Travels With Stu

“Stu, you gotta come down to Philly some time,” Dan told me for the millionth time as I laughed on the other side of the phone.

“Yea, yea I know,” I responded, and actually meant it.  “I don’t know why I haven’t been able to head down there yet, but believe me Dan.  I’ll be there soon.  Matt and I are planning a trip very shortly, so don’t worry.”

“Good stuff, I’ll see you guys this weekend,” Dan told me before hanging up the phone.  I guess I was going to Philly sooner rather than later, but I was excited because I had yet to visit Philly properly, and thought that it’d be a fun weekend with the guys.

**

“So I’ll hop on the train in Newark, and then find you, but make sure you’re on the 7:30 train to Philly,” Matt told me over the phone that Friday while we were both at work.  Matt was already working in New Jersey so it was much easier for him to hop on the train in Newark instead of heading back to New York, and it saved him some money, so the train to Philly was doubly enticing to Matt.

I tried to get off work earlier than usual so I could grab my bag from the apartment and take care of some things before taking off for the weekend, but I didn’t have that much time before making my way to Penn Station via the E train.  The most convenient part about living in Manhattan, or New York City for that matter, is the public transportation.  It’s extremely easy to use if one can read a map, and even if that’s tough for some travelers, the lines are all color coordinated, so you can also call the 1, 2, 3 the “red line” if necessary, however I’ve only heard one person refer to the subway lines by their color, my other close friend Bry.  Not that I ever aspire to be thought of as a “true New Yorker,” I actually try my best not to associate myself with the city at all, but a good way to stick out like a sore thumb is to refer to the subway lines by “green,” “yellow,” or “red” because it just doesn’t make much sense because there are always more than one train associated with each color.

I took the E train from midtown east and headed towards Penn Station before dashing off the train with my backpack and murse towards the Amtrack section of Penn Station.  Not only was I in a hurry to buy a ticket, I really wasn’t sure where to buy anything but I assumed everything would be labeled out and accessible for anyone to use.  I saw an extremely long line of 20 individuals lined up behind a row of computers that dispensed train tickets as I sprinted to the end of it.  I had about 20 minutes until my train was departing from Penn, and wasn’t really in a hurry, but couldn’t afford to leave Matt hanging on this trip.  It wasn’t even a consideration as I looked at my watch, and then looked at the line ahead of me, which was getting smaller at a terribly slow pace.

When I finally got in front of the line I started walking towards a machine before I was interrupted by a short woman with dark hair, and ruby red lipstick.  She seemed very stressed out and frazzled as I took a step back from from her just to make sure she wasn’t crazy.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said out of breath, the woman seemed crazier with every passing second.  “I really need to get on the 5:26 train and it’s leaving in a minute.  Can I please…”  I pointed her to the ticket machine before she wasted any more of either of our time.  I saw that another machine was open and I headed towards it following Dan’s meticulous instructions on what tickets to buy to get to Philly and what steps Matt and I should take in order to meet up with him in Philly.  I was very impressed with Dan’s preparation for the trip, especially since he’s been pegged by Matt and I as one who doesn’t get out much, and when he does, something terrible usually happens.  Fortunately Dan hasn’t lost his life on any of his cruises or trips, but it sometimes seems as if he manages to find himself in a worse situation after he returns from a trip, then when he left.  As I read through his step-by-step instructions I couldn’t help but be amazed with his precision.

I paid close to $40 for the round trip off-peak tickets and scrambled to the station entrance where hundreds of people were crashing into each other, nudging, pushing, and even elbowing to get to the platform.  I thought it was bizarre for people to be acting so viciously to catch a train with stops in Jersey, but maybe everyone was fed up with the murkiness of New York that the smell of Jersey didn’t really bother them any longer.

I hopped on the train and quickly noticed numerous differences between the New Jersey trains compared to the Long Island Railroad (my most used railroad that connects Long Island to New York City).  “Damn, it’s just not as clean or nice,” I thought to myself as I looked at the red colored seats with their blue plastic surroundings, and extremely small cushions.  The trains walkway was light brown and overall, the train seemed more cramped than what I was used to, but it wasn’t really a problem for me.  These were just my initial reactions before I found a seat and began reading my marketing textbook.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I didn’t have to even look at the Caller ID because I knew who it was.  “Hey Matt, I’m on the train,” I told him and could tell that he was not nearly as anxious now that I had confirmed that I was on the correct train.  “I guess the train will arrive in Newark in fifteen minutes or so.  Once you get on just call me, and I’ll try to find you.”

“How about if we meet up in the front of the train?” Matt suggested and I thought it was sound advice.

“Sure thing, bud.  I’ll start heading up to the front. See you soon,” I replied.

