Train or refrain (Winter Aurora)?

People always complain when I come back from Alaska, bragging about how great it is and how it’s like Europe without overt racism- it’s more discrete in AK because it’s the USA and people need that money so they check themselves in AK. 🤣 I’m partially kidding there because my peeps I link up with are European descendants there, and they certainly aren’t racists, but a LOT of “minorities” are realizing this and they are FLOODING Alaska left and right, especially women of color, because it’s a like permanent vacation that is interrupted with your work/business daily, but the minute you stop working, it’s gorgeous outside all year around! The products they consume are also way too expensive because it all has to be flown into the state! That’s the main deterrent to keeping the population from exploding there, and it’s not the winter weather that is top concern anymore. Alaska’s cost of living will place it in the 20s, of all cities in the USA. This is why PUTIN WANTS ALASKA BACK AND WILL ANNEX ALASKA NEXT watch! He knows that Russia made a huge mistake in selling it to the USA and Putin wants it investigated so he can steal Alaska back from the USA. Since the Pandemic I’ve been promoting Alaska, and getting insulted online by ignorant idiots for trying to let people know how great Alaska is, and it shows how ignorant those other people are because Anchorage is now on the radar for being one of the most expensive places to live because it’s a hot spot! Me, I don’t want to fly all the way to Europe to have Winter fun, but being in the east of USA, we can’t guarantee that we’ll even get snow from Winter to Winter, so I go to Alaska to get my Winter fun on. Alaska will have all the amazing elements without having to be a European or Canadian, right in our own backyards! There is so much to do out there. This time, I went to Fairbanks, Alaska, where -30ºF/-34ºC weather is common and local people work in that weather like it’s summertime, as is they’re not affected by cold at all, and I absolutely loved the experience. What I was told to do, by locals, was hop on the Alaska Railroad train out of Fairbanks, heading into Anchorage, because that would be an amazing ride that I simply must do if I ever made it up that far into Alaska. I’ve used the Alaska Railroad train before to get around, and it’s a very smart thing to do if you are going large distances in Alaska and don’t wish to deal with the traffic under crazy, icy conditions, and given the distance, and terrain between Anchorage and Fairbanks, people either fly (how I entered Fairbanks), or take the train (how I exited Fairbanks). The train was a better option anyway, because if I used the train, then I’d not have to pay $30 dollars to check a bag, and then an additional $100 because my bags were over 50lbs / 33kg. I technically had 2 bags over this weight and if I didn’t take the train, the plane would have robbed me out of $260 just to get back to Anchorage for bags alone! No way. Train it was! This train was different, and apparently, the train ride is marketed by the Alaska Railroad in a different way, to attract visitors to want to travel between Anchorage and Fairbanks in either direction, and I only recently realized why people take 1 train in each direction, mainly starting from Anchorage and returning later via train back to Anchorage. I’ll share in a second why that is. This train is called the “Winter Aurora Train” and it’s only running this course during the winter time, in Alaska. It’s running over the regular train lines, but the makeup of the cars, the ambiance and food are ramped up for this train ride. The route it takes is the graphic at the header of this piece’s start. Everywhere I went, in Alaska, I heard someone referring to this train, people had desires to get on this train although they were already on the train, technically, because they were physically on the train with me when we were going southward to Seward, Alaska, which is accessible by the Alaska Railroad train. That Winter Aurora train, however, is technically on the same tracks, but does not go further south than Anchorage, so everyone I originally heard about the train from, who were on the train to Prince William Sound 2 years ago, was saying it’s a completely different look because you’d be going through the mountainous ranges going north in Alaska, which looked very different from going south in Alaska. I completely forgot about it until it was mentioned that I could get on a tour and not get shut out of an opportunity to get on that Winter Aurora train. I was told that I better book in advance, and I did, because I mainly heard about the Winter Aurora train from people who were pissed that they couldn’t get on that Winter Aurora train when they tried to book, and many people tried to do this several years in a row. That’s the big thing about it, you will find it’s sold out if you try to book in the same month it’s running, because it’s not running every day and there is only 1 in each direction when it’s running. You should plan to book this 3 months in advance, at the very least. It’s a train, so there is limited space, but many other people have caught on to this and know now that this train is considered a “must do” event. People come from all around the world to ride that Winter Aurora train, much like they do the FLAM that I got on in Norway.  I can tell you, it’s not even close to Norway’s Flam, or at least the views in Winter, because everything is covered in snow, but it is still pretty, nonetheless. I can confirm that 90% of that train was packed with people from all over the world, mainly from all over Asia. While it’s considered a “must do” event, should YOU consider it that and therefore get on this train? For me, it was a “must do”, fear of missing out kind of event, in the back on the brain, but I was primarily on it because I didn’t want to waste money getting all my gear and things I bought, back to Anchorage and having to pay that money for it. So, I was able to kill many birds with one stone. I was online watching video of the train ride and I didn’t really see anything that different from what I was seeing going south, in the start of Spring, when I went once to Anchorage and took the train.

