Please let me be AC! Please let me be AC!

On Monday at about 1 pm, I arrive to the Calcutta train station.  I haul my GIANT (I need to send stuff home!) suitcase out of the car and chill on the platform until my train to Chennai, India arrives.  I was told that some parts of the train have AC, others don't.  In fond memory of a joke with Kat, Megs, Kels, and Tosh.0,  I kept chanting to myself, 'please let me be AC, please let me be AC!"  I knew that my train to Chennai arrived sometime the next day, and that I would then board another train, only to arrive yet again, the following day; thus, summing up to a 2 day train journey.  Train arrives, I find my section and board….thank you ATI I've got AC!!!  So my suitcase is the size of a small teenager, so fitting it under the seat was out of the question…crap.  You walk into the train, turn left into the car… ok on the left side are bunk beds (attached to the wall) going parallel to the wall of the train.  On the right there are sections of two sets of 3 tiered bunk beds going perpendicular to the walls.  I am sitting with four lovely Muslim women who offered me a banana.  The husband of one of them is also sitting in the section.  They spoke Tamil, a language of southern India.  Communication for the next 25 hours involved a lot of pointing, charades, and smiling and nodding.  At bedtime we pull the beds out from the wall, and my 5 companions all maxing out at 5 ft snuggle up into their bunks.  Alright, again lets review that in India, I need "big size," simply based  on the fact that Im pushing six feet with an athletic build (plus some extra love), and sasquatch size feet.  So when I climb up onto my third tier that is only 2.5 feet from the ceiling, not only can I not sit up (which makes drinking water quite hilarious because I crick my neck to the side and drink sideways…typically not yielding success), but my feet hang off the end of the bed…which would have been ok had I not been the first bunk to the right of the car door, so when it was opened it would knock my feet.  OH WAIT! I bet you forgot what happened to my small teenager suitcase!  MUAHAHA whelp, that was handily shoved up in my bunk for my personal company.  I did what I could to push it sideways so that I could get at least 3 feet of room to lean against it or curl up in a fetal position next to it.  Nothing listening to a little ABBA couldn't fix!  I actually did sleep a bit out of pure exhaustion; however, I did feel like the un-oiled tin man when I awoke (in addition the the other 15 times in the night) the next morning to the vendor dudes walking up and down the aisles going "CHAI! CHAIIII"…"COFFFFEEEEE", "BIRIYANI" "CUTLET, CUTLET, VEGGIE CUTLET"….yes thats real.  I pretty much fell out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. (which by the way is a simple hole in the floor, so you can watch the train tracks pass by as you cross India). 
    Funny story--I have three silly bands on my wrists: a stretched out camel (my very first from Sarah! :-), a hand peace sign, and a dragonfly.  At one point one of the Muslim women pointed to my wrist decorated in these fun-filled bracelets with an inquisitive look.  I proceed to pull them off and set them out to display their shapes.  All the women watched in awe.  I decided, that since I've brought like 5 bags of silly bands, to whip one out so they could see more shapes.  They spent like a half hour separating and identifying 10 silly bands on the small table in our section, all discussing which animal was which and asking how to say it in English.  There are now 4 women-- clad in saris and the black Muslim over-coat thing with a head cover--- all wearing silly bands somewhere in Chennai, India.  I love it.
    Lets move this along.  I get to Chennai and end up talking to a Pastor, two inquisitive children, and a Portuguese girl who had all but one of her bags stolen.  After about three hours I get to board the next train (this is 8 pm Tuesday now) where I am sitting with people who are perfectly fine with me leaving my bag on the floor, which turns out to be fine since I got the bottom bunk this time (MUCH better sleep!) Before I knew it it was morning…I finished my book The Namesake (I highly recommend).  This seemed very appropriate since that had many a reference to Calcutta and as I finish the book the train pulled into the Kannur train station.  I gather my backpack, purse, and small teenager, and stagger thru the tiny aisle--tousled/borderline dreaded hair, eyes swollen with sleep and dehydration, mangled muscles and all-- ahhhhhh, out into the fresh, tropical, Kerala air.  I'm instantly greeted by 4 smiling faces asking, "Summer?"