“Great, see you soon Stu.  Take care,” Matt told me before hanging up, and I got back to my textbook.  I’ve been taking a marketing class at NYU in their School of Continuing and Profeesional Studies and I thought the train ride to Philly would be a perfect opportunity for me to get my weekly homework done.  Each week we’re assigned a couple chapters and the class is so different than my classes, workload and stresses of Kenyon that I find my NYU classes as one of the most enjoyable and relaxing parts of my life schedule.  Plus I get to learn new things about topics I’m interested in.  If the classes weren’t so damn expensive I’d take a class every semester until I died.

Before I knew it, the train had pulled into Newark and my phone started buzzing again.

“Ok, I’m on the train, where are you?” Matt asked me when I picked up.  I had already tossed my textbook into my murse and was heading into the front cars before I saw him sitting in one of the blue seats by himself.  I looked around the car and saw that no one else was in it, and thought this was a perfect place to get some reading done en route to Philly.

One of the many enjoyable parts about traveling with Matt deals with one of our many shared interests - reading.  I’m not saying that my other friends don’t enjoy to read for pleasure, but I don’t know anyone who gets through more books than Matt.  We may not be interested in the same types of books all the time, but I think both of us appreciate solid writing and fun stories, but whenever we’re traveling there’s this understanding that whenever we’re on public transportation or if there’s a trip we’re taking we don’t need to talk to each other the entire time, if at all.  Matt looked as if he had had another grueling week at work, but I was glad to see him after a week or so, and was really appreciating how frequently we had seen each other since I had returned to New York in the fall.  Compared to being in California and Ohio for the past four years, Matt and I had been able to see each other on a weekly basis that always helped me get through some of the most challenging parts of my post-college life.  I was most pleased that he now had his weekends free most of the time and was able to travel with me for the second time in as many weeks.

My phone buzzed again interrupting me from my reading, but I saw that it was Bry so I picked up to see how he was doing.

“What’s up bud?” I asked casually, realizing that I’d have to soon explain to him that I had taken off to Philly for the weekend without him.

“Oh, not much.  Just wondering what you were up to tonight?  Want to hit up the bars, or stop by my place?”  he asked, as I thought that there was no use in lying to him about the trip he hadn’t been invited on.

“Sorry bud, I can’t.  I’m on a train to Philly for the weekend,” I told him as I anxiously awaited his response so I could react appropriately to not hurt his feelings.

“What?  You’re going to Philly?  When did you make these plans?” Bry retorted, as I thought to myself that he couldn’t have asked a worse question.

“Um, well,” I tried to decide if I should lie and tell him that these were sudden plans, but foolishly told him “we had been invited to Philly a few weeks ago, and had made the travel plans earlier in the week.”

Although slightly disappointed, Bry seemed not to be terribly insulted but chimed in that “next time you and Matt take off for a place, be sure to let me know about it,” before we finished the convo.  Whoo…dodged a bullet I thought to myself, before pouring into my marketing textbook.

The train to Newark didn’t take more than 45 minutes to an hour, and as Matt and I disembarked the train I definitely felt as if we were no longer in New York.  The train platform was outside, as the cool air blew in my face numbing my nose and biting at my cheeks.  I looked around and saw another track without a train, and followed the masses up some stairs into the train station that seemed surprisingly small for a large traveling hub.  Matt and I saw that we had twenty minutes until our train would leave for Philly so we walked around the station that was no longer than 400 yards and was filled with plastic seats, snack machines, one food stall and a ticket machine.  For some reason, Matt and I decided the ticket machine was our best diversion.

“I wonder where you can get tickets to from Newark,” Matt gazed at the touchpad screen and scanned over the destination codes.  “Wow, you can get tickets all the way from Phillipsburg and Palmyra,” Matt continued as I decided that it’d be best for me to assume that these towns were nowhere near us and not get into a discussion on New Jersey geography.  “How much are monthly tickets from those towns?”  Matt plugged in the necessary information before we both exploded into laughter thinking how insane it was for people to pay close to $1000 for a monthly train pass to get to Newark, and then how crazier it was to think that if people actually commuted that far, they were probably heading to New York City, so after we made our calculations we laughed our way back to our train to Philly thinking how much easier it was for us to take a subway to work instead of two trains and then a subway for over a grand a month.

Although I wasn’t necessarily impressed with the New Jersey trains, I was somewhat disgusted by the Philly train we got on.  It looked as if a hurricane or tornado had landed in our car and had taken no mercy on the seats or the train.  My only recollection or thought connecting me to Philly was when I grew up watching “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and Will Smith started each show with his “rap” song about “West Philadelphia” where he was “born and raised.”  But other than that I wasn’t sure what type of city I was about to visit.  If the train cart was partially representative of the city, I felt as if I was in for quite the weekend.

