Saturday, July 05, 2008
Day 1 of West Coast Trip (Part B)
Uhm... Yeah... Wine tasting drinking. Yum... And that took up most of my afternoon. Who could possibly refuse to partake in tasting drinking two glasses of red wine and another two of white wine for five mere dollars? To top it all off, they threw in cheese and crackers!!! While in the Parlour car participating in the wine tasting, I sat across from a nice couple from Oregon. Kind of like hippies. But they were really nice and fun to talk with. Especially during wine tasting. I mean, drinking. There is absolutely nothing better than drinking wine with a has-been hippie couple while discussing politics. Lucky for all parties involved, we all bashed the conservative rights. We talked so much crap about the Republicans that some dude who was sitting next to us had to get up and leave. We didn't want to sit by Republicans anyway. ;-)
The wine tasting is interesting in the fact that the conductor selected specific wine from regions that the Coast Starlight passes through. Not only did we get to see the beautiful scenery of the California Coast, we also got to complement our visual sense of natural beauty with the taste of the land we saw. We started out with a glass of white from the Santa Barbara County, which was featured prominently in the movie Sideways. It is called the Taz Pnot Gris, bottled in 2006. For someone who generally doesn't like white wines, this was actually pretty good. Only because it carried strong hints of lemon, lime and other spices. The next one was the Estancia Pinot Noir from Pinnacles Ranches Monterey County. I didn't get a chance to hear the conductor slash wine enthusiast talk about the wine because I went back to my state room to check on my father who was taking a nap. But all I know is that it was bottled in 2006, and this type of wine is considered the "holy grail" of red wines, only because it is the hardest grape to grow. Although it carried a price tag of $25 per bottle, I didn't like how it had hints of cherry and flower.
Next up was the Greg Norman Petite Sirah from Paso Robles, again from California. No surprise here, considering the Coast Starlight only goes through three states: California, Oregon and Washington. And I don't suppose Oregon is exactly well-known for its wines. And I suspect that the second day of the journey will include wine from the state of Washington. Anyway, I have never liked any of the wines from Greg Norman the golfer's vineyard in the past, but I admit that this was one of the best Shiraz-type wines I've ever had. Maybe it's the grape, maybe it was the aromatic hints of blackberries that sweetened the wine. Nonetheless, it was good enough that I bought a whole bottle after wine tasting.
The final wine was a Riesling from Monterey County, called the Jekel Riesling bottled in 2006. I don't care if Riesling is the most popular white wine with phenomenal growing demand all over, I don't care so much for it. Riesling tastes too much like white grape juice with no alcohol, which often leads me into drinking too much of it too fast. And the inevitable would happen: getting smashed a good hour later. But this Riesling provided for the wine tasting was crappy anyway that I didn't bother to finish the glass. Instead, I opened the bottle of Greg Norman Petite Sirah instead. And fortunately, it was just in perfect timing as my dad woke up and joined me at the Parlour car, so I served him a glass. And I was able to pawn off the conversation with the hippies to my father while I go and take pictures.
Suddenly, all the good times had to come to an end. It was dinner time, and we had to go to the Diner car. With an opened bottle of wine in hand and a good buzz going on, we sat down salivating over the featured menu item: flat iron steak. I knew this meal would redeem Amtrak in my father's mind, considering after he disliked the turkey and gravy earlier in the day. And boy, was I right. The steak was good. The only issue I had was that my steak came out medium well when I had asked for medium. Our server promptly took care of the situation, although I secretly wished she would have left my half eaten steak on the table just so I have something to nibble on while I waited for another steak.
During dinner time, we went through Salinas, a city known as the agricultural capital of California. Any produce you see in your local grocery store, be it in Chicago, Kansas City, New York City or New Orleans, chances are you'll find at least five different vegetables that were produced at and shipped from Salinas, California. For miles and miles and miles, all we could see was acres upon acres of farm land with so many different kinds of vegetables. You name it, I probably can say I saw it. =)
Before long, nightfall came upon us. As the scenery began to dwindle into the dark, I decided to head to the lower level of the Parlour car to catch National Treasure on the big screen. I was thrilled to be in a tiny movie theatre in moving train. Half way through the movie, some kind came downstairs to exclaiming that we could see fireworks passing by. I tried to look, but it was futile, as the fireworks were mostly set off by individuals, and not quite exactly spectacular, especially when you see it once and within a second it disappears because the train was blowing by too fast. So I returned my concentration on the large forehead on Nicolas Cage's head and his expressionless large eyes of his. I honestly think he only has one expression, much like Tom Cruise. But nonetheless, the movie was still fun to watch.
With the movie nearly at its conclusion, we pulled into Emeryville, a station that serves Oakland and San Francisco. We could see tons of traffic along the road, as it was apparent that the big fireworks show must have just ended and everybody was trying to get out. Apparently the Emeryville station is in a nice part of town with many things to do, as the area was called the Jack London Square. Nice condos, lots of shopping, a variety of bars, and a hot singles scene. Too bad I'm old now. And furthermore, too bad I couldn't get off the train to have a pint.
After we caught the last three minutes of the movie, I retired to my stateroom, only to find out that I became a glorified secretary. My father wanted to me to transcribe a letter for him, and it took longer than his estimation of "just twenty minutes." When the transcribing was done, it was time to polish up the letter. But with my father's constant nagging and questioning whether or not I'm doing it right per his intentions, I grabbed the half full bottle of the Greg Norman Petite Sirah and headed out to the Parlour car.
When I got to the Parlour car, there was only a couple there finishing up their nightcaps. As I sat down with my drink, I let out a sigh of relief and relaxation, before I began tackling on my father's letter. An hour and a glass of wine later, I returned to the stateroom and gave my father the revised letter on my laptop. Before he even started reading it, he already began nagging me about my inability to write good business letters. I just ignored him, and soon enough, he realized that the letter was really good. I asked him what he thought, and he said, "Not bad." I asked again, saying "not bad is just that, not bad, but not good either; are you sure?" He chuckled and finally admitted that he really liked it. Of course, it was subject to fine tuning, because there were a few lost-in-translation moments, as I didn't quite understand his Chinese words.
Finally, I was able to go to bed. Tried as I may, I had to sleep through my dad's constant snoring. Funny how before we turned out the lights, my dad wanted to get a heads up from me to see how loud or often I snored. And I was the one who got woken up at two in the morning. Out of spite, I whipped out my Nokia N95 and recorded a good two minute audio clip of his wondrous sound of music.
You know, purely for the sake of archival or evidentiary purposes. =)
Labels: holiday, travel, vacation
Read or Post a Comment
<< Home