The day that the train is scheduled to leave, you have to be at the train station at the latest 8 am for the 8:30 departure but should plan to be there 1 hour before. Other people who were on that train must have been thinking like I was thinking, so they had way too many heavy bags and wanted to save money by taking that train. The train has airline type bag limits, but they don’t weigh anything, and that’s all that matters. You can take the other bags as carry on. That being said, the station is really tiny and there are too many people with too many bags all over the place, it’s chaos to start, so that’s going to complicate the ticket obtaining, which you will need to do to go to the booth to get your boarding – it’s not digital, it’s throwback to old school still. Too many people are going to still be standing on line at the ticket booth, getting their tickets, right up until the train is ready to leave, and such was the case for when I arrived, LATE. I arrived at 8:15 and just got my ticket, threw my huge bag to the luggage guys, who side eyed me when they felt how heavy the bag was. I tipped the guy, and he didn’t say anything. 🤣 So, I just made it to get on the train, and was so happy to not get left behind, because that was the only train of that day! The seats are preassigned, so you don’t have to worry about someone taking your seat. Also, that train, it’s going from Fairbanks to Anchorage, but it takes a full 12 hours to get from station to station, including the stops in between. Yep, that train won’t arrive in Anchorage until 8:30PM. Dude, that’s 12 hours! People boarded the train and didn’t know that it would take them 12 hours. I hear many people asking the train workers how long the total ride was and freaked out when told how long. I didn’t even sleep the night before, was drinking all early morning with some truckers, after coming back from doing some failed aurora hunting. Luckily, the hotel called me to wake me up and realized an error that one of their lazy, hateful clerks set up the early morning hours prior. When I came in from drinking, I checked with a lazy hotel clerk to see if they scheduled my ride to the train terminal, and she told me that no one had scheduled that because she didn’t see it. I scheduled it, prior, and did again with her, and she didn’t want to write it down telling me their first rides are 9am. Fk out of here, I know my rights as a hotel guest and it’s when I say so as long as I scheduled, and they agreed. Note to Black and Latino travelers, the pacific islander and indigenous Alaskans (as this lazy lady was) tend to not be so friendly to us, but they’re more than quiet when European descendants are present. I was told this by several locals already, and I experienced their hate 4 times on this 1 trip. One was basically accusing me of stealing his phone, on a tour I took, when I got in the van AFTER he and everyone else on the tour were already in the car. A lady gave the phone to her husband because she thought it was HIS because it was charging but was at their feet behind the driver’s seat. Very embarrassing to me, and that bum didn’t even apologize. I gave him a “1” rating on TripAdvisor. This poor attitude included them in restaurants. One asked an attendant to fill up my water bottle, and when she finally brought it back to me, 10 minutes later, it smelled like toilet water, no lie. I threw the water bottle out. I watched this quite a few times, including with this clerk, who was getting destroyed by a Karen before I came to the desk and she was not sassy with them at all, she was attentive and slave-like, but with me, started to put that sass nonsense act on, being rude and non-responsive to my simple request to book the ride. When I did have a bad tour, this was part of the pattern, and it all finally made sense now, they just don’t like us. Damn. So, if you face this, you should book an uber in advance, just know there aren’t many drivers sometimes, so do it 24 hours before. That almost screwed me up and I would not be able to leave that place, except for plane and then would have nullified the whole point of taking the train in the first place. That was malicious.