“Just stay out of West Philly,” I overheard someone say from behind me, but decided not to react or look back out of fear that a gun may be aimed at my forehead.  My marketing textbook seemed slightly more welcoming.

Matt and I continued reading when the train started, but were quickly distracted by the train’s audio system.

“Next stop, Bushwinkle” a Black man in a large blue winter coat and a baseball cap opened up the train door and hollered to everyone in our area.  Matt and I lifted our heads from our books and looked at each other before checking out the guy and then looking at each other again before we erupted into laughter.  This was the trains audio system we both realized and started laughing at an embarrassingly loud volume.  Matt started looking me up and down in a weird way, and started laughing again, as I sat facing him with a curious expression over my face.

“What are you laughing at?” I asked Matt, wondering if he was going to comment on me looking like an old man again.

“You’re dressed like one of the guy’s who work on the train,” Matt couldn’t control himself any longer as he started laughing louder and louder and I looked at my clothing and compared it with the man who was checking my ticket.  “Let me take a picture of you with him.  Hurry move that way,” Matt started to get his camera out before I told him that we didn’t need the extra attention.  I was fond of the blue jacked I was wearing, and even though thought it was humorous that the jackets were similar in many ways, it was my father’s jacket so there is some sentimental attachment with the jacket.  Perhaps my dad worked on Philly trains temporarily and got the jacket, but I highly doubt it.

An hour or so passed before we arrived in Philly proper, and I was about to get off the train with the mass of people, but Matt wasn’t budging.

“Isn’t this our stop?” I turned to Matt and asked him, not really knowing what stop we were supposed to get off at, but figured that the train would only empty for the Philadelphia station.

“No, I think it’s the next one,” Matt told me.  “I’ve come to Philly a few times before to visit my brother and I always get off at the next stop.”  I wasn’t sure what to do, but I sat down and rode the train to the next stop where a few people including us exited the train to an abandoned station.  Matt and I wandered through the halls and quickly realized we had gotten off at the wrong station but looked for public transportation to be dropped off somewhere near Dan.  Instead of a train or a subway, I was somewhat surprised that Philly included trolley’s as a part of their public transportation.  We had gone askew from Dan’s directions but were improvising which brought some excitement to our long day of travel.

I was surprised to see how easy it was for bystanders to get on the trolley tracks, it was literally a foot drop onto the tracks and there was nothing to prevent drunken students or people who were sick of the Philadelphia lifestyle from jumping in front of the trolley that trudged along the tracks at a menacing 8 miles per hour.  Matt and I waited a few minutes as I looked around the station and noticed something particularly different to New York or most places I had been on my U.S. road trips - there were more Black people.  I thought it was interesting observation but didn’t have any type of reaction before hopping onto a tram that seemed to have gotten off on the wrong track in San Francisco and ended up in Philly…imagine how long that trip would actually take…geez.

A few stops later Matt and I got off the train and called Dan to let him know where we were.

“What?!” I overheard Dan on Matt’s cellphone.  “How did you guys end up there?  I gave you step-by-step instructions and you still manage to mess that up.”  I lost Dan after that outburst as he instructed Matt which direction we were to follow in order to make our way towards the University of Pennsylvania, Dan’s alma mater.  The weather was frigid, as I bundled up in my scarf, hat, gloves and jacket and made my way with Matt towards Dan’s apartment.  Most joints seemed to be closed at 10:30 on a Friday which was somewhat surprising, but I didn’t really know what part of Philly I was in, but assumed that we weren’t in downtown due to the lack of life around us.

We passed a bar called “The Pig’s Fizzle” or something to that effect, a church, and another bar where we saw Dan.  Dan looked noticeably healthier, as if he had been exercising recently, and we all embraced with hugs before making our way behind the bar, through snow that was more like mud, and finally were instructed to take off our shoes before entering Dan’s humble abode.

For a one person apartment and a recent college graduate, Dan seemed to be in a very good situation.  There was a kitchen that didn’t seem to be used terribly often but had various personal items scrambled around, a living room with a couch, television, a chair and lamp, a bathroom with shower/bath, toilet and sink, Dan’s office which had a mattress for one of us to sleep on, a desk, Dan’s chair and his laptop, and then further down the hall was Dan’s bedroom in which Dan had prominently placed a party sign in board, frequently used at bar and bat mitzvah’s where people signed in their name and wrote a personal message to the bar mitzvee, but instead of seeing a picture of Dan, there was a picture of his parents which was a good picture, but his father had one of the wildest looking mustache’s I had ever seen.  We grabbed some food at a restaurant nearby, but crashed immediately afterwards after the long day of traveling.  I nestled into the mattress before Matt had the opportunity, and by “nestling” I mean I laid down, Matt was no longer interested in the mattress so our sleeping arrangements had been settled for the weekend.  Apparently Dan had organized a long day for us the following day as I was excited for anything.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.