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.