PART ONE – PLANES, TRAINS, AND CRUISE SHIPS?

After five months of planning and research … and despite the fact that she was only 50% sure that she was doing the right thing … today was the day that this girl, excuse me, this woman, was heading off to Trinidad.

To study drumming.

Day One – Trinidad Bound

Woke up four hours before I had to leave, hoping that would give me enough time to tie up all my loose ends.

It almost did.

As the time grew short, I was slightly comforted by the idea that I’d have an extra fifteen minute cushion, since the friend who was driving me to the train station was chronically late.

Today, however, he was on time. Go figure.

Two hours and several last minute phone calls later (okay so I do see the merit of cell phones now, yes yes), we were in New York. Despite several unexpected “Don’t even think about turning down this street if the sun is up and you aren’t a bus” signs, we arrived at Penn Station 45 minutes in advance of my departure time. Even though that was cutting it closer than I’d have liked, I’d ridden the train enough to know that I still had plenty of time.

Inside Penn station, found the departure board, realized I could no longer put off donning my glasses, and saw with clarity that I was, indeed, plenty early. The departure track hadn’t even been listed yet. So it was off to the bathroom.

The Penn station bathroom – a whole new world when carrying a large African hand drum on one’s back. There aren’t many walkways wide enough in the real world to comfortably accommodate a person with a large African hand drum on his or her back, as any djembe drummer will tell you. But these bathrooms were something else altogether. Bashed into the doorways, three of the four walls of the bathroom stall, and on my way out, just for good measure … a policewoman. Good times.

Similarly, when boarding the train, it was the bathroom situation all over again, only now there was the additional hazard of people’s heads to worry about concussing as I passed by. Luckily I found a nice spot towards the front of the car, which, by the way, is the place to be if you want to be left to yourself. People usually bypass the front right off the bat (a habit, I suspect, leftover from school days, when only the dorks sat in the front of the bus). By the time they get to the back of the car and find no empty seats, they end up settling in with someone back there, leaving me safely free of any social interaction, and sprawling greedily across the empty seat next to me.

By the way, at the risk of giving away all my secrets, sitting on the aisle seat is an added deterrent to enforced social-ness. People will choose an empty aisle seat way before they’ll consider stepping over someone to get to an empty window seat. And heck, since the cat’s already out of the bag, I may as well tell you the third trick in securing one’s anti-social space: headphones. These are an excellent outward display of “not interested”-ness that works wonders with all but the most socially inept strangers. You know the ones – they’ll talk to you even if you’re clearly reading a book. Grr. At any rate, you don’t even need to be listening to anything. It’s enough just to have the headphones on.

After a solid, and satisfying, hour of fussing and nesting and settling in, I threw open my laptop and started a marathon glut of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, three seasons of which a friend of mine generously added to my laptop when he refurbished it and got it all ready for my big trip.

And by the way - this ain’t your Momma’s Amtrak. Two electrical outlets at every seat, recycling bins in every car, schmancy new bathrooms, and organic veggie burgers in the café car! Gotta love public transportation in the 21^st century.