« Subway Girl : A Love Story | Main | Leaving New York »

June 05, 2005

Mr. Geraghty Goes to Washington

After my weeklong visit to New York was up, it was time to leave. Not back to Ireland you understand but to Washington DC. I was off to stay with an American friend of mine, a one Marty Beckerman. On the day in question, I had made my way to Penn Station near Madison Square Garden to catch my Amtrak train to the nations capital. Now, I had thought of comparing Penn Station to Hueston Station, but there’s simply no competition. Penn is rather big and, well, Hueston is rather small. The station itself is actually underground. In fact, I had to take an escalator down and with my unnecessary large suitcase, I did so with great difficulty.

The whole station felt more like an airport than a train station. When I actually got to the platform and saw the vessel that I would be travelling on, it was certainly a welcome sight. It seemed that I would be commuting in some sort of futuristic silver carriage. Inside was just as appealing. The inside of an Arrow pails in contrast. For most of my three-hour journey, my carriage was largely empty. This was mainly because it was the ‘reserved’ carriage for columnists who like their space. Ahem. I quite enjoyed the difference in driver announcements between America and Ireland. Whereas on the 5.20pm train to Newbridge you’re likely to hear the driver say “We’ll be held up here for a while. There’s a cow on the track,” on my Amtrak cruiser the driver announced, “We’re not going any further than DC. Hurricane Charlie’s on the track.”

Eventually I arrived at Union Station, my stop. There to greet me was Marty, the eye raising author of such books as “Death to All Cheerleaders” and the recently published “Generation S.L.U.T.” We headed for the Washington Metro. Now, the main thing that struck me about the subways in Washington were that they so clean. In every station, in every carriage, there was not a piece of rubbish in sight. Marty explained why when he told me it was actually illegal to drink or eat in the subway and that recently a young lady had been thrown into jail for offending! It was as if everyone in Washington realised that the law gave them a clean subway system and hence respected it. Unlike New York’s subway system, which is rather grubby to say the least. I can forgive the grubbiness of it, as every thing in New York is simply cool.

Another remarkable thing about the metro in Washington is its architecture. The stations were all built in the 70’s so they all have a ‘Logan’s Run’ vibe going on. A notable amount of painfully long escalators frequent the stations as well. Commuters who aren’t in a hurry keep to one side of the escalator so that the impatient ones can race up the other side.

When we got back to Marty’s apartment I was feeling a bit peckish so it was into the city for dinner. Marty’s roommate, Brad, drove us. We spent a while trying to choose where to go. Italian? Chinese? Mexican? Food was one of the major differences that I found in the States. Americans’ live on foreign food. As Marty said to me, “Genuine American cuisine is simply fast food.” Since most restaurants were offering a wait of twenty minutes we went with an American bar. While waiting for a table, I headed up to the bar to get a drink. Now I was fully aware that asking for alcohol while only twenty years of age would quite likely land me in trouble so I was merely going up to get a coke. Marty and Brad, not knowing this and quite concerned, became mildly panicky. For dinner I had buffalo. Not a whole one you understand.

Afterwards, Marty said we were headed for a Hookah bar, something I had never heard of before but was instantly intrigued. My only ever hearing of the word ‘Hookah’ was from Lewis Carroll’s book, ‘Alice in Wonderland’. To my recollection, the caterpillar that Alice met in the book smoked one. Marty said I was right. A hookah was indeed a large pipe to smoke with. You could easily mistake this hookah bar for a restaurant. There are tables and menus and waiters! Seated, a waiter brought us a wonderful menu that had all the different things you could smoke with the enormous hookah provided. Instead of the Asian looking selections I went for a more familiar choice – chocolate! So it was that as so frequently happens with me, I took a minute to reflect on my situation. Here I was in Washington DC, in the middle of the night, in a hookah bar with Marty and Brad, smoking, for all I know, what could have been illegal, smooth smoky chocolate tobacco. There is quite simply no end to the farcical situations I find myself in. Tune in next week for another one.

Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 09:40 PM