a door which is soundproof enough to drown out the toddler across the way.

On the semi-minus side, while the seating arrangement is more comfortable than coach class, you get the feeling that you're in a space pod. And it's not just that the Amtrak design comes from the era of Skylab, so all the buttons have that 2001 feel. It's that you have an inconveniently-placed toilet and fold-down sink right next to one of the seats. Just sitting there, in your roomette.

When it comes time to sleep, the seats fold down into one bunk, and another bunk (with crash webbing to keep you from falling out) descends from the ceiling. The bunks have plenty of headroom, but are not much wider than I am.

But night is where's where the Mir-type joy of the roomette comes in: the switches do not always work. Sometimes the overhead lights turn on; sometimes they don't. Sometimes they turn on in the night when you don't want them to, and then there's the mysterious beeping noise.

While it is immeasurably better than trying to sleep through the night in Amtrak coach class, flying is an equally strong option.

5 comments:

Sherbs said...

and that's why the Pedant and I are not going cross country on a train.

Annie said...

There is nowhere that I cannot sleep. Ask the Pedant, there are pictures of me sleeping on every form of conveyance during a family trip. Planes, trains, vans, boats, etc.

I once awoke from a nap during a particularly bumpy boat ride to hear my youngest cousin exclaim: "I barfed. Twice!"

The Pedant said...

We will be using those pictures in the slideshow montage during your wedding.

Annie said...

As long as you don't start calling me "crash." Or have a video of me informing my kindergarten teacher that my parents are both deaf.

The Pedant said...

There is another relative who we call "crash." You know him well.