The Orient Express

[DamnYankee]

I'm going to have to find out what all our writers write about, I guess.

In any event, the story didn't end there, obviously. Anyone who's interested may request it. (Wouldn't want to get complaints from the "sensitive".)

 

[editec]

Although the original Orient Express, most intimately associated with the cities of Paris and Istanbul, was simply a normal international railway service, the name has become synonymous with intrigue and luxury travel.

Tell me a story of your experience on the Orient Express. Adventure, intrigue, and chance encounters on the ultimate 1930’s luxury train.

There was and still is something called the Orient Express.

It's now an enormously expensive fantasy rail experience

I fell in lust/love with a ballet student on the overnight from Madrid to Paris in '72.

It was a wonderfully dis-orienting experience.

We had a month in Paris, then I returned to America assume a new post in Pendelton.

Damned right I gave serious thought about deserting the NAV that month.

I was young in lust with an amazingly beautiful woman in Paris. Her Parisian anarchists chums offered me a new indentity and a job in France. And I the orders I was returning to were to Pendleton for Fleet Marine training and then onto SE asia.

I often wonder if I made a mistake returning to the USA?

 

[DamnYankee]

Although the original Orient Express, most intimately associated with the cities of Paris and Istanbul, was simply a normal international railway service, the name has become synonymous with intrigue and luxury travel.

Tell me a story of your experience on the Orient Express. Adventure, intrigue, and chance encounters on the ultimate 1930’s luxury train.

There was and still is something called the Orient Express.

It's now an enormously expensive fantasy rail experience

I fell in lust/love with a ballet student on the overnight from Madrid to Paris in '72.

It was a wonderfully dis-orienting experience.

We had a month in Paris, then I returned to America assume a new post in Pendelton.

Damned right I gave serious thought about deserting the NAV that month.

I was young in lust with an amazingly beautiful woman in Paris. Her Parisian anarchists chums offered me a new indentity and a job in France. And I the orders I was returning to were to Pendleton for Fleet Marine training and then onto SE asia.

I often wonder if I made a mistake returning to the USA?

Not at all unusual to second guess the choices we make. I've done it myself several times.

 

[editec]

Although the original Orient Express, most intimately associated with the cities of Paris and Istanbul, was simply a normal international railway service, the name has become synonymous with intrigue and luxury travel.

Tell me a story of your experience on the Orient Express. Adventure, intrigue, and chance encounters on the ultimate 1930’s luxury train.

There was and still is something called the Orient Express.

It's now an enormously expensive fantasy rail experience

I fell in lust/love with a ballet student on the overnight from Madrid to Paris in '72.

It was a wonderfully dis-orienting experience.

We had a month in Paris, then I returned to America assume a new post in Pendelton.

Damned right I gave serious thought about deserting the NAV that month.

I was young in lust with an amazingly beautiful woman in Paris. Her Parisian anarchists chums offered me a new indentity and a job in France. And I the orders I was returning to were to Pendleton for Fleet Marine training and then onto SE asia.

I often wonder if I made a mistake returning to the USA?

Not at all unusual to second guess the choices we make. I've done it myself several times.

Yeah, true.

But that case is one which offered such a dramatically outcomes, and one which would have been basically irrevicable, too, that that single decision in my life is about the only one which sticks with me.

Of course I have many reasons to stay and many to return to my life, too.

Ultimately, I suspect that my distrust of the French lefties was the largest factor that brought me back.

I was already the US government's puppet, but I was even more reluctant to put myself in the position of being the puppet of people whose real motives were less obvious.

I was completely convinced they could insinuate me into France with papers which would pass muster.

But then they would have had that LIE to make me their minion, too.

Those boys weren't playing at being revolutionaries like so many American leftes were at the time.

They were highly organized, multinationals, well funded and seriously committed to overthrowing what they percieved as the evil empire of the WEST.

They were Algerians, French, Germans and English, too.

I just didn't trust them to help me to create another identity and then not expect me to be their patsy at some future date.

I refuse to join any revolution that I don't run, know what I mean?

 

[DamnYankee]

There was and still is something called the Orient Express.

It's now an enormously expensive fantasy rail experience

I fell in lust/love with a ballet student on the overnight from Madrid to Paris in '72.

It was a wonderfully dis-orienting experience.

We had a month in Paris, then I returned to America assume a new post in Pendelton.

Damned right I gave serious thought about deserting the NAV that month.

I was young in lust with an amazingly beautiful woman in Paris. Her Parisian anarchists chums offered me a new indentity and a job in France. And I the orders I was returning to were to Pendleton for Fleet Marine training and then onto SE asia.