I can say that after you get on the train, you have about another hour+ of darkness, because the sun isn’t up until just after 10am, so you can probably just sleep like everyone else did at that start. There is nothing to see there anyway, at the start and you can’t so it anyway, so just knock out. Things don’t’ start to come into the light until maybe hour 3 of the trip, just before the time for lunches are announced, which means, you should be sharp with your attention to detail, out the windows as you approach 11am, as the light is there and that’s when the landscape started to pop, although there was a mix of clouds and clear skies in some parts. If you have a seat that is not the window, hopefully, that train will have some free spots and you can move around the train to a space that is free. The inability to do this, it may put a hamper on some of your efforts to take photos, because the windows’ placement, in relation to the bright lights on the inside of the train, that’s going to mess up most of your pictures and videos. They don’t turn off the lights at all, on the train, at any time. You’re going to always see the light reflections in the windows and will need to get clever to put some objects above your camera to block it and press your camera lens gently against the glass, to eliminate space so you won’t see so much reflection. If lucky, you will be able to find a free seat that someone has not figured out is the magic seat, the seat that you can sit in that has a window separation space that allows you to get your lens at a good angle while cutting off the reflection because there is no more window width due to that separation space between the windows. Once people spotted me going to that space, they started to see that it was a good place, and then my secret was blown. Hopefully you have friendly people on your train and people who want to move around and go to other seat areas that aren’t occupied, to get pictures – more on the crowds in a minute. The timing of you dining with the railroad needs to be considered because as the land opens up and the light becomes available, that’s dining is going to be scheduled for you, with the train worker who takes your order and organizes you into one of the slots for eating lunch/dinner. The first two eating slots occur when the best scenery is there, and you may be placed with people who are not with your party, especially if you go alone. You may end up not sitting next to the Windows, so you will miss the scenery. Why? Because unlike the other trains you take, on his train, there is a dedicated dining cart that you have to go to, specifically where you only to eat this food. You cannot take this food your seat because there are no tables at your seat you paid for, the only tables are in the dining car. By the time the last eating slot is available, you have a space where you’re crossing the big bridge you may see in pictures of the train, on the Internet. If you don’t have a window seat, you’re going to miss this! So, keep your eyes on the windows as you go from train to train to make it to the dining train. You have to do this quite a bit if you want things like water, even, and I missed some good scenery because I didn’t take my camera. Speaking of dining on the train. The Winter Aurora train is NOTHING LIKE the regular trains you take, when it comes to food. I had a nasty corn dog the last time I was on the regular train, but I was so hungry that I had to eat it, and I could eat it at my seat where the was a table, then. The Winter Aurora train has a decent selection of good, and it was restaurant quality good, I’m serious. I was blown away after realizing it wasn’t just frankfurters like you get on boats and other trains by Alaska Railroad. Nah man, I had a great chicken sandwich and an amazing smoke salmon soup, and you’d not know it wasn’t from a restaurant chain if it weren’t served on a train. Really impressive. People were hanging around for a long-time dining, but I got out of there quickly because there was this SIMP dude who wanted to talk to me, because I was stuck with them at the table, but his girlfriend wouldn’t let him. More on people watching aspect of this later, because it was hella interesting.

