Yesterday, I left the house with plenty of time to get to my 7:35 a.m. train to New Haven. As I drove through town, I considered a stop at Dunkin Donuts, but when I saw the massive crowd, I decided against it. As I approached the train station – with 10 minutes to go before my train – I saw the railroad crossing lights flashing in my rear view mirror. I pulled into the train station at almost the exact same moment as the train. A quick look at my phone confirmed that my train was scheduled for 7:25 a.m., not 7:35 a.m. as I had thought. Good thing I hadn’t stopped at Dunkin Donuts!
Amtrak trains are pretty nice and have standard electrical outlets near every seat, so I was able to use my laptop and tether it to my cell phone to connect to the internet (a trick I learned for the road trip). In New Haven, I transferred to a Metro-North line to Darien. That train was significantly more basic, so I spent most of the ride sleeping.
Julia’s dad was waiting for me at the station and brought me back to the house to pick up my mom’s Prius and Manny. I arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport about 45 minutes early, so I took a little nap in the car. It took mom 45 minutes to get through baggage and customs, at which point she was happy to head home.
We had plenty of time to discuss her trip, which sounds like it was amazing. She spent time in both Kenya and Tanzania. Apparently, due to the recent conflicts, her group was one of the only tour groups in all of Kenya at the time, which led the government to host a banquet for them and do other favors for them, such as flying the group from place to place for free instead of a long bus ride. She never felt uncomfortable and never saw any conflict of any kind, although I’m sure that was partially the result of being kept away from any dangerous areas.