We had to wait an hour on the platform for our train. It was cold, but I was too miserable to do anything but hunker down where I was and stick it out.
I haven't really written much about the group on this trip yet, but they proved to be not only smart and interesting and funny, wonderful companions at the dinner table or on a hike, but also incredibly kind people. Our tour managers and guides took excellent care of me of course -- giving me cold medicine and hot coffee and helping with the heavy camera equipment I was lugging around -- but so did my fellow travelers. I got tea and cough drops and extra jackets to throw over my lap to keep out the chill.
I don't know what I would have done on that interminable train ride if not for them. Not least because halfway through the ride Mark and Eileen insisted I take some of their Dayquil. I had resisted up to that point; getting by on sudafed and will power, but by then I thought, "Why not? I can't feel any worse."
And within half an hour I felt so much better I was kicking myself for not having taken it sooner. I still had a cold, a bad cold, but I no longer felt that death was imminent, and would possibly be a change for the better. Eileen then walked me to the dining car and insisted I eat, and after a sandwich and tea I felt better still. Food and medicine -- who knew?
So let me say thank you again to everyone on this trip, and especially Mark and Eileen. Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging.
