Friday Morning's Thoughts....

I am no longer friends with Katelyn Elizabeth Lynch and I am completely serious. I am typing this from my seat in the back of a Greyhound bus somewhere in Michigan or some state between Michigan and Chicago. I don’t know. Last time I had any idea of where I was I was in Kalamazoo, Michigan. So who knows? It is 2:09 pm Boston/Montreal time. I don’t know if I’ve crossed time zones yet. What I do know however is that I left my apartment at 9:15 on Thursday morning and as it is now Friday that means I have been in transit for almost twenty-nine hours now. I have come to realize that my whole life is one big epic adventure in terrible ideas.

Oh I am just now passing a water tower that says “Chesteron” on it and according from a highway sign I just passed I am a mere 50 miles from Chicago. Woo! Anyhow…let me regale you with tales of my journey.

At 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning I gave up on studying for my Child Development exam, hugged my kitty good-bye explaining to her that I would be back and four days and that this doesn’t mean I don’t love her anymore, I’m just irresponsible and impulsive. I then picked up my very heavy wheelie suitcase armed with four textbooks, my laptop, my back up laptop battery, my DS, my MP3 player, and some clothing and headed off to my midterm. The exam was in the Stuart Biology building, a solid ten minutes walk of hills, some so steep that the city has carved stone stairs for pedestrians. This was not fun with my very heavy bag.

My exam started by 10:00 a.m. It was sixty multiple choice and six short answer. We had an hour and a half to do it, but Thank You MCAS training, per usual I was out of there in thirtyish minutes.

I headed down rue Peel to this little hidden shop that makes really good subs for $3.50. I got a roast beef sub, concerned that it would be my last meal for 20 hours….how wrong I was. I then went to an ATM to withdraw $40 Canadian and hopped on the metro at Peel, getting deposited at the Guy-Concoridia Metro stop.

I had found an ad on the McGill classifieds offering a $35 ride to Toronto that was supposed to leave from there at noon. The ride was supposed to take 5 ½ hours depositing me in Toronto a full hour before my bus to Chicago left. I got to the station twenty minutes early and proceeded to eat my sandwich.

Soon another girl with a wheelie suitcase arrived. She asked if I was going to Toronto. A few minutes later a couple arrived and I though to myself, wow…four people this is going to be a squishy ride. But then to my utter amazement one by one THREE MORE people showed up. We were all VERY confused. We stood there waiting expectantly to see what was going to happen next. We waited and we waited. Thirty minutes after noon (the time at which we were supposed to be leaving) a man in his mid twenties with a thick Russian accent appeared before us saying that we were ALL waiting in the wrong place. So we all followed him down the street and behind a building. I was a little worried at this point. It’s generally not a good idea to follow strangers behind buildings especially when you have over $2,000 worth of stuff in your bag, but given that there were 8 of us, I figured I was either fine or it was a really elaborate set-up which seemed a bit unlikely.

The man led us to a large unmarked white van, the kind you see outside of shows for small bands who don’t have the money for a trailer. He apologized for being late, saying he had got stuck on a street doing construction and urged us inside. There were already three other people in the van and we all climbed in. There was the driver’s seat with a bucket passenger seat. Behind that there was a bench seat meant for three, behind that another bench seat meant for two, behind that a third bench seat meant for two, and behind even that a third bench seat meant for three. I opted for the very back and settled in with a girl who had just returned from Spain that morning and was heading to Toronto to see her boyfriend and a 25ish year old guy who never said why he was travelling.

I gave up talking to them almost immediately when the girl asked me where I was from and we had the following conversation…

“Wow…good for you.” The girl said with a mix of amazement and pretension.

“Good for me?” I asked, not having any idea what she was talking about.

“Yeah, you’ve managed to loose your American accent with only two years in Montreal.”

I replied, quite offended, might I add, “What do you mean American accent?”

“Oh you know…how all you Americans kinda tah-ahk like thias” she answered forcing an impression of a thick Texan accent.

I stared at her shocked. “I’m from Boston. That’s in the northeast. Boston…between here and New York. Not the South.”

“Well you know there’s a Boston accent too.”

“Yeah…and I do have a bit of a Boston accent. And it sounds NOTHING like that. It actually sounds pretty much like the way I am talking right now.”

At this point she looked back at me a little dumbfounded, “No. Don’t all Americans talk like that?”

“Don’t you watch tv?”

“Well, you can’t have an accent like that on tv. Other countries watch these shows, they’ll just think you are stupid.”

“Oh…okay” I responded putting my headphones back on and creating my own stereotype…mostly that rich girls from Toronto are idiots.

The ride itself wasn’t that bad except that the guy driving played Russian techno-ey pop really overwhelmingly loudly the whole time. I sat watched an episode of Big Love on my MP3 player, played some brain game, read a bit of my Animal Learning textbook, and played a little brain game. We stopped once for Wendy’s and a bathroom break. Tragically, this combined with the thirty minutes late that our sketchy van left Montreal meant that I didn’t arrive in Toronto until 6:05 pm. I know had twenty-five minutes to navigate I city I knew nothing of and get on a bus. I had told an Australian boy sitting in front of me about how stressed I was for time in line at Wendy’s and since he was headed to a subway stop that was only one before the one I need to get to he offered to run with me and help me get there faster. He already had Toronto subway tokens so I traded him one for two dollars to skip the rush hour token line. I was glad he was there because we were at a large subway stop, the likes of Park Street and it would’ve taken me a solid ten minutes to figure out where I wanted to be on my own.