I took my action came to record a little of the crossing of the bridge, but I got out of there as soon as I finished that food- which was delayed because the whole part between Fairbanks and Denali is spotty with cell coverage and that includes the payment card system not being able to contact its centers. So, you’re waiting forever to get your bill because there is no signal for miles! You have to wait for all the people before you to get their bills resolved and then get yours out the way, so that’s going to delay you getting back to your seat to see the last bit of scenery before all the light is gone, and it’s going to be leaving 1 hours after you’re done eating! You cannot avoid this jam-up with payment cards because they don’t accept cash on the train! You must have a form of payment with the mobile phone’s tap or a physical credit care if you want to purchase from the train. That’s another gotcha that you better know before you go on that train. As the afternoon went on, around 4pm, the darkness was upon us, and you couldn’t see anything worth looking at, from this point on, plus the reflection of light inside the car, you can stop filming or taking pictures of anything from this point on. I saw all the people lining up to the Windows though, looking for something. Finally, someone asked me “when will see the aurora?” and asked if I saw it yet. I thought they meant in my whole time in Fairbanks, but they meant while on the train, did I see an aurora yet. I looked puzzled and they pointed to the advertisement as it was named “the Aurora Winter Train” so they expect to see the aurora.  If that’s you, you’ve been duped! That would be cool though, to see it from the train! You won’t see the aurora, it’s too early to see the aurora, and while, technically, it could strike whenever, it was not midnight type of darkness, that’s why most people go to see the aurora at abound 10pm to 2am. That’s a little bit of false advertisement, but they never claim that you’re going to see an aurora, anywhere on the site, it’s just in the name of the train trip. Why was that funny? Because there was this guy going stupid, a few seats behind me, complaining “then what the fk am I going to do for the next 4 and a half hours?! My phone’s dead, the charger is dead, wtf!?!!” It was so loud and angry that it made it very funny to hear.  I told you that people didn’t know that train ride was 12 hours long, so they didn’t prepare for this, and many people ran out of phone power. The phones were likely drained when we were in that section without cell phone signal, and your phones will search aggressively for signal, which drains the battery faster. People try to tell me this is not true, and they’re wrong, it’s happened to me too many times for it not to be true, especially when out hiking like I did in Norway. Same thing happened to me in Fairbanks, because when you go to north Fairbanks, the cell is really spotty. I couldn’t get GPS positioning to mark where I was, so I could return when I found a great location. I had no cell when I was doing the aurora photography I was trying to get done, and I forgot to charge that day. Still, I had multiple battery chargers, and on that train, I drained BOTH! Many people didn’t have their portable chargers. The train isn’t equipped with wall chargers are your seats, you should know this. And what exactly are you going to do for 12 hours? I’m a pro at doing 18hours or less by now, I do it all the time across time zones, but if you have come from overseas and you just finished doing 18 hours on a flight, it’s easy to do but do you have anything to keep you busy? This is why most of my train car had cameras with him, and we would make the most of this time. I was coordinating with people on where we could get the best shots without light reflection.

We were swapping seats and piling up in the same seat getting shots out the special window, and we were bonding over being taking photos. If you end up with a car like I did, with talkative people who are social and friendly, then you will not notice that you are on a train that is running for 12 hours. We bonded early, we were being very helpful and respectful, and time flew by really quickly, especially after lunch. We had the only train that didn’t have 95% Asian people on it. It was funny to see because we were the last car, where most of the train workers were hanging out, and the other cars, up to the point of the dining car, was filled the max with Asians from overseas. They had booked the trains in big parties, and that’s why people can’t find seating when the try too late to get a seat on the aurora train. Those trains were packed in every seat and when I went through them, I didn’t see a lot of people taking pics, aside from the people who were seated at the window, who were using cell phones mostly. They had no room to operate, and were mostly sedentary, and didn’t speak to other parties, very anti social and socially inept in those other cars. It like when I want to eat, I was forced to share a table with a couple and that guy wanted to talk about my cameras, ask where I was from and his girlfriend, who looked really disgusting (I had my mask on while eating, she looked nasty with snot dripping, her bottom eyelids were red, just disease looking) she stopped this guy from asking questions. She didn’t want him to talk to me, she said something in their Asian language to him, but I saw her kick his leg under the table to stop talking. Folks were very anti-social if they weren’t from America, and he and that lady were not from America, they were from Asia but one was given a job in America, so he worked in Atlanta, so he moved to America, last year. He was trying to be social; she was NOT. So, he shut down and put his head down like a kid, it was sad to see this. But this ant-social socially inept behavior was in all of the trains except for the last train, the American train we ended up calling it. Other travelers, including the European descendant families and solo travelers, said they tried to be nice, but those other folks weren’t having it, and they did speak English, so it wasn’t a language barrier. When one of the Americans first spoke to me, so said “well god, I’m happy that someone else actually wants to converse like normal people!” She led with this, and I didn’t know what she was really getting at until I experienced it. Glad that type of attitude didn’t consume the American train because time flew by very fast and I got to know many of the people, and we exchanged contact information, one guy I’m going to do business with this year. This happened on other tours too, that were packed with socially inept folks, and they don’t understand that American will attempt to engage unknown people, to break barriers and become friendly. These other folks just sit in a corner and don’t interact while everyone else interacts and has fun. Weirdo shlt for real.

