It got a lot busier once my brother and his family arrived.
And I'll note, it's hard being the only unmarried kid; you get talked over, your opinions matter much less, if you want a particular food item you better grab it FAST.
Also the other relatives kept up the tradition of giving a musical instrument my niece didn't really know how to play; it was a kalimba this time, which is at least better than the recorder of a couple years ago, but between that, and my brother making the dog "talk" and everything else, it was a LOT. I don't deal well with noise and especially noise I don't control
And the trip back was hectic. Apparently Amtrak put another sleeper and a couple more coaches on at the last moment, but no additional staff, so even two hours or so into the trip some of the staff were pretty cranky. I couldn't find my sleeper (it was on the rear) and got yelled at by the front sleeper person (Well, I have the added complication of not being able to RUN if I had to run to get to the rear sleeper). My car attendant WAS good, she offered to bring my dinner because I was supposed to get it earlier than if I waited on a reservation (again: two other full sleepers, and the Chicago people got priority at choosing times). So she took my order.
And I waited
and waited
and waited.
When she came through an hour and twenty minutes later, I asked her, the response was "They're really busy, it should be in now"
Finally, at the two hour mark, I walked down there and politely asked. Got a slightly short response, but then wast told to wait, and finally someone slammed a to go bag down on the table next to where I was standing. So I got my dinner.
It wasn't great; the "flex meals" those of us on the neglected eastern leg of the Texas Eagle are getting progressively worse. I got what was alleged to be "butter chicken" but wasn't good, and also, eating it at like 7:30 pm is not great given the spices in it.
(Breakfast similarly took a long time, though I went down to the diner for it. Was given "our ovens are malfunctioning" as an explanation. Maybe that should have been told to us up front, so we might have been able to choose the yogurt-and-muffin option instead?)
Anyway. At least I'm home, and trying to push through a little hangover grading I couldn't get to before break.
There were some nice things; I got to see what was probably the St. Louis version of the "Polar Express experience" (a lit-up engine and a bunch of old diner cars; it's like a dinner trip for kids and their parents)
And there was a nice view of the Arch from the train:
I didn't see a LOT of Christmas lights; maybe people are either putting them out later now, or else they're not doing them any more?
Okay, blogger is maybe sticking the video here? I converted to an mp4 to see if that will work.
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