I often wonder if I made a mistake returning to the USA?

Not at all unusual to second guess the choices we make. I've done it myself several times.

Yeah, true.

But that case is one which offered such a dramatically outcomes, and one which would have been basically irrevicable, too, that that single decision in my life is about the only one which sticks with me.

Of course I have many reasons to stay and many to return to my life, too.

Ultimately, I suspect that my distrust of the French lefties was the largest factor that brought me back.

I was already the US government's puppet, but I was even more reluctant to put myself in the position of being the puppet of people whose real motives were less obvious.

I was completely convinced they could insinuate me into France with papers which would pass muster.

But then they would have had that LIE to make me their minion, too.

Those boys weren't playing at being revolutionaries like so many American leftes were at the time.

They were highly organized, multinationals, well funded and seriously committed to overthrowing what they percieved as the evil empire of the WEST.

They were Algerians, French, Germans and English, too.

I just didn't trust them to help me to create another identity and then not expect me to be their patsy at some future date.

I refuse to join any revolution that I don't run, know what I mean?

Yes, I kinda do.... Although there was a time, not so long ago, when I joined anyway, just because I felt so damned good....

 

[alan1]

I’ll tell you a true story about one of my train rides. It doesn’t involve any romance, just some international intrigue.

I was 19 years old and stationed in Germany in a US Army infantry unit. Me and 2 of my buddies (Smitty and Barry) were going to a concert in Nuremburg. Jethro Tull and Neil Young were both playing as headliners along with a few other lesser known bands. We just knew were going to have a great time. We took a train to Nuremburg early that morning and arrived a few hours before the show. As I recall, it was May. The weather was excellent for an outdoor concert, and we did have a great time. Barry and I got stoned on hash and Jack Daniels. Smitty didn’t smoke and only stuck to the Jack.
The concert ended about 11:00 or 12:00 at night and all 3 of us were pretty trashed by the time it was over. It took us a couple hours to make our way back to the train station and get a train ride back to our base. We boarded the train about 2:00 am, we’d be back about 3:30 am. I was all partied out, drunk and stoned for the ride back. I passed out on the train ride.
I was rudely awakened by somebody shouting at me. So were Barry and Smitty. Seems all of us had passed out. I had picked up some of the German language in the past year, and I didn’t understand a single word this guy was saying. The train was stopped and the man was wearing a uniform. He was pretty gruff with us, shouting, demanding from his tone of voice, and none of us could understand what the hell he was saying. Smitty asked him if he spoke English and the guy didn’t understand him. I tried my weak German on him, and he didn’t understand me either. Barry was fluent French and tried that.
Hell yeah, the guy knew some French. Not as well as Barry did, but at least we could communicate now. He was the conductor of the train, he wanted to see our tickets. (Why the fuck doesn’t a German train conductor know the German language?) Hey, no problem, we had tickets. About this time, I noticed that it was daylight outside. We had obviously passed our intended 3:30 am arrival time. We showed the man our tickets and he got all gruff with us again. Our tickets weren’t good anymore; we were way past our intended destination. He kicked us off the train. My watch said it was 8:30 am.
The good thing about German train stations is that even the smallest of them have a sign that states what city or town you are in, and it’s usually in multiple languages unless you are in podunckville. Fuck, we were in total podunckville because this sign was only in one language. Not only that, but there was only one rail. Not only that, but the ticket counter was a 10x10 shack.
We knew we were going to have to buy new tickets to get back, and we had no clue where we were at. The town name on the sign was unknown to us. We went to the ticket counter(shack) to purchase new tickets to get back to the post. Damn, even the ticket agent didn’t speak German. Realization sunk in. We weren’t in Germany anymore. The ticket agent didn’t speak German, didn’t speak English and didn’t speak French. We were fucked. We had no clue where we were and we had no way to buy a ticket home.
There was a single dirt road in and out of the train station, and we could see a small town about half a mile away. We decided to walk to town and get some breakfast and see if we could find somebody to help us out. We found a small restaurant and before we sat down we tried to talk to the lady that greeted us. She didn’t understand us and we couldn’t understand her. The cook came out and again, none of us could understand each other. The cook disappeared for a bit, then returned with a young girl about 12 years old. Lucky us, she spoke some English, not very well, but at least we could communicate with somebody.

It was a family restaurant, the lady that greeted us and the cook were married and owned the place. The young girl was their daughter. We had German marks and US dollars as currency, neither of which was acceptable as legal tender in Czechoslovakia.

HOLY FUCKING CRAP!

