Someone asked me about a week ago: “Why are you going to Washington? Family? Vacation?” For whatever reason, I partly-jokingly responded, “Oh, for adventure…”

The exploring Seattle part on my own is adventure I guess, I don’t really enjoy exploring cities by myself, but comparatively speaking… flying to Washington can hardly be called an ‘adventure’. So, though excited, I wasn’t expecting too much craziness, I mean, this is the United States still…

But needless to say, it’s only day 2 of my trip, and I already have some stories to tell…

So, I spent Sunday morning exploring downtown Seattle and the waterfront. The view is BEAUTIFUL. And I had a surprisingly great time wandering around with myself and my camera.

After eating a fish taco for lunch, I hurried back to the Greyhound station to catch my bus to Spokane.

Other than our bus arriving a little late, things started out normal enough… And then it went downhill from there 😛

I sat next to a girl who studies psychology in Seattle and was taking the bus home to Wentachee – the ‘Apple Capital’ of the country… she wasn’t too much younger than me, so that was fun. We chatted a bit, then I returned to my book and she to texting…

We hadn’t even been on the road 15 minutes when we made our first stop. Not to drop people off, but a 10 minute rest. Bathroom break. Coffee. Food.  No big deal, but I felt it a little strange for one of our 3 stops to be only 15 minutes into our 7 hour journey. And what’s more is that this 10 minute break turns into a 25 minute break. But ok. It’s whatev. I’m on vacation. No worries mon, Jamaica.

Our bus driver seemed a little strange, and that’s ok, I like strange people, but he also seemed a little stressed.

I enjoyed our ride, it had already gotten dark, but I could make out the silouhettes of snow-covered mountains around us. And I knew we were getting higher up because my ears were popping. Or refusing to pop…

As we made our 2nd rest stop in Leavenworth, people stood up, in some resemblance of an orderly fashion, to step outside for a smoke or walk or bathroom break or whatever…

And before the first person steps outside, our bus driver gets on the speaker and says in a firm but rude and condescending voice “You need to let me exit first when we stop…” and then adds, “I have to be there to catch you if you slep on the ice…”

The girl next to me and I look at each other and laugh. “Ya, I’d rather you not catch me,” she says sarcastically… I love other people who are sarcastic.

So, we take our “10 minute” break, and get back on the bus… waiting for the driver to arrive.

Another 10 minutes pass. No bus driver. Still missing passengers.

Next thing I know, the bus driver walks on with 2 police officers… one is the ‘sheriff’ to be exact.

The bus driver says, “There he is, back there.” And points towards the back.

The policemen swiftly march to the back and start searching the guy, as he shouts, “What the *&%^# are you doing to me?!” And he says something about jesus… But no one is really sure what’s happening…

All of us other passengers look at each other like, “What the heck is happening right now?”

After searching the guy over his screams, it’s time for them to drag him out of the bus… As they’re dragging him, he shouts “Do you even know who the #*&% I am?!” One police officer says, “no, remind us” And the guy goes “I’m Jesus f-ing Christ” And the other police officer respondes, “Oh, ya ya, that’s right…” And the other goes, “Man, I just don’t know how we could have missed it.”

Hahahaha. It was like a movie.

So they get the guy off the bus, but have to make 4 more trips…

One because during his search, a lady got kicked due to his noncompliant flailing.

Then 3 more because he had so much stuff for them to get!

After all this, the guy sitting diagonal from me gets back on the bus, and he had been outside so he saw what happened…

Apparently this guy tried to start a fight with someone during the ‘break’ and the bus driver told him to cool down and get back on the bus, so then he tried to start a fight with the bus driver. Good move, buddy. And he had a knife.

Maybe Greyhound should invest in signs like Singapore has in all their buses… “NO ASSAULT ON BUS CAPTAIN” Haha.

So, we sat around for a while longer. It was funny hearing everyone make phonecalls to their loved ones explaining why they’d be an hour late. Everyone had a different version.

“Well, our bus driver decided he wanted to be an ass and call the cops on someone.”

“Ya, we got held up, they had to take a passenger off the bus”

“A guy had a knife and was trying to start fights”

So, finally, after an hour, we were on the road again. We made it to Wenatchee, where half the bus got off, and I got a row to myself! Woo. But the story doesn’t end here…

Now, the bus has outlets for each seat. But neither of mine were working. So I asked the guy diagonal from me if his was working, because I had seen him using it earlier. He answered, but was very strange and awkward about it. But whatever. I was nice, and it turns out his was working. So, I decided to move to the seat behind him so I could watch a movie on my computer and put up pictures from Seattle.

