Riding with Amtrak...

We stayed a bit longer in New York than we planned but we had to move on - So we bought tickets to go to Miami, through Washington DC, by train. When we bought the tickets we were informed that the trainride would take about 31 hours! Now all you Danish readers know how annoying a 4 hour trainride can be in Denmark with IC3 trains - You got no leg-room(especially not if you got long legs as I do), there's a lot of noise and you just wanna get our of the train almost as fast as you get in, so we were really worried about how this 30+ hours long trip would be like - Would it be absolutely hell on earth? Or worse?

Well, actually no! The Amtrak trains in America are much larger than standard Danish trains. The seats are larger than the normal Danish seats, plus all seats face forward, where in IC3 trains you sit in groups of four around a small table. Not only where the seats large, but we had huge amounts of leg-room - We had so much space for our legs, that even I could more or less stretch my legs to their entire length without bumping against the seat in front of me - Actually the seat in front of you is so far away that it's impossible to heat it with your knee - Something which happens to me every single time I travel, no matter whether it's by bus, plane or car.
On top of this you had power plugs for each seat so we could use all the toys that a modern technology addicted traveler brings along - Ie. laptop, iPod, cameras, phone etc. - In advance we had been told that there were very few power-plugs available to coach-class passengers, but when we found a plug for every single seat the joy wouldn't stop again. - It's funny, and a bit tragic, that something as "simple" as electricity can make you that excited when traveling :)
But to make a long thing short - The train was equipped with large seats, heaps of leg-room, power-plugs, a snack car for all our candy and beverage needs, and a dining-car for breakfast, lunch and dinner and while the food wasn't anything near the quality of a three stared Michelin restaurant, the food was actually decent and much better than your typical airline food(which is so horrible that it should be illegal, but I'll save you from that rant... For now) - So all in all, the 32+ hour trainride(We where a bit delayed), felt so comfortable that time just flew by. I'd almost rather take a 30 hour long trainride with Amtrak, than I would take a 4 hour trainride with DSB(The Danish railroad company) from Aarhus to Copenhagen.

So the trainride was spent watching a DVD, listening to music and almost reading an entire book.

The tough part of the trip was the fact that we had to leave New York at 3am Saturday morning, and would arrive in Washington 4 hours later. We then stayed in Washington for around half a day, before we left for Miami.
So I actually spent my birthday in a train - How exciting ;)

I could go on for hours about everything that we have experienced so far, but I'll stop now and tell you more later - So come back tomorrow :)