11/10

There's just too much to say about today. See, I didn't sleep, so today really starts yesterday. Savannah met a guy named Mike, and we joined him and some other friends he had made on the train for card games and music making. There were about ten of us, total, and we all came in pairs - Savannah and I, of course - Mike and Tzil met in a bus stop a few states back and happened to wind up this train together - Sky and Laura were the cutest little organic couple, traveling from somewhere in the midwest to work on Sky's dad's little organic farm - Brittnay and TG knew eachother from grade school, and had been sitting, talking for hours before recognizing that they knew each other - and Melody didn't need anyone but her crazy-beautiful self!

Well, the whole group of us got off the train in San Antonio, and trapsed around for a bit. We found an overpass with colored lights that illuminated the dark tunnel green then blue then red... I wonder how the city agreed to fund this. I'm presuming there were a lot of murders or drug deals or rapes going on under this overpass and the board-of-whatever said "Well, what kind of person could rape somebody uder disco lights?"

We all walked right through the VIP section of a Third Eye Blind concert without realizing it, gwaked at the Hard Rock Cafe and it's weird collection of useless trinquets form the almost famous, danced outside a club (because they would't let my bare feet inside), ate some beans, and said our goodbyes. Four of us got on the front of the train and the others got on the back part which was to be detached and sent in another direciton.

Of all these wonderful people, the only folks to be getting off the train in NOLA were Tzil and Mike.

The back story of Tzil will astonish you. Tzil is a round, jovial, loud spitfire of a girl with curly hair and an accent that sounds more Brooklyn than Jerusalem. This incredible female has been traveling around these united states for six months, but home is Israel. Back in Israel, she was in the military and her job was to just watch over a particular section of fence. She would stare at four monitors at a time for something like fourteeen hours a day and if she saw any activity, she would call "the killers." Yep. That's literally what they were called. She saw a man get his legs shot off, she had a friend who saw a man get shot in te head... yeah, that's why she's on this trip. There is nothing that's further from her old life.

Then there was Mike. Check this out: his job was called "outdoor education," so he would just travel around the country, take groups of kids out into the forest and go hiking or to the ocean and go surfing or to the river and go, I don't know, kyaking! How amazing!? He's basically like a camp counselor, but he's the camp. He'd been traveling for three years, and when the company he works for calls him, he goes wherever, all around the country.

Everyoe went to sleep and I found an "empty car" to play music in. I walked across the car to grab some donut holes I had left in there earlier and I found Mike sleeping under some seats! Haha!

We ended up not sleeping but just talking the whole night. Aparently he hadn't even paid for a train ticket! Also, he invited me and Savanah to have Thanksgiving with him... in New York! Ha, life is grand. As the sun came up, our clan, though much smaller now, reformed and we played cards and ate home-made corn bread and tasajilla jelly as we rolled into NOLA. Well, aonther goodbye and an exchage of phone nubers and we headed for Dallas's (he's the friend my cousin, Lynzie, found for us to stay with). We ate some soul food and passed out.

P.S. Ruthie better be damned appreciative of her souviner, because not only is it stolen property, but it weighs a freaking ton!