The term “sleeper train” is misleading. Not (just) because your bed consists of a foam pad inside a steel cage with a shower curtain to block you and the flourescent hallway, but because half of the passengers are partying in the bar. I enter the chrome doorway warily, expecting to find a few insomniacs smoking cigarettes, but am immediately swept into a mariachi line. It’s a freakin’ fiesta, complete with Latin music, lights, and a disco ball. I dance a poor imitation of the cha-cha with a drag queen, somehow managing to find space in the aisle, and tango with a (perfume free) man at least twice my age. He’s from my home country, and since Poles should stick together I hang out with him and his group.
For the first time since Chicago, people are taller than me. Everyone except the Thai drag queen and my fellow UWSP students are from Europe, returning from their yearly vacation. It’s liberating to be able to dance again. The music quickly changes to European drinking ballads, and a round of chanting pursues. It’s a fun spectacle to watch, but my grandmother quickly gave up trying to teach my cousins and I our heritage- one of my greatest regrets, incidentally- and I can’t join in. I haven’t been into alcohol since I was twelve, so I quickly return to my steel cage. It’s not too bad, actually. In fact, it’s cozier than Ying Ping...
For the first time since Chicago, people are taller than me. Everyone except the Thai drag queen and my fellow UWSP students are from Europe, returning from their yearly vacation. It’s liberating to be able to dance again. The music quickly changes to European drinking ballads, and a round of chanting pursues. It’s a fun spectacle to watch, but my grandmother quickly gave up trying to teach my cousins and I our heritage- one of my greatest regrets, incidentally- and I can’t join in. I haven’t been into alcohol since I was twelve, so I quickly return to my steel cage. It’s not too bad, actually. In fact, it’s cozier than Ying Ping...
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