The Endless Night..

As I mentioned in the last blog before we could hit the heights of the Big Apple we had to survive the lows of a 12 hour Greyhound bus ride. As with any trip reliant on public transport there were minor hitches.. Like the fact the non-stop ride actually consisted of three stops or that 12 hours really meant 14. But we got there in the end and that's all that matters right? Maybe, but I will never do it again.

My first experience of Greyhound busses in the U.S was a short (six hour) trip from Chicago to Detroit. Now despite one of the girls booking the wrong bus and having to pay extra to be on the right bus nothing really went wrong. The bus was on time, we were on time, and I was actually surprised that there was free WORKING Wi Fi onboard! We were even pleasantly surprised to find out the six hour ride was really a five hour ride due to the time difference between Illinois and Michigan - Bonus!

However we were not so pleasantly surprised to have all our bags rummaged through and our persons scanned with metal detectors before we were allowed on board. Now, seen as I am not a criminal this was not necessarily a problem for me except of course for the fact I was tired, hungry, grumpy etc etc but nothing I couldn't get over. It was just amazing to me that I had to show so much proof of ID and go through so much security just to get on a bus. Its not even that difficult to catch an internal U.S flight but obviously the roads are a greater threat, either that or they really want to protect Michigan because on the way to New York we could have smuggled whatever we liked, security was non-existent!

So we rock up to the Detroit Greyhound bus station overly excited to be going to New York only to find there were several busses departing to New York at 6.30pm and the drivers hadn't quite decided which tickets were for which bus. After much deliberation they finally decided to let us on board only to tell us the Wi Fi isn't working, he was only the bus driver, how was he supposed to know why something on his bus wasn't working? And we paid extra for this great service. I felt like I was on Mega Bus!

So I tried to sleep as best I could on a crowded, smelly bus with several stops that we weren't supposed to make, two of which we were forced to get off the bus, wait for at least half an hour and then get back on again. Needless to say a nap was in order when we finally reached our brooklyn apartment.

Now all of this may seem very trivial, and it is, I shouldn't really complain but how boring would I be if I didn't?