We were in Czechoslovakia, a communist country. This was 1982, the cold war between the US and communism was extremely active and we were 3 US soldiers in a communist country. This was an international incident with potentially severe repercussions. 3 US Army soldiers had crossed the border from Germany to Czechoslovakia. Sure, it was accidental, but do you think anybody would really care about that minor detail. We needed to get the heck out of this country right now.

The young girl told us that they would feed us breakfast at no charge. She said they were honored to meet Americans. We couldn’t understand any of the conversation between her and her parents and she did her best to translate, but like I said, her English wasn’t very good. We were paranoid since we were in a vulnerable position. We declined the offer for breakfast and asked for assistance getting train tickets back to Germany. We just wanted to get the hell out of there before we became an international incident.

The girl and her father gave us ride back to the train station and negotiated with the ticket agent to secure us a trip to Germany. The ticket agent gave us each a hand written note. The girl told us the note was for anybody in Czechoslovakia that would question us, that we were paid for (I’m guessing bribe money). They wouldn’t accept any payment from us for the help they gave.
When the train arrived at the border of Czechoslovakia and Germany, it stopped. 2 men, one Czechoslovakian, one German, visited every passenger to see tickets (why didn’t this happen before we crossed into Czechoslovakia?). We showed our tickets and produced the notes we had from the Czechoslovakian ticket agent. The two men debated for a few minutes, and then moved on.

We managed to get back into Germany without causing any sort of international incident. Individuals are beautiful people, collectives suck.

 

[DamnYankee]

I’ll tell you a true story about one of my train rides. It doesn’t involve any romance, just some international intrigue.

I was 19 years old and stationed in Germany in a US Army infantry unit. Me and 2 of my buddies (Smitty and Barry) were going to a concert in Nuremburg. Jethro Tull and Neil Young were both playing as headliners along with a few other lesser known bands. We just knew were going to have a great time. We took a train to Nuremburg early that morning and arrived a few hours before the show. As I recall, it was May. The weather was excellent for an outdoor concert, and we did have a great time. Barry and I got stoned on hash and Jack Daniels. Smitty didn’t smoke and only stuck to the Jack.
The concert ended about 11:00 or 12:00 at night and all 3 of us were pretty trashed by the time it was over. It took us a couple hours to make our way back to the train station and get a train ride back to our base. We boarded the train about 2:00 am, we’d be back about 3:30 am. I was all partied out, drunk and stoned for the ride back. I passed out on the train ride.
I was rudely awakened by somebody shouting at me. So were Barry and Smitty. Seems all of us had passed out. I had picked up some of the German language in the past year, and I didn’t understand a single word this guy was saying. The train was stopped and the man was wearing a uniform. He was pretty gruff with us, shouting, demanding from his tone of voice, and none of us could understand what the hell he was saying. Smitty asked him if he spoke English and the guy didn’t understand him. I tried my weak German on him, and he didn’t understand me either. Barry was fluent French and tried that.
Hell yeah, the guy knew some French. Not as well as Barry did, but at least we could communicate now. He was the conductor of the train, he wanted to see our tickets. (Why the fuck doesn’t a German train conductor know the German language?) Hey, no problem, we had tickets. About this time, I noticed that it was daylight outside. We had obviously passed our intended 3:30 am arrival time. We showed the man our tickets and he got all gruff with us again. Our tickets weren’t good anymore; we were way past our intended destination. He kicked us off the train. My watch said it was 8:30 am.
The good thing about German train stations is that even the smallest of them have a sign that states what city or town you are in, and it’s usually in multiple languages unless you are in podunckville. Fuck, we were in total podunckville because this sign was only in one language. Not only that, but there was only one rail. Not only that, but the ticket counter was a 10x10 shack.
We knew we were going to have to buy new tickets to get back, and we had no clue where we were at. The town name on the sign was unknown to us. We went to the ticket counter(shack) to purchase new tickets to get back to the post. Damn, even the ticket agent didn’t speak German. Realization sunk in. We weren’t in Germany anymore. The ticket agent didn’t speak German, didn’t speak English and didn’t speak French. We were fucked. We had no clue where we were and we had no way to buy a ticket home.
There was a single dirt road in and out of the train station, and we could see a small town about half a mile away. We decided to walk to town and get some breakfast and see if we could find somebody to help us out. We found a small restaurant and before we sat down we tried to talk to the lady that greeted us. She didn’t understand us and we couldn’t understand her. The cook came out and again, none of us could understand each other. The cook disappeared for a bit, then returned with a young girl about 12 years old. Lucky us, she spoke some English, not very well, but at least we could communicate with somebody.

