Daytripping
The bus ride was indeed an adventure! No worries, everything ended up just fine, but it was a memorable experience. Getting down to Philly was not much trouble at all, I rarely had to ask for help and when I did people were generally helpful.
As soon as I got into Philly, I had to get on a train to see my grandmother. Luckily, the surgery went really well, and now all the trickiness is left up to the post-op care. Making sure she doesn't get pneumonia and whatnot. She was happy to see me, it was nice. I also saw my mom, which made me feel guilty, since I got her sick with whatever it was I had a week and a half ago.
Then I got back on the train to go back into Philly to hang out with Rachel. We played around with a polaroid camera, had a paper airplane-building competition with her parents after dinner (I won! I spent first grade wisely, what can I say), then went to draw in the park. After that we went to see RJ's one-act play being put on at Temple. It was really good, the script was obviously quality but the actors did a great job with it. We see two other one-act plays there, one was pretty generic, the other was really good.
Early the next morning I had to get on a bus to go back up to Canada. I got out of Philly fine, the trouble started in NYC. First thing was that I had no idea where I was supposed to be for my bus, and none of the information booths seemed to be manned. I finally found one person who was surprisingly and fantastically competent who helped me.
I was supposed to get out of there on the 11:45, so I guess my first mistake was getting in line only twenty minutes early. The bus got there, twenty minutes or so late because they couldn't find a driver for it, and I was the fifth person too many for its occupancy limit. I had gotten talking with the man behind me, who was also headed to Ottawa, and he talked to the person who seemed to be in charge. She said they were trying to arrange a second bus for us.
Needless to say, the second bus never came. It finally came time for the next bus to arrive, the 1:30, but we weren't even able to get onto that until 45 minutes later. Then they found a second bus, for the people who would have been bumped from the 1:30. I thought, okay, this is a small setback, and everything was fine. We hit Albany all right, I got a tasty ice cream snack, and we switched buses because the other one could hold eight more people or something strange.
We drove and everything was fine. My seatmate was a little creepy, but whatever. I was rocking out to Gogol Bordello's fantastic new album, Super Taranta!, and reviling Iron & Wine's new album, The Shepherd's Dog. It's customary (ahaha look at the pun) to hit the big duty free before crossing the border, so the tourists, dolts, and smokers can buy their related paraphernalia. Keep in mind that when we finally stopped we were literally in sight of the border.
I got off the bus, wandered through the duty free, and got very depressed by the schlock. I got back onto the bus and the bus driver announced that the bus was broken. Some sort of electrical malfunction. He was going to call and get a mechanic, but it would take at least an hour and a half for one to get there. I got back off the bus and bought a large bag of mini-Twix and an orange soda.
Things got a little confused. We drove from the duty free to a gas station, then back to the duty free, and actually went back and forth like that a couple more times. I never found out why. Amidst the conflicting information and the angry protests of my stomach, I decided there wasn't anything productive I could be doing, and fell asleep.
Two hours later I woke up and everyone was getting off the bus. After a moment's panic I deduced that someone had sent us a new bus to get on and that's why people were on the move. I grabbed my stuff and went with them. We finally were over the border at around midnight. Customs had gone fine, way smoother than one would expect, and we arrived in Montreal around 1:30 AM.
It's a popular bus route, the one from and to Ottawa, so a bus runs every hour - before midnight. The next bus to Ottawa wasn't until 5:30. Thus it was that I slept for the first but I'm certain not the last time in a bus station. Luckily the man (he said he had majored in philosophy but worked in pensions) that I had befriended back in NYC was in the same boat, or, well, bus, as me, so I was fairly confident that he would prevent anyone from stabbing me and/or stealing my bag while I was asleep.
I got the 5:30 no trouble, and ended up getting back to the house at around 8:30 - only slightly over 24 hours after I had left Philadelphia. I showered, threw stuff out of my bag and other stuff into it, and went to class.
I'm going back down to Philly this weekend. What are the odds that the bus I'm on would break down again? No really, I'd like to know.
Classes this week have been going all right. Notable things:
Monday, Rabbi Ely Braun came to my religion class to do a lecture on Sukkot and to do a bit of a Q&A thing too. He was awesome. It was great.
Tuesday, I had a philosophy test. It took me 24 minutes to finish it, then I spent the same time over again checking it three times. Then I left.
Tuesday, after Greek, I finally got to see parts of Ottawa that aren't part of the university campus. I had some time before my ride back, and I spent it on a fun and informative walk around the city with Katie. I picked up the new Spoon album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which I am enjoying so far, from one of the many record stores that seem to be around. I appreciated getting the inside scoop on Ottawa, I'll have to provide a similar service for Philly if she ever visits.
Tomorrow, I have a test in Greek. I've been keeping up pretty well in class and getting decent enough marks on all the homework and quizzes so I'm not too worried. I have a guilty hope that the test will go quite badly for some my classmates, just because there are some people in there that I'd rather not have to see three times a week. We'll see.