The American train was not without its weirdos either though. There was this one guy who annoying multiple families on the train, and he sat 2 seats behind and across the aisle from me. He was a solo traveler and something about annoying, pretentious vibe was not vibrating with me on the right frequency, so I avoided him the whole ride. I could see him in the reflection on the windows, staring at me all day. I took my knife out of my bag, secretly (another reason I used the train) and attached it, concealing it with my shirt. He was busy trying to look into what I was doing, a lot, and especially when one of these ladies started flirting/talking with me more. He was also creepily interacting with an 18-year-old girl from one of the families, and I thought he was making a move but then was part of the family- European descendant from west Virginia business so I tuned out. I thought he was family to the other European descendants because he was talking with them, but he was so annoying, trying to get their attention, that the started joking with him and insulting him really bad. It was funny, very funny, but not if you don’t really know that guy like that. That’s when I took the hawk out and equipped it, in case he got stupid. I also think that’s why the train people, especially that conductor, were hanging in the back looking closely too, for some of the outbursts and comments he made earlier. He was eyeing BOTH me and that guy, since we were the only American solo travelers. When I realized this guy was a bum, I made sure not to stand near him when he was interacting with anyone or when he was talking. I put my headphones on so he wouldn’t talk to me either, I wanted everyone to know that guy was not with me. I avoided him like the plague. Really low vibrational energy from that guy. I could see he was hating on that lady coming to me for tips on photography, as the light started to get less and less. First, I had a sweet spot window that I found, but nobody wanted to sit there because the window was completely frosted over, with ice on the inside of the window of the train. I used body heat to make a small area where the lens could go, and I used that hole to block the light reflecting from inside of the train since the ice was still all over the windows except for the little hole I carved out for the lenses to go. That’s how I got some of the better shots off. I taught that lady about what I did, and she was using it a lot, looking out the window in front of that window, to cue herself for the burst shooting to get her photos. She was very happy with that. She showed another person and another person.  Then someone did the same thing on the other side of the train’s identical window. Then I left to go eat, so too did one of the families. The lady came to get some drinks and we conversed more, and she was telling me about that weirdo solo traveler European descendant weirdo. That’s when I learned he was NOT with any of them, and the other party joked “we thought he was with you?” That’s the European descendant version of “yo, who’s mans is this???!!” 🤣 It was really funny, and when we all returned, I was trailing them so I came in after they came back to their seats, they immediately started dissing him again, like “everything still all there, check your bags” but he was the only person from that area of the American train, who didn’t eat the late lunch so he was the only person they could be talking about. He looked at me, like they were talking to me. 🤦🏾 I could see his reflecting pretending like he is inspecting my seat from the back joking like they were talking to me.

Many seats were empty in the back because a family booked up multiple seats to take the train half of the trip, and we picked them up at what they call a “FLAG STOP” where you have some signaling material at a certain location and you flag down the train, so they stop and pick you up. They were standing next to where there was some kind of big, brightly colored cloth hung up to signal the stop, so they were waiting there with all their gear, ready to get on the train. One of those flag stops was interesting. Some lady came on board, and this loser solo traveler guy went to work again. When the train informed us a special guest would get on the train, and would sell some books, your crazy boy went to work. He belted out “wtf is she here for and why do we have to stop to let her on the train to sell books, then get off?” He was talking about a lady who had an interesting story, who worked out a deal with the railroad, apparently, and everyone was excited to meet her, in the American train. This guy, because he didn’t know who she was, he tore her town with joke insults just before she got on (e.g., “is she buying a ticket, I know I had to pay so she should too,” “hey, can I come back and do a junk sale on the train?” “She’s out here selling bootleg books?”) and it was highly rude, but that last statement he was going in on her saying she ripped off existing children’s books, as he looked at some of the titles. That’s European descendant people business, but I still felt ashamed that he was near me so I walked away to let them know that guy was NOT with me because one of the train