Life Food on a Train
Took the train to Olympia this weekend. The train is a beautiful way to travel—the way the lakes and cargo containers and small towns open up and slide by; the way you can maneuver, do work on your laptop, lay back and read, play Scrabble, do cartwheels through the cars, meet people. Passing through Tacoma afforded everyone an awesome view of the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge going up. It’s a second bridge placed right next to the first one. Its caissons, towers, cables, and anchorage are all in place; all that’s missing is the deck, the part of the bridge that cars will drive on. It’s beautiful right now, with the cables that will one day hold up the deck just dangling in the wind. Here’s a webcam from the center tower of the bridge, so you can see what I mean.
But travel on the trains of the Northwest was frustrating this weekend. On Friday, owing to a derailing near Tacoma, all the trains were hours late, and we were down to sharing one track with freight trains and other passenger trains traveling in both directions. Lots of not-going-anywhere. Eventually I got so hungry that I decided I wasn’t going to wait until Olympia to eat and ventured back to the “bistro” car. Clever name. In the bistro car I ordered a chicken sandwich with mozarella and sundried tomatoes. Sounds delicious, right? Most disgusting thing I’ve held in my hand in days. First of all, they gave it to me microwaved to a wet, blubbery cloud (I didn’t ask for it to be microwaved). Then I bit into it. What was inside smelled like chicken, but it had been processed to the point of abstraction. It was gray and glistening. Mmm. Meat-approximating chemicals!
I threw it away.
Hours later, in downtown Olympia, I had a dee-licious slice of olive and mushroom pizza at Old School Pizzeria (108 Franklin St NE). It was absolutely worth the wait.
I miss Old School so much! I'm from Oly, and olive & mushroom from there has always been my absolute favorite. When I moved up here six years ago, I thought that Piecorra's was going to compare, but alas, it does not. What were you doing down south?