It was a family restaurant, the lady that greeted us and the cook were married and owned the place. The young girl was their daughter. We had German marks and US dollars as currency, neither of which was acceptable as legal tender in Czechoslovakia.

HOLY FUCKING CRAP!

We were in Czechoslovakia, a communist country. This was 1982, the cold war between the US and communism was extremely active and we were 3 US soldiers in a communist country. This was an international incident with potentially severe repercussions. 3 US Army soldiers had crossed the border from Germany to Czechoslovakia. Sure, it was accidental, but do you think anybody would really care about that minor detail. We needed to get the heck out of this country right now.

The young girl told us that they would feed us breakfast at no charge. She said they were honored to meet Americans. We couldn’t understand any of the conversation between her and her parents and she did her best to translate, but like I said, her English wasn’t very good. We were paranoid since we were in a vulnerable position. We declined the offer for breakfast and asked for assistance getting train tickets back to Germany. We just wanted to get the hell out of there before we became an international incident.

The girl and her father gave us ride back to the train station and negotiated with the ticket agent to secure us a trip to Germany. The ticket agent gave us each a hand written note. The girl told us the note was for anybody in Czechoslovakia that would question us, that we were paid for (I’m guessing bribe money). They wouldn’t accept any payment from us for the help they gave.
When the train arrived at the border of Czechoslovakia and Germany, it stopped. 2 men, one Czechoslovakian, one German, visited every passenger to see tickets (why didn’t this happen before we crossed into Czechoslovakia?). We showed our tickets and produced the notes we had from the Czechoslovakian ticket agent. The two men debated for a few minutes, and then moved on.

We managed to get back into Germany without causing any sort of international incident. Individuals are beautiful people, collectives suck.

Cool contribution!

 

[alan1]

Cool contribution!

Thanks.
I've got another story about trains, but it's all domestic.

 

[Bootneck]

A man and a woman, who have never met before, but are both married to other people, found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on the Orient Express.

Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a room, they were both very tired and fell asleep quickly... he in the upper bunk and she in the lower.

At 0100, the man leaned over and gently woke the woman saying, "Ma'am, I'm sorry to bother you, but would you be willing to reach into the closet to get me a second blanket? I'm awfully cold."

"I have a better idea," she replied. "Just for tonight, let's pretend that we're married."
"Wow!!! That's a great idea!" he exclaimed.

"Good," she replied. "Get your own fucking blanket!"

 

[DamnYankee]

A man and a woman, who have never met before, but are both married to other people, found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on the Orient Express.

Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a room, they were both very tired and fell asleep quickly... he in the upper bunk and she in the lower.

At 0100, the man leaned over and gently woke the woman saying, "Ma'am, I'm sorry to bother you, but would you be willing to reach into the closet to get me a second blanket? I'm awfully cold."

"I have a better idea," she replied. "Just for tonight, let's pretend that we're married."
"Wow!!! That's a great idea!" he exclaimed.

"Good," she replied. "Get your own fucking blanket!"

Heard it, but

 

[midcan5]

I only road the express once. Train rides bore me. The people, so full of themselves act as if they possess something that only they had. The bits of conversations about where they'd been, what they did, who they know, soon made me want to scream. So I thought let me see if I can explore what they are made of.

I enlisted the conductors in my plan and paid them well to play along. There was a long run between stops; I waited till afternoon and entered the commons car sweating and in as anguished a pose as I could assume, I nervously looked back at the door I had just entered. Breathing heavily I dropped into a seat and moaned that I did not want to die.

That got their attention, papers dropped from faces, people turned from the scenery to me. 'What's that you say young man?' A man nearby asked.

'Sir, at the front and back of this train are men who go from car to car and decide the fate of each person. They are in the car I just left and have already decided who should die. I managed to move before they could seal the door.'

A anguished woman looked towards the conductor who nodded fearfully, yes. One man looked back to the car and saw the window blocked, I told him sit down.

'Surely you're joking, what sort of ruse is this?' An elderly gentleman said.

"Sir we haven't much time and I am sure some among you want to live so knowing what I know I will try to help you survive this judgement day. You will be asked to tell your most private thoughts."

"So why will you die?"

"Allow me to finish, I replied, "you be asked asked three questions and if you answer all three honestly you will live. You will be asked who you hate? Who you love? And what you have done in life that you want no one to ever know."

There were several couples in the car and each looked to the other. One man starting shaking and another laughed wickedly. A man in a black robe enters the car....



Someone write the next piece.

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/110793/orient_Full.jpg