Galt Tergeer (by train)

By Rachel

We were ready at the train station at 7:30, and hopped aboard train 23 for Beijing. This was pretty much the same train Charlie and I took in the fall, except this time we were in the half-lux cabins with four beds each. The ride was uneventful except for the three friends we made:

Friend#1: A six year old Mongolian girl who at first was satisfied by staring at us and then was quite content being held up to look out the window by Georgine.

Friend #2: The Chinese man that Charlie and I shared a cabin with. He was more than happy to be Charlie’s language coach, and we shared some laughs at the ridiculousness of the various border guards we encountered.

Friend #3: The conductor of our train car. He was a young Chinese man and liked to hang out with Friend #2. He would talk to me every so often, practicing his English. He was quite sweet and at the end told me that he would miss me very much. I gave him my e-mail address and yesterday he sent me this message:

rachel:
Hello!
Have you already come back home! Can know you such first beautiful U.S.A. Miss while being glad very. I want to do more exchanges with you very much on the train, but my language level is limited. The diligent American language of study I in the future. Expecting you come to China again.
Good-bye

Otherwise, we ate, read, talked, slept and watched them change the wheels. We arrived in Beijing around 3. Gabe and Rob were leaving the next day, so we ate as much as possible in the available 20 hours, including a visit to our favorite dumpling place.

After a dinnertime Sichuan feast, the real fun began in the form of foot massages and little suits.