fatvegan

Our train trip last night was the funnest. It was third class, which only had seats but wasn't actually that bad. But it means that people make friends with you because they think you must be hardcore. We were offered food and drink and lovely smelling face wipes all night long. We met a nice group of two girls and a fellow early on and they gave us a rather substantial dinner.

Throughout the night they gave us many lollies, pickled mango, face wipes, mandarins, cold water, sticky rice with beef and curried egg and sweet milky wafer biscuits. Libby suggested I date (with view to marrying) the pretty, young one but we all got tired and fell asleep before I could take her aside for a serious talk (the girl, not Libby).

We offered them some our suddenly embarassing snackables but they politely declined all of them except the orange drinking yoghurt. I'm not sure if they actually liked orange drinking yoghurt or if they simply felt that they refused us more times than was friendly. Having now drunk my first orange drinking yoghurt I'm going to have to assume they were just being gracious.

We also consumed rather a lot of our own snacks. Although Libby managed to scoff the finest treats while I was snoozing, including the remains of the roast almonds which she had so innocently suggested we save until later.

Amidst the feasting I started reading The Beautiful and the Damned by Fitzgerald. I suspect reading this book will be the single best thing I have ever done for my friendship with Libby.

Sleeping was a fairly awkward matter, me being rather too tall for the seats. I ended up following the lead of our friend and sleeping on the floor underneath the seats. He had troubles because his tummy was too large to slide under the seats. I had troubles because I was sufficiently tall that my feet or head would jut out into the next group's cabin. It was as dirty and claustrophobic as you fancy, but mercifully comfortable after sleeping on the seat. I discovered in the morning that the padding I had been using to save my hips was actually a small piece of beef Libby had dropped under the chair the previous night.

I was also worried that someone would tread on my during the night with so many bits sticking out from under the seats. Luckily we were sharing our area with a light-footed grandmother who hopped about without ever touching the ground. When, ready for a shiny new day, I woke up at 3am she offered me an apple. She proceeded to cut and peel it, segment by segment until I'd eaten half. When Libby woke up a little later, she got the other half. She was the best.