30days30years

Greyhound

I love Dale to bits but boy I’m glad I’m leaving today. We have had a pretty heavy two and a bit days and I need a rest!! But it has been super fun!

What’s not so fun is being rejected from the BA lounge at Heathrow’s terminal five. I’ve been in there about six times in the last six months in transit using my Qantas Club card but apparently the rules have changed so I had to do the walk of shame out of there. How embarrassing is that kind of thing, seriously? It always happens when there is a line up behind you too. Grrgh! Qantas my angry letter is in the mail! 🙂

A textbook flight to Baltimore and I am now randomly sitting in a town called Raleigh in North Carolina.

I decided, (stupidly) to catch a Greyhound bus to Tennessee because the flights required two stops and basically a whole day’s travel which I didn’t want to waste. The bus got me to Charlotte, North Carolina overnight and I figured I could then slip over to Pigeon Forge, home of Dollywood.

Clearly my memory didn’t flash back to four days on a bus in Mongolia!

I ended up in Raleigh after a chance meeting with a Swedish guy in Washington DC. He and I were on the same bus to Richmond Virginia, where we then had connections to North Carolina. He was on a different bus to NC than me, which left an hour before mine. I was like a walking zombie by the time we got to Richmond because it was about 7am London time so decided to switch to the Swede’s bus because there was also a connection from Raleigh to Knoxville, Tennessee. It took a little wrangling though. When I asked the customer service lady about the connections she said it wasn’t possible and that I would need to continue to Charlotte where I would arrive at 9.30am and then not be able to get a connection until 6.30pm that night. She didn’t even both to check on her computer. But when I double checked with her colleague it seemed a 10am bus out of Raleigh was possible. I’d forgotten how bad customer service is in America.

The Swedish guy, who’s name I didn’t even get, was quite a handsome blonde guy who looked a bit like Keir, my old flatmate. He has been at Harvard on a scholarship and is now taking some classes at the University of North Carolina. That’s about all I know about him except that he is an exceptionally heavy sleeper.  We’d both set alarms to make sure we didn’t miss our stop but he slept through his so it rang for about three minutes. The bus driver had given a big lecture about having cell phones on silent so I tried like mad to wake him so the whole bus didn’t start throwing things at him! He was out for the count though and no manner of gentle poking and prodding seemed to work. What ensued was basically a whacked version of the YMCA, puppet style. I was lifting his arms up in the air and placing them on his head and still nothing. The phone was sitting in his lap but I didn’t want to reach into his crouch in case he woke up so I just had to let it ring!

Now that I’m here, I’ve been reacquainting myself with the homeless fraternity of America. I’m the only white person in the building so I already stand out but my backpack went to great pains to help me along further earlier.

When I got off the bus, there was one young guy in particular up who was getting a little too close. I could feel him breathing on my neck when I was buying my ticket and he kept pacing up and down in front of where I was sitting just staring at me. “Shit I’m going to get rolled here.”

I think I do a pretty good ‘don’t mess with me’ face and am not afraid to look any wannabe gangster in the eye. Most of them back away. This guy was unrelenting though to the point where he then came and sat directly next to me even though there was about 30 spare seats around us. “Here we go,” I thought. After a couple of seconds he asks me for the time. As if I’m going to show him my watch. I replied: “Seriously dude, is that all you’ve got? Really? You don’t need the time from me, it’s on the TV clear as day….” he retreated, and then went searching for pennies in the bottom of a vending machine.

I decided to move to a more discrete position but as I stood up the metal rod in my backpack slipped out of its holding and got caught in the grates of the metal seat. It buckles under the pressure as I pull at it and then flung up about a foot in the air, landing with a spectacular clang on the floor.

The whole station turns around and stares. Nicely played Christie. Queue a guy telling me about his diabetes and then another asking me where I’m heading. I hate telling people where I’m going in a public place. I grunted something inaudible back to him but then felt immediately bad about it. Particularly when he then asked a guy who walked past if he knew anywhere warm he could shelter for the night. The best thing you can give someone is your time and perhaps he just genuinely wanted to chat.

I’ve also got up to date on US fiscal policy after watching CNN for the last four hours.
Republican Herman Cain has just announced he is suspending his bid as candidate for President so there is plenty to talk about around here. Yes I am a total nerd!!! 🙂