Long Amtrak Train Trip Starting 26 August!

[Meengla]

At a Middle Eastern restaurant near the Pioneer Square. I had a pistachio baclava and this drink. Both were over priced and the baclava was smaller than it looks. But it was enough to shore me up until I reached the friends' house in Vancouver area probably by 5-6 PM.

 

[Meengla]

My bus from the Seattle's King St Station to Vancouver, Canada. I think this is run by some Canadian company and the route is one of the rare ones included in the Amtrak's USA Rail Pass which I was using for this trip, to allow cross border as included route. The bus driver was not easy to understand being an immigrant but there was one guy who frequently takes this bus between Seattle and Vancouver and he did the translations for us when needed. The guy also kindly lent me his pen as I found out the pen I had been carrying was broken--you have to fill out an actual paper immigration/customs form.

As our bus just left the station at 1:30 PM, we saw a horrifying sight: A middle aged, plump guy was crossing a street in front of the bus's signal stop; I was in the very front behind the driver. We saw that guy fell on his face end of the crosswalk and was writhing in great pain. He was carrying a cardboard box which seemed full of printer paper. He was holding his jaw and kicking his legs and just convulsing. A woman was walking with him and she moved his stuff of the street and trying to talk to him. A couple of others walked by, looked and then walked away but the woman stayed with the guy. Then our bus turned to the left and we saw that no more. But I kept thinking that no one knows me in that faraway big region, that I was alone and those who do are barely known to me and I wouldn't want to inconvenience them anyway. I decided to be extra extra careful after that in everything.

GPS location for the bus pickup and note it is right outside the King St Station building.
: https://maps.app.goo.gl/92L4SmmSrRRi6TdQA

 

[Meengla]

Later: The very last part of my trip; The three days in Vancouver to wrap it all up!

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

The night out account in downtown Seattle couldn't be complete without an interesting encounter with a young woman at the Blarney.
So I was sitting at the bar and this young woman chose to sit besides me. I knew there were a few vacant chairs and for her to sit right besides me signaled something to be cautious about. I could feel she was looking at me. I tried to ignore and pretended to watch the tv. Then the conversation started:
She: Hey, where are you from?
Me: South Carolina.
She: What you doing here?
Me: Doing a crazy long train trip and Seattle is my final destination.
She: Where you staying at?
Me: At a hotel nearby.
She: So what you going to do after this bar closes?
Me: Go to the hotel and sleep. I am going to Canada tomorrow and need to rest.
She (Realizing I wasn't interested kept quiet for a while).
She: Hey, why don't you buy me a drink?
Me: Sorry, I am in between jobs.
She: Then how come you afford to travel so much?
Me: I have this Amtrak Pass which is pretty cheap.

That was pretty much the conversation and after that I moved away from her. Later, a friend told me that such women go to your hotel room and wipe you clean of you money or accuse you of some nasty things.

I've had that happen a few times. Once, hinted I light be a cop. LOL. She exited pretty quick.

There is a place not too far from where we used to live. Our favorite server from another establishment works there now. Was chatting with her one night and asked her about the two cougars on the hunt. She said "were they that obvious?"

Yeah, it was pretty obvious.

 

[Meengla]

I've had that happen a few times. Once, hinted I light be a cop. LOL. She exited pretty quick.
There is a place not too far from where we used to live. Our favorite server from another establishment works there now. Was chatting with her one night and asked her about the two cougars on the hunt. She said "were they that obvious?"
Yeah, it was pretty obvious.

Haha! You are so creative!
If I could only pretend to be a cop! I don't think that 'Harrafa' woman would believe me if I said I was a cop: Me skinny brown immigrant who was obviously an out of towner. I noticed the blonde bartender chick sort of gave me a nod of approval/respect when I told the woman next to me that I was not buying her a drink--the bartender probably knows her.

One time pretending to be a cop did work for me: In a full fledged cop costume for Halloween in a night out to the town. Yes, it worked then as far as curious partiers wondering and asking about me being a real cop! Speaking of which, I once did an ocean cruise from Florida and it was during the Halloween night and I had a cop costume with me. As I was about to board the ship, the security scan detected the hand cuffs and took it out and confiscated that! Haha!

 

[Watandar]

The night out account in downtown Seattle couldn't be complete without an interesting encounter with a young woman at the Blarney.
So I was sitting at the bar and this young woman chose to sit besides me. I knew there were a few vacant chairs and for her to sit right besides me signaled something to be cautious about. I could feel she was looking at me. I tried to ignore and pretended to watch the tv. Then the conversation started:
She: Hey, where are you from?
Me: South Carolina.
She: What you doing here?
Me: Doing a crazy long train trip and Seattle is my final destination.
She: Where you staying at?
Me: At a hotel nearby.
She: So what you going to do after this bar closes?
Me: Go to the hotel and sleep. I am going to Canada tomorrow and need to rest.
She (Realizing I wasn't interested kept quiet for a while).
She: Hey, why don't you buy me a drink?
Me: Sorry, I am in between jobs.
She: Then how come you afford to travel so much?
Me: I have this Amtrak Pass which is pretty cheap.