Bad idea.

Apparently he interpreted me moving to the seat behind him as meaning that we should all of a sudden start talking about our lives. Scratch that, bragging…

Just as I move, we’re getting to a stop. And he says “God I’m so hungry! Thank God there’s a Subway here”. And I’m like “Oh, there’s a Subway. Fantastic. I’m starving.” So then he talks for at least 2 minutes about whether or not the subway is here or at the other gas station across the street. I tell him, “Well, it’s ok, I’m sure they’ll have food either place” (hoping he’ll shut up his nonesense). So then he starts saying “Oh, ya, I know all the stops from here to Montana…” and blah blah blah. I just say “oh, that’s nice”. But he keeps talking. But I decide to not be a total jerk, so I pretend to listen. And then he goes on talking about how he traveled a lot in his ‘younger days’.

Stop there. This kid is definitely not older than me. Maybe the same age. Maybe. But definitely not older. And you know, that is insulting to me. I hate it when people talk down to me in the first place, but when it’s someone my age or younger, that furiates me. So, I somehow wedge it into the ‘conversation’ (if it can be called that), that I lived in Russia for half a year.

It made my day when he stopped and went, “Wait, how old are you?” I say “23” and he goes “Oh, same age as me” And became silent. Ohhhh silence is golden.

He follows me off the bus into the store. And keeps talking about Idaho and Montana. I manage to duck into the girls bathroom and lose him momentarily. Some boys… soooo annoying. Get a brain.

I get peacefully back onto the bus, and all of a sudden, find myself surrounded by this mojo, and 4 other guys… who with the exception of 23year old ‘travel expert’, couldn’t have been older than 19. Oh God.

And all of a sudden, I’m surrounded by conversation. But it’s not normal people conversation. It’s 19 year old boy conversation. Which, I neither come close to understanding nor caring about in any way. And they’re talking asking each other if they peed in the snow just now.

The 23 year old looks at me and makes some comment about camping and peeing and how boys are lucky cuz they can pee anywhere.

I think to myself, “REALLY? Really? Do you think I care”

So I give him the patented-Lauren’s-you’re-an-idiot-please-stop-talking-to-me-look, and say, “That’s disgusting”. He still doesn’t get it, and asks why it’s gross.

I don’t answer, I just turn on my computer as fast as I am, and plan to turn on a Russian movie – that way no one will try to watch with me.

Of course, they ask what I’m watching, so I say “Home Alone, but it’s in Russian”.

So then one kid with a fro goes “Oh, you know Russian?… I’m trying to learn Russian… and proceeds to tell me he’s going to Yugoslavia”

I laughed a little to myself.

Number one. Yugoslavia doesn’t exist as a single entity any more. It started breaking apart in the early 90s. And though I’m not expert on it’s history, it is now several different countries… And I’m a geography nerd, I have a map in my head, so, I wouldn’t expect most people to know that… but if you’re going there, isn’t that something you should know?…

Number two. None of them speak Russian. Several of the languages are very similar to Russian, but Russian itself, in it’s purest form, is not spoken.

I didn’t feel the need to correct him.

Unfortunately, I still didn’t have my movie on.

And the 23 year old goes “The Russians hate us”.

Perturbed, I go “And why’s that?”

He says something like “Well, do you know how much *&39a%)A(#*%#( we’ve done to them and they’ve done to us? Of course they all hate us”

At the end of my rope, I snap “Have you ever even been there?!”

He says, “no”, of course.

And I say “Well, don’t say ignorant things about countries that you’ve never even been to”.

And earphones. On.

Thank God for earphones.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion that any time you take a public bus between cities, regardless of what country you’re in, you’ll come out with a story. Well, I will at least 😛

In Estonia, we had the most freezing bus ever.
In Poland, our train to the airport didn’t show up, so we had to take a 36 hour bus ride back to Russia.
In Malaysia, we had to sleep in the back of a shady bus.
In Laos, a guy was spitting lugies out the window behind me on our 10 hour bus.

So I thought it was an international thing, but apparently all long bus rides are eventful…

Oh, I love traveling.