Last summer, I had a difficult experience communicating with a Spanish woman at Penn Station. During the summer of 2024, I would go outside and film videos of trains or buses to boost up some popularity for my Youtube channel or just for fun. So, my plan usually was to save up some money and either meet up with other railfanners (a person or group of people that go to certain areas to record public transportation) or I would go by myself to a popular area to film trains. However, I had an interesting experience with a woman on this specific day, that I will be talking about.

   Before my first semester of college, I decided that I was gonna go out and railfan one last time. I’ve always wanted to go to Trenton, NJ only because it is a popular spot for railfans The Lines run through there that I know of are Amtrak Northeast Regional/Acela Express trains, NJ Transit, and Septa. Septa is a regional rail commuter company that runs in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Amtrak runs along the Northeast Corridor from Boston South Station to Washington D.C “The Nations Capital”. NJ Transit is another commuter rail company running from NY Penn Station to various locations in New Jersey. Some train knowledge for yall. Anyways, I’ve always wanted to go there, so I said “Eh why not”. 

   So, the plan was to go there for a few hours then get something to eat and come back home. The date is August 27, it was very warm sunny day, which I am very fond of. I love the summer very much, the cool air blowing around, certain times of the day. I got my things ready and headed out to Penn Station. I had to take the NJ Transit to get to Trenton, since it was much cheaper. I got to Penn Station a little early, so I had some time to kill. So, I decided to head to a little store they had. Even though I had to donate a kidney, I got Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos (One of the Best Chips Ever!, If you disagree, Sue me!), got sour patches, and water. I rate it 8/10. After I grabbed something to eat and sat next to where people came up from the track level. It was about 20-25 mins until the next train to Trenton, so I just stood here waiting. As I am waiting. I’ve noticed officers are walking up and down the concourse just prepared to handle emergencies. People coming from the stairs and escalators from the Outbound trains. It’s always a crowd of people, some hurrying to take nearby 1,2,3, A,C, and E in order to get to work on time. So, just scrolling through social media while walking. To be honest, I hate those types of people, like you causing more of an inconvenience for me and others. And also people, making connections to other trains coming in or just waiting in the hall for their respective trains.

    At the corner of my eyes, I saw this lady, she looked like she was in her early 40s, Spanish, a very pretty woman. From my pov she looked a bit lost and nervous. I then proceeded up to her and said, “You need any help”. The response back was unfamiliar. She has a hard Spanish accent. I was very confused and was a bit upset. But, I knew that it was gonna be difficult helping her with this communication barrier between us. But , I never gave up. So far, all I understood was she was trying to get to Summit and she didn’t know what train or which track to go to. I noticed she had her google maps open. So, I used that to let her know what trains she needed to take, I pointed to the train board that was in the train hall and said. “You have to take the 11:02 train to Summit, you get on that train and it should take you straight there”. She said “ Ok Ok”. Good now that we got that settled, all she needed was that track number. I looked at the board again. The, I realized my train was about to board. Before I left, I took her, “Give the board some time to tell you which track to board. Next to where it says status, a number will pop up, and that will tell you the track number you need to go. “She said, “ Ok Ok, thank you so much”. I said, “Si Si, no problem”. As I ran to the platform, I don’t know why I said that, but I did.

In conclusion, I’ve learned that even though we had that barrier between me and the women, I still tried my best to help her at the end of the day. I would say a take away from this story is that learning a new language might be difficult in the beginning, but if you keep pushing forward it will all work out in the end. No matter how much, it affects your daily life. And to also add on, me and the lady come from different backgrounds, difficult cultures. My background is Caribbean, so we don’t really speak another language. We every once in a while, speak paquoi. My patients and older generations use those types of languages, its basically broken English. For that Spanish woman, she is hispanic, her culture speaks a different language. It’s very unique and fluent I may say. But, that will become an issue in the future because at some point, they will have to learn some English because not everyone is gonna learn or speak Spanish forever. And I feel like if people speak English, they should then achieve that.