That was pretty much the conversation and after that I moved away from her. Later, a friend told me that such women go to your hotel room and wipe you clean of you money or accuse you of some nasty things.

Interesting story. This has never happened to me lol. You must be a handsome guy who gives off "rich" vibes!

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

Interesting story. This has never happened to me lol. You must be a handsome guy who gives off "rich" vibes!

Some hotels are known to have girls available. Especially in business areas.

 

[Meengla]

Interesting story. This has never happened to me lol. You must be a handsome guy who gives off "rich" vibes!

The "handsome" part I could agree with. The "rich" part is questionable though. Haha! But honestly, I am not as poor as my posts in this thread might suggest. I wouldn't be out on a $2500-3000 trip on such budget travel if I were not calculatingly comfortable.

 

[Meengla]

The final, final note before I tomorrow move on to talk about my three days stay in Vancouver is about as to why I had to file for a Credit Card 'dispute' about my Airbnb in Seattle: So while I was at the Sacramento station waiting for my train (Coast Starlight) to Seattle, I received an email from the Seattle's Airbnb about checkin instructions. The instructions were the most complicated ones I had ever seen for an Airbnb: Click this link and do your real time face screen shot, deposit money via the link for incidentals, fill out some online form and some other things. But the worst was about $50 Cleaning Fee. The base price was $90 and I had not seen anything above that during the booking. This was not my first Airbnb and I have been careful of the extra charges attached to the sticker prices. But when booking never saw any extras. It seemed too good to be true for having my own space with a short drive / Uber from the Kings St. Station.

But then I saw the Reviews and realized I had made a mistake booking that Airbnb. I asked to cancel that. They denied. I was to pay the full price of $90. It would be a bitter pill to swallow but I had decided to be honorable as it was my mistake to have booked that. Either I go and stay there or I swallow the $90 loss. By then, I had also realized that I'd have to pay up to $40 Uber round trip from/to the Airbnb place. So the $90 + $40 and the math started to look really bad. But I was still going to honor that until the check in email came when I was at the Sacramento train station: The breaking point was the almost $50 Cleaning Fee they mentioned in the check in email. I emailed back that I was not aware of that charge. The guy responded that it was in your booking email's 'Important Information' part. I looked up the booking email's 'Important Information' part and saw no mention of the Cleaning Fee. I wrote back to the guy that fact. He said something like well, look at the check in instruction's link and the Cleaning Fee charge is there. I emailed him back that the check in instruction link has just arrived but there was nothing in the booking instruction email about the Cleaning Fee and that please consider my booking cancelled. He emailed me then that I'd be forfeiting the entire $90. I didn't have the time to respond to him as I had lost trust in them and I had to look for something else in Seattle and thus, while at the Sacramento Station, I found the Executive Pacific Hotel for the night of my arrival in Seattle and booked that.

But after I came back to South Carolina, I organized the emails and saved them to PDFs and then filed a 'dispute' for the $90 for the Airbnb charge with my CC Bank. If I see any mention of the Cleaning Fee during the booking process then I will honor the original booking and let go of the $90. But if I don't then I would consider that as a fraud or some system glitch.

PS. It is around 1 am here. Wife calling me. Goodbye!

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

Interesting story. This has never happened to me lol. You must be a handsome guy who gives off "rich" vibes!

Some hotels are known to have girls available. Especially in business areas.

The "handsome" part I could agree with. The "rich" part is questionable though. Haha! But honestly, I am not as poor as my posts in this thread might suggest. I wouldn't be out on a $2500-3000 trip on such budget travel if I were not calculatingly comfortable.

Nothing wrong with living below your means. If you were to meet me you'd think I might not have a nickel to my name.

 

[Meengla]

The final part of my travel now: Into Canada (Vancouver area) for about 3 days and then fly back to South Carolina. I already mentioned the border crossing on the bus to Canada and the Canadian border inspection before in this thread. As my bus was nearing the border, my friend in Vancouver area (actually, White Rock, BC) texted if I could get off the bus at the border crossing. Then he said almost 99% certainty I would not be allowed to by Amtrak. He said if I got off the bus at the border crossing then it would be very close to his house to pick me up otherwise picking me up at the Richmond drop off point would be much longer.
I really wanted to get off the bus at the border crossing but a fellow passenger--the same guy who regularly commutes on the bus between Vancouver and Seattle--confirmed that Amtrak is not going to allow me to disembark at the border crossing point. He said even he has to watch his house in BC area from the bus pass by as he is dropped off a good distance farther. Such info on top of the bus driver being very busy loading the luggage back to the bus after the Canadian border inspection and the driver's hard to understand accent, I didn't bother to be dropped off the bus at the border crossing and apologized to my friend about that. He said no problem. He was at the Richmond drop off point where everyone got off the bus and drove me during the rush hours to their house in White Rock--it was maybe a good 25-30 minutes ride. I felt bad for him and didn't like the Amtrak rules: There was a pedestrian crossing at the border inspection site and I thought I could have got off the bus after the border inspection clearance and wait for my friend there.