I have been a big fan of trains for years. The first train ride I can remember was on an old coal-fired steam line called the Strasburg Railroad. The sole memory I have is that the seats were prickly. (This is a bit of foreshadowing, in case you were wondering.) I rode the regional rail line both when I worked in the city one summer and when I went to grad school in Philadelphia. I take trains up and down the east coast for business travel whenever I can, having traveled from Boston to Washington and all points in between. Train stations are fascinating places, reflecting historical ideals (the soaring ceilings and bronze statues) and a sense of being able to find calm in the midst of the hurly-burly of travel (something I can never seem to locate in airports).

So when I was scheduled to travel to Stamford, CT this week, it made sense to book my travel on Amtrak's Acela train. The Acela, like the Metroliner before it, is an all-reserved train. This means that Amtrak only sells as many tickets as they have seats and that you're guaranteed a place to rest your weary bones. This is one of the reasons that the Acela trains command a premium price over the regional, unreserved, stop-at-every-crossroads trains.

The clues that this was going to be an eventful trip started piling up at the top of the stairway that leads down the train. The woman who looked at my ticket (no ID is necessary to get on a train) told me I couldn't take my suitcase with me because the train was full and there was no room for it. I protested by ignoring her and walking down the stairs (the only escalator was running *up*, another portent of impending doom). We heard scraps of conversations that told of a previously delayed unreserved train having been combined with our reserved train. This was immediately apparent when we got on the train with a crush of humanity and were only able to find the smallest piece of floor space in which to stand.

Immediately after the train started to pull away, the conductor announced that, although the train was supposed to be heading for Boston, the tunnels into New York were closed (they never did tell us why) and they would be stopping the train in Newark. Good luck in finding transportation to your final destination. Yes, he really did say that. Newark is not a place you want to end up without knowledge of how you're going to get out of there. A call to the travel agent proved that the car service we use on was booked and the only other service that could drive us to CT would:
1. Be very late getting to Newark because they had to drive from Philadelphia.
2. Cost $900 for 2 cars to accommodate all of us who were traveling.

Experiencing a momentary flash of fiscal responsibility, I declined that generous offer (can you say "price gouging"?) and asked for other alternatives. The choices were:
1. Get off at the Newark airport, rent a car and drive to CT.
2. Get off at the downtown Newark stop, navigate to the PATH train (I think that's the name of the line), go to Grand Central Station, walk or cab to Penn Station, pray that Amtrak trains were running north out of the city and train the rest of the way to CT.
3. Give up and go home, crawl into bed with a cup of tea and a bag of double chocolate Milanos and watch bad TV.

I voted for #3, but was overruled and we went with door #2. When you exit the Amtrak train at what is loosely called the "Newark Airport" (not a plane in sight was another clue), you have to pay $5 (by buying a ticket at a device that required much cursing and punching of the screen) to get on the "AirTrain" to take you to the actual airport, which is about three counties away. We each paid our $5 (and were then told by a ticket agent who watched this entire spectacle that we didn't really need the tickets), and ventured onto the AirTrain to go to the airport to find the rental car counter to rent a car to drive to CT through rush hour NYC traffic. Which worked out and we were only about 45 minutes later than if the train had taken us all the way. So all's well that ends well, right?

Well, almost. We stayed at a Westin, home of the Heavenly Bed®. These are the best beds in the world - great mattresses, beautiful, soft, bountiful linens, voluptuous pillows (I'm giving myself chills just thinking about them). But... this time the bed was a little less heavenly than I have come to expect. Not a Limbo Bed® or, god forbid, a Purgatory Bed®, but more like a plain old Earthly Bed®. Nice sheets, ok pillows, unremarkable mattress. But it (the room, not the bed) did have high speed Internet access, so, once again, it all sort of balanced out. And I am, of course, all about balance.