I had a similar experience as the OP last week. We took the Autotrain last Tuesday and are currently in Maryland. When you have dinner, they have you share your table in the dining car with other people. When we went to eat, my wife and I were seated with two Iranian looking people and the woman wore a scarf around her head and only showed her face. I thought, I would of never chose to sit with these people.
It turns out they were from Washington, DC and the girl has her Masters degree and is working on her PhD at UCF in Orlando and she was with her brother, who is in the 11th grade who had come down to visit her. She was traveling back to DC to see her parents. I thought her folks were probably from overseas and worked at an embassy, but she said no, they were an average American family and her father was a mechanic. I learned a lot from our hour or so of conversation and they were very pleasant people.
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