Monday, January 19, 2009

Transportation Rant #912

Right, so Sunday Jan. 19 I had the day off, and my cousins were in New York escaping DC for the weekend. So we made plans to meet up, and hang out for the day. I took Greyhound because it only cost me $36 round trip to the city and back, and the train was like 150. Fuck that no.

My bus was fifteen minutes late, but we got there on time, which is always cool. I headed over to Times Square, and misjudged the blocks, and ended up two blocks away from the TKTS place for the Broadway shows. But I found my cousins, and they'd gotten us tickets to Mamma Mia, which I had heard about and nothing bad, so I said ok! Also, Julie loves it, so I knew that was a good endorsement. She wasn't wrong.

I got to sit in a BOX! It was partial view, so the left half of the musical was not visible to me, but it was still cool and enjoyable! I had curtains and everything! It was awesome. Also, the play's the thing...

So after that we hung out in a restaurant til I went to meet up with Kristen, because my cousins were going to Peekskill for the evening. So I again misjudged blocks and ended up on the opposite end of the street from Kristen, which led to hilarity. Jesus, Macy's is HUGE. (Yes, I'm an upstater. We have small stores. Ok, keep this in mind -- I didn't go to a two storey mall til I was 17. Yeah. Didn't see a Macy's til I MOVED TO ALBANY. NO Seriously. Sheltered.)

Anyway, Kristen took me to this really cool place that I forgot the name of, and we enjoyed dinner. Then we took a cab up to 30 Rockefeller Center, to try to go up to Top of the Rock, and it turns out that because it was snowing you couldn't see shit. So we didn't go up. Instead, we walked around a lot, and I got to see St. Patrick's Cathedral, which appeared out of NOWHERE, and that was neat. I also took a picture of the Chrysler building, because, well I'm a tourist in NY. Shut up.

Ok, so I had to be back for work today at 10 am. So I booked my return trip to leave at 9, and arrive at 12:15am. No sweat, right?

OH WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

So Kristen and I queue up for the bus, as she was keeping me company til I got on the bus. We talked to a nice Canadian gentleman in front of us about various awesome things about Canada. All the while we waited for the bus. 9:30 rolls around and they started loading. They told us that anyone going to Albany and this random stop in New Jersey got priority boarding, so I stepped up and hopped on the bus. Yay, right?

Turns out the reason we didn't start boarding til 9:30 was because the first bus BROKE. That sucks, right? So they got another one. They filled it up, and so we waited to take off. Um, but wait, what's this? A broken windshield wiper, while it's snowing? Alright, well now we have an unscheduled stop to the garage to see if they can fix it.

Guess what? They can't. So we turn around and go BACK to Port Authority. They're like, "We don't really know what's going to happen now." So we're SOL cause it's 10:30 at this point. Turns out that they can't get another bus because they need an ADA bus for this one passenger who uses a wheelchair. Apparently they are all in DC for the inauguration. Which smacks of wtf to me.

So we see our bus driver get into a SCREAMING match outside with a few other people, and I guess the news wasn't good, because he comes back on and apologizes again. He was cool. He tried very hard to take care of us.

Well there's a bus that leaves at 11. A lot of the people who didn't get on at 9 were waiting for that one. And it turns out they ARE sending another bus, but they refund the girl who needed the wheelchair one, because she can't ride it. Ok, fair enough. So we wait and we wait, and suddenly I notice that it's 11:30. We should have been almost to Albany at this point.

Then they fucking fill up the other bus for the 11pm people. Meanwhile, we're still sitting here and have no idea when we'll be going, or when the fuck our replacement bus will even get here. It's getting ridiculous. So finally it comes, and we load up. But the other bus leaves. It left BEFORE WE DID, and we were supposed to leave at NINE. Oh and guess what, our replacement bus? HAS A WHEELCHAIR SPACE. SO they lied to that girl when they told her they didn't have another one. But she got on it anyway, so it worked out ok for her. So we left at 12:15.

That was the TIME we were supposed to GET IN TO ALBANY GODDAMMIT. We didn't get there til 3:15. And the worst part? When we got to Albany, all these people who had been sleeping were forced to GET OFF THE BUS so they could clean it and refuel it. Clean it? What the hell?

That was such complete and utter bullshit. If I didn't have to work at 10 today I probably would have tried to find a cheap room and stayed over night.

So uh, another bus rant. Enjoy!

Current music: Laura Pausini - Invence No

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