From Pittsburgh, PA to St Catharines, Ontario

So my week in Pittsburgh was fantastic and I greatly enjoyed staying with my friends Daniel and his wife, Joyce. Pittsburgh is such a character-full city, with most of its buildings - new and old - constructed with red brick. The Heinz factory lay nearby, and bridges stood over the merging of two great rivers. A wonderful city, and most importantly, wonderful company.

I always hope, when riding any type of vehicle (train, bus, airplane) that someone interesting would sit next to me so that the hours spent sitting can be spent entertained. Well, my train ride to Buffalo, NY where my friend Alicia awaited me, manifested this hope into reality but in a most extreme manner.

I sat next to an African-American man with corn-rolls, who was taking the train out to Chicago and then to Michigan to visit his 16 year-old son. But it wasn't him who turned the 2.5 hour ride to Cleveland interesting for me; it was a Chinese lady, probably in her late forties, who sat across the aisle from me. When everyone boarding from Pittsburgh settled down into their seats, she let out a huge "OH MAAANNNN" in a tone of complaint. I hadn't a clue what she was complaining about, exactly. She continued to sigh, and move about in her chair, talking to herself. Then she got up, and starting folding and refolding her blue blanket around herself, until it was wrapped around her to her utmost satisfaction. It was then I realized that this woman was probably mildly autistic.

Moments later she declared to the conductor walking past, that she needed to use the restroom. The conductor put a finger to his lips and explained where the toilets were located in the car. It took four more repetitions of directions to the toilet facilities before the woman started walking in the direction pointed by the rather frustrated conductor.

My interesting train ride physically began when the woman returned from using the restroom. She walked rather energetically up the aisle towards her seat... and then passed right by it. Opening the door to the next car, she slid through them and continued to walk. Few seconds later, she came back, looking confused. Staring at the numbers above the seats, and concluding that her seat did not exist in this car, she returned to the next car, only to return a few seconds later. When she went off to the next car again, I couldn't stand just watching anymore, so I pulled off my iPod and my alpaca sweater onto my seat and ran - yes, I had to run as she was now running down the aisle - to guide the woman back to her seat.

"Ma'am, are you looking for your seat?"
"Wha...?"
"Are you looking for your seat," I repeated, a little bit louder. She nodded. I gestured to her to follow me.

When we returned to the original car, I pointed to her seat and her blanket, and told her that that was her seat. However, she remained looking confused, and after a few seconds of pondering she shook her head. "This isn't my seat. My seat is number 53. This isn't my seat. 53. Number 53."
"But that's where you were sitting, that's your blanket, right?"
"Yeah, that's my blanket. No, I'm sitting in number 53 with the same colored blanket. Next to a fat white chick. I remember because I felt squished against my window. You have to help me. I have to get back to my seat. It's number 53. This isn't my seat.." and it went on.

It took a good 15 minutes to convince the lady that the seat she was looking at, with the blue blanket, was indeed her seat. I even conceded to take her to seat 53, which was occupied by an elderly couple who was fast asleep. "See, this isn't your seat." Pulling her by the arm towards where I had seen her when I first got on the train, I pointed again and told her, "That's your seat."

When she finally sat down and I was able to convince her that it was now time to sleep because everyone else in the car was also sleeping, it had be an entire hour into the train ride. It was nearly 1 in the morning and I was getting drowsy. The woman kept trying to have conversations with those sitting behind her, telling them she could 'help them' - in what way, I wasn't entirely sure - and I kept putting my finger to my mouth, encouraging her to keep her volume down, and telling her, "Not now. Later." Furthermore, she kept insisting that the Chinese youth sitting behind me was my brother, that everyone in the car were "my people" and that they knew me, and that I looked like her younger sister who apparently only cared about her 'faith'. Whatever she thought after my appeasements I don't know, but she finally did stop talking and started gathering her blanket, with which she attempted to hit my legs. When I just smiled, she took her blanket and started wrapping herself with it.

I closed my eyes and was starting to drift off into my dreams when a "Oh god!! Oh no!" woke me up and startled me out of my seat. I looked to my right, and surely enough, there was the Chinese woman again, looking confused and worried and fluttered. What now?? I thought.

"I've lost my bag. It was up there (pointing to the overhead storage space), a black bag. You have to help me find it. I'm sitting at seat 53. This isn't my seat.." and the whole ordeal had started all over again. What concerned me most was not that her obsession with seat 53 was up and running again, but that, according to her, her passport was packed into the lost black bag. Thinking that the best idea would be to speak to the conductor about it so they can search for it rather than herself, I told her, "We'll find it. But not now."
"NOo, but I need that bag now. My earphones are inside it and I need them. My passport is in it. Shit. I need to find my bag."
"Nooo, you are not walking around, we'll find the bag, don't worry," I said.

In a few moments the conductors came walking down the aisle. I stopped one of them and explained the situation. The conductor then told me something I didn't even think about: "At the station she got on from, she had been tested for alcohol and they found that she was drunk."

Drunk? I could no longer figure out whether the woman was mildly autistic for plainly drunk and unemployed and nuts. The good news was, upon hearing of the entire ordeal, the conductor decided that he would keep a careful eye on her in case she caused any more problems. When I got off at 3am in Cleveland, OH, the woman was no longer in our car but was relocated to some other car. Thank god!!