Chugga Chugga Choo Choo

This is no Chattanooga Choo Choo or whatever the hell that thing is that goes up that mountain in that state above Georgia but these are real trains that people still use despite their fair to poor condition and lack of speed. We paid about 400 RMB for the ride to Xian which is an overnight run of about 14 hours. No stops and it really took this long. My friend Eve on the other hand took the plane and it was about an hour and a half. Thing is the ride was kind of fun and we really got a good look at who our classmates are being together for that long. The drinking crowd has been established and in Beijing they go to a bar they found that nobody else goes to called R&B. They go for the sole reason that the Tequila shots are 5 RMB. Getting drunk is rad, as long as it is with Americans is the attitude. I guess.

Mike and I got in a car with Alex and one of the Chinese students who was insistent that she be in her correct seat then there was bitching from the other car bc a fellow student and her partner couldn't be in the loud car. Whatever we switch and end up with Michael and Gary. They are from Houston and Creighton respectively and are fairly solid guys. Inter sting to talk though still nerdy like everyone else on the trip. Note: I do not exclude myself from this group label. We have a good ol time and although we didn't plan ahead as far as alcohol was concerned as some of our fellow students did, we did have plenty of cookies and pastry. Pretty much had that for dinner bought one beer and talked all night. Gary has a phrase book called 'Making out in Chinese' that we tried to put to use to pick up some chicks but to no avail. Clay then borrowed it to talk to some Frenchies in the dining car and became an international ambassador as he later put it. Fred had what was to be a funny repeatable one liner: Frenchie, Frenchie, Impossible. Or something, ha. Bing Wang herded us around like we were his children or grandchildren and didn't want us to get lost. Mary Wong hung out in the dining car being hit on by her students. And I endured it all in the first cabin soft sleeper. I could have saved a few hundred had i just got a chair but i didn't know that until i got there. Bummer.

At one point a service guy on the train comes by chasing a girl rubbing his exposed nipple. At this point we have no idea what is going on and we later hear yells, and other noise from the adjacent rooms. Falling asleep to the gentle sway and white noise produced by the train is heavenly, if you are shorter than me that is. The beds are not what we would call made for tall people. Waking up at 6am is pretty sweet when they come on the intercom like they do on cruise boats only this is in Chinese and really just annoying. Quite a bummer but we were nearly there. Made it to the bus which seemed to be a mile away following the direction of Bing Wang and we meet Tom, which is his tourist name he tells us, who gives us a ride to the hotel and tells us a bit about the "town" of 6.5M people. Small by Chinese standards. Our room on the train has decided to ditch out of staying at the hotel and since i never had made a reservation this worked out swimmingly for me. I had support and since Michael knows Chinese we were going to head out to find a cheap hotel or hostel. Again Bing to the rescue and he wants us all to stay together so gets them to offer us cheaper rooms. First it is 230 which we turn down and then it is 100 or 50 each which we accept. Shared bathroom but who cares the room is nice with AC, phone, TV, good pillows, tea, and everything else we have come to expect. Find out the showers are only from 8-12 at night which sucks though and there are no big towels. Ya win most, and lose some i guess.