isthisadream

By far the craziest encounter was when I had a knife pulled on me in a St. Louis train station. I was waiting for a shuttle to take me to Carbondale, IL to catch a train to New Orleans. I was standing there in the station with my cell phone charging in some wall socket and a dude approached me to ask the time. Immediately I knew what was up (I could sense it) and started to walk away with my stuff and he flipped out some swiss army knife and held it in attack mode while demanding I give him my backpack.

Now at this point I had been almost 50 days traveling and had an extensive journal with thousands of pics and vids I had taken - not to mention all my tickets, rail passes, and netbook/camera/ipod. Fortunately I had been getting a really uneasy feeling earlier at the station when 'thug nation' came in and started looking at my bags with keen interest and so I popped my giant smith & wesson knife in my pocket (pretty much this) It was a stupid move, I know this, but it felt cool to mutter "You won't be taking shit." as I flicked the blade out from the grip. The guy just backed off and then security came running over freaking out on me and took my knife. Luckily I was able to get it back when I described the situation and they looked over the camera footage.

In hindsight I was an idiot and could have been killed, I've never seriously hurt someone or let alone stabbed somebody, and I'm not sure I would have been ok if that situation had gone differently. But I was confident as hell at that moment in time and I think that, more than the knife, really made the guy back off.

She was expecting me to cover 80k in debt for her school. She had no job, took advantage of my money, and just didn't try. Eventually I just said screw it. What matters more? Having someone just to have someone, or having someone that makes you happy?

I chose the latter.

yes ;P

And I possibly got raped...

Man ... sketchiest area I've been to in a long while.

Definitely when I was coming into New Orleans and had nowhere to stay. A complete stranger decided to take me in, and saved me from staying in a hostel.

Also a man on the train from Denver gave an elderly woman his coat, and never asked for it back. I was pretty much in awe when I saw that.