conductors was a little spicy with me until he realized I was NOT with that guy and then he complained to me about that guy like “what is that guy’s deal, do you know him?” I immediately said, “HELL NO!” That guest was illustrator Shannon Cartwright who is known for kids books that apparently all of those moms on the train knew. I remembered her name from last year’s trip to Talkeetna, and all the parents on a trip, streamed out of the Denali brewpub (where we were eating) and went immediately into the gallery across the street to buy her books, in a frenzy, before the tour was ready to resume. The same thing like on the train, people lined up and almost bought out everything she was offering. Because I’m a people person, I bought a book about her life, while parents bought some of her kid’s books! She’s got bangers for any parents reading who need books for the kids – I read the book I bought and gifted it to a buddy’s kid. Watch out for her dog though, it will bite you, no matter who you are. It growled at everyone, no bias 🤣, she had to put it in a headlock a few times. When she got off, and the flag stop family got off, a lot of the back seats opened up, so the American families moved further back to limit talking to this creep, to spread out. The lady I had been chatting up came and sat with me, and we were going through some photos and how to fix them, so I was showing her how to get the light reflections out with photoshop. We kept talking here, enjoying the rest of the ride, because it was getting too dark by that point, and everyone put the cameras away. Note, if you get on a train like this, you better have a lens that can shoot at f2.8 and bigger (e.g., 1.8, 2.0) because when the light starts to disappear, you can’t keep up with the scenery outside and get bright and clear images. Your images will blur if you don’t know how to use manual settings, as well. So, people were gathering around trying to shoot with the biggest aperture they could set, and the fastest shutter speed, without there being too much noise from high ISOs that the camera automatically was setting. They didn’t have the right lenses for the job, so they gave up. The whole time we did this, the hater guy was looking over, because he was the only American without a DSLR, he was using his iPhone and wasn’t even taking pictures until he felt the social pressure to do so because the rest of us were involved in clicking. Also, this is when people also realized that the secret spot where I carved up the hold in the iced-over window was completely melted and cleaned. The weirdo European descendant solo traveler took it upon himself to scrape away all of the ice, on both windows, himself, while we were all away in the front cars eating, and he was back there by himself in our section. 🤦🏾 When we came back to our car, he TOLD us he did it with clearing the ice and complained that whatever “people” thought they were clearing the ice was not effective (talking about me)– to which the lady with me said, “Well it was working fine until you intervened, thank you. It blocked the light reflections, in all directions before and now it’s like all of the other windows.“ He felt dumb, he failed to impress. And I didn’t hear much more from him until after we got off the train- more on that in a sec.

Minus that creep, that was a fast, fun, and engaging ride. It had some good views, mostly coming from the LEFT SIDE OF THE TRAIN, earlier on, with some interesting things here and there on the right. We saw quite a few moose, actually, I had never seen that many moose ever. They were all out in the meadows, which is pretty far away from the train tracks every place I saw the moose, so if you don’t have a lens that is 70mm full frame / 105mm Sony APSC, if you took a picture, it’s not going to be crap. You’ll barely be able to make out that it’s a moose. I had this happen a few times, with a 24-70mm lens but I didn’t feel like going to get the bigger lens, I just wasn’t that determined, and I was busy conversing with company the whole time. When the land is covered in snow like that, and there is so much cloud cover, you’re not really going to get that much glowing scenery. I could count on my hand that “wow” moments on the train, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad things, it’s a good for most people, but the scenery didn’t blow me away. Great even to get the camera going, get the people engaged and trust me, we had the American + 4 Asians train popping! People were excited to take pictures and to me, that was really the beauty of that particular trip, the bonding we all did with strangers. Well, with some of the strangers. I have to end with the most important point to that ride, that over the top, red pilled, moron. When we got off the train, in Anchorage, that lady I was speaking to the whole time, and I, exchanged info to continue our conversations at a later, really deep lady, life coach, doing big things out there. She asked me if I wanted to split a cab, but I told her I had a ride coming, strategy, too much of that lady too soon, not a good thing, so I had to let her go do her thing and we’d meet up later. As soon as she left my side, to get her arriving luggage and hop in her