I spent fifteen very tense minutes on the train, frantically glancing between my watch and the subway map that said I was 13 stops away….12 stops away….11 stops away. On the way I talked to the Australian kid….okay wait –pause story-

An old man with the personal hygiene of a homeless man just walked to the back of the bus to use the bathroom. I looked up at him half as an instinctive reaction half out of politeness and he winked at me rather creepily as he headed in to pee. Anyhow…back to the story…

The Australian guy’s name was Benji. He had graduated McGill last April with a degree in political science. He was coming to Toronto for a job interview with hopes of moving here. I asked him when he was going back to Montreal. He said he didn’t know. So I asked if he had an apartment. He said “No, I’m living with my girlfriend. We’ve been dating since my second year. She still has a year left.” I said “Oh brutal. Long distance sucks…long distance sucks really bad.” He responds with “Yeah well, I wouldn’t tell her this but I have no intention of staying together…-thoughtful pause- Hey! Why don’t I give you my number so if you miss my bus you can hang out with me and my buddy.” I smile “Oh, okay” I say with no intention of ever calling him. “It’s 416…” About a moment later he got off at his stop and I had only one more stop to go.

I stood up and walked to the door of the train at the ready. The minute the doors opened I stared running as fast as I could through the station. I got to the stairs and the damn escalator was down. I had to lug my very heavy suitcase up what added up to about two and a half flights of stairs. I am very out of shape and about half way up my “running” diminished into me struggling, sweating, and staring, hoping that some kind man would offer to help me but I guess a soaking wet, panting chick who is rather loudly mutter “Fuck! Fuck! What the fucking…fuck….goddamit….fucking stairs….fuck you stairs” seems more crazy than cute.

I made it outside and started “power-completely winded actually pretty slow” walking. My watch said 6:32. I was hoping the bus was just a touch late. I finally got into the station and the bus was still on the departures list. I convinced three sets of people to let me cut them in the ticket line. When I got to the window I asked if the Chicago bus had left yet. The man peered out the window and said “I don’t see it. It must’ve JUST left. The next one is at one a.m. Would you like to buy a ticket for that now.” I sighed heavily “No thanks.”

All along I had known there was a chance of this happening and I thought I had mentally prepared myself, but I guess I hadn’t. I was so frustrated I just want to go hide somewhere and cry. Unfortunately I was in Toronto, alone, with a heavy bag and nothing to do for six and a half hours.

I ventured out of the Greyhound station and found a Starbucks. Since these usually have free WiFi I went in and bought a tea so that I could pull out my laptop, check my bank account to see if I had enough money to actually do anything, check facebook, write a blog complaining about this, and just generally waste some time.

The Starbucks did have WiFi but it wasn’t free. Annoyed, I sat there with a peppermint tea I didn’t really want because I was sweating profusely (okay…maybe I really need to start working out). Some high school kids sat down on the couch next to me and I heard them talking about going to the AMC.

What a great idea! “Excuse me…I couldn’t help but over hear you say AMC…is there a movie theatre around here?”

“Yeah, the boy responded. Take a left and its only one block up.”

At this point it was about 7:10, which I figured was prime movie going time. I headed over there to what I soon realized was the sad little Toronto copy cat of Time’s Square. I was wrong about the time thing apparently and the only thing even remotely appealing was an 8:05 showing of Mama Mia. I bought a ticket anyways and headed across the hall (I was in a mall) to a restaurant/bar.

I sat down next to a man in his late 40’s and ordered a frozen pomegranate “Jacktini”. It was basically an awesome alcoholic slush puppy. A really strong alcoholic slush puppy that really did the trick in helping loosen the knot of frustration, anger, and disappointment that I had been carrying around for the last hour. The guy I was sitting next to was clearly drunk and was simultaneously hitting on me while telling me he had a daughter my age who got accepted to McGill but decided to go to Queens instead. I really don’t get this. What man wants his 20 year old daughter to get hit on my middle aged men? Why then would that SAME man hit on 20 year old girls? Bah.

Anyways I finished my drink and went back to the theatre to begin what turned out to be THE SINGLE MOST SATISFYING MOVIE GOING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE…

Pause story….I am now staring at the Chicago skyline. I never thought the Sears Tower would be such a beautiful sight! Only 30 more minutes! Oh! I should call Katelyn…so PAUSE story here…..Katelyn didn’t answer. Dammit.

Anyhow…the move….the movie itself was just kind of cute. But going to the movies was awesome. It was stadium seating with only 6 other people in the theatre. I lugged my shit all the way to the top and back. I pushed the armrests up on four seats and laid down across them with my bus blanket and my shoes off. It was so satisfying.

After the movie I went in search of food. I found an place called “Asian Fusion”. I order Pad Thai and a Mei Tai. I chuckled awkwardly as I said it. It was funny! It rhymed. My waitress stared at me with a look that was either telling me that I was a racist asshole or perhaps I was just an idiot.

After too much pad thai I went back to the bus station to wait out the last two hours. Got on the bus and spent from 1 am until 6 am trying feebly to sleep a little on the two seats I had. We got to the border at 6. And they x-rayed my bags. What the hell is that?!

We were in the Detroit station two minutes after leaving the border and I had to get out and wait until 8 a.m. for my connecting bus to Chicago. I have been on that bus ever since. It is now 3:08 our time (also in terms of the 8 am that I left Detroit). I’ve spent the day travelling through Michegan, sleeping in snippets and watching Big Love on my MP3 player.

Now we are officially in Chicago! We keep passing subway stations and we are set to arrive at the Greyhound stop in 21 minutes so I am going to go pee one more time before I have to venture to Katelyn’s. Hooray! I did it!

However, I am no longer friends with Katelyn Elizabeth Lynch.

The END!

….I wonder how long it will be before I actually get to post this….