cab, while I was still in the terminal waiting for luggage to arrive, this goofy creep from the train then zooms into the space the lady was in, by my side, and then he was there, talking to me. Less than 10 seconds, seriously, he took her place and came up on me. He starts in with “so you’re going to fk her later?” I was looking past some Asian girls, pretending I didn’t know him or see him swoop in on me, and I was looking at the Asians, they were looking at me, and then I turned to him like a completely stranger would and asked, “excuse me, sir?” It was embarrassing. Then he whispers to me that we should see if the Asian girls want to party some, later tonight” but he was LOUD, and they could hear this guy. I told him I’m not that kind of guy, he’s got the wrong prototype. Then he starts to say I’m a liar because he saw me making moves on that lady, the whole train ride, then proceeds to tell me things I said to her. 😳 I played it cool, but had to wait it out for the uber to come take me away. He also asked me to split a cab, asked me what hotel I was staying in (I gave him the wrong hotel, on purpose, way across town) but his cab came sooner, and he left, thank God! Oh, before he left, he asked me to share that lady’s contact information with him.  I told him I don’t have it, she didn’t give it, and he said I was a liar because he saw her typing something into my phone! 😳Of course I had her information, but I told him she showed me her website, but I already closed the browser which deletes the history. This guy, he is the American male I’m seeing a lot of today, while traveling, the loner who is psychotic, over anxious in public, too filled with red pill rage, and I don’t mean logical portions of red pill, but the annoyingly wannabe Andrew Tate part that he thinks is knowledge, but it’s not it’s combativeness that women don’t want to talk to you about.

He was trying to get this lady’s phone number and such after making her out to be a phlegminist, which she was not, and did too many generalizations to her, which insulted her when he was insulting “most women.” You can’t kick red pill talking points to ladies like that and think you’re going to get some play. That’s clown nonsense. You can’t share that kind of knowledge with the ladies, they’re going to be offended, especially if she is not like what you’re claiming. Practice the talking point and defense to typical girl babble, yes, but don’t let them hear your red pill talking points and think you’re going to win her heart. Most red pill talking points will offend ladies, no matter how true they are. I learned his whole story in 15 minutes, and he was a guy who suddenly has a bunch of money, from retiring and has to spend it all so he took that trip. He didn’t bring a camera because cameras are lame and he has his eyes, he doesn’t need a camera. I realized quick that he was MGTOW 2.0, the incel hateful type, who failed in life, and can’t get any European descendant woman unless he paid for her. I told him that I have the answer to his drought. Very easy cure, just go get himself and Black Kween! I told him they would love to have him, today, especially those from Africa and the Caribbean. I also told him to go buy booty from Colombia, Thailand or the Philippines, like the Passport Bros. I wanted him to get the f(k away from me, and leave the country even, whatever it took to get him away from me, and so I never cross paths with him again, I wished for this. If you get on that train, keep a small weapon handy, in case you’re not intimidating enough to fend people like that moron off. He really disappointed me, because he was a 50+ year old dude and has desires to now be a Passport Bro. He was only on the train because he was bored in life. He said he didn’t want to fly to Asia for women because it takes too long to get there, meanwhile he was on a 12-hour train doing absolutely nothing of note. 🤡 This guy is the future of men, and it’s very sad, socially inept, imposing, no ability to read the room, hateful, not charismatic, jealous, etc. Nobody wanted that old lady, I was being respectful, and she was cool peoples, but he was mad like I was taking his snowbunny. He is not what men should aspire to be, as a solo traveler, which he was bragging about being and said that “WE” were proud solo travelers. This guy who wouldn’t read the room and interact with us as a group when we were photographing, laughing, eat food, etc. together. They guy who took a 12-hour ride and didn’t even attempt to enjoy it. That MAN needs to go his own way somewhere far away from mankind. That kind of solo traveler old guy, he is just passing time hoping to pass away. He is exactly what I learned, prior to pandemic, NOT TO BECOME. It’s why I engage with people I meet on these trips, it’s why people feel they can talk to me although they don’t know me, I am making myself open to conversation, not putting them off in any weird ways, bringing their alertness down, normalizing the room, removing myself from being “otherized” and learning from others that I meet. This is my part of my solo travel goals, meeting interesting people, not just taking trips waiting to die somewhere.

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.