It didn't start well. The problems we had faced earlier with our tickets had perplexed the staff who then spent a ridiculous amount of time searching for a solution. Here, in a much busier station than we had yet been to, solution was the farthest thing from the cashiers mind. She began shouting at us on production of the sheets of paper that should be exchanged for tickets, "WHAT IS THIS?"
"It's a ticket, honest."
"I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE". Thankfully, a woman who had experienced these strange sheets of paper came to our rescue. Not just for that day, but for the entire trip. She exchanged them for the proper American tickets that we really should have been given on our first trip.
At the cafe in the station Ed ordered some slush. He was given a bucket. It was more than even this ice-craving maniac wanted but he made a good job of it, I think he even finished it. He admitted later "it wasn't even that nice".
Neither was the bus journey. Though it could have been a lot worse. After waiting in a long line to board, the only seat available to me was next to a rather large man wearing a baseball cap who was taking up most of the two seats available. At least the aisle seat gave me some legroom. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy but I was still very glad to see him get off at the first stop.
My next sitting partner was a chatty lady from Florida. Not chatty to me though. Perhaps the sun and shadows were reflecting the words fuck you off my face. Or perhaps my often inexpressive face simply suggested it. However, she did begin a conversation with nearly everyone around me in the segregated part of the bus.
Now, I don't think this segregation was consciously intentional, but for one reason or another nearly every member of the white minority decided to congregate near the back of the bus where I was sitting.
I learnt so much about this woman, her job, her upbringing as "an army brat", her home in Florida, her two day journey from Maine. I learnt all this and she hardly said a word to me. Instead she decided to give her neck a workout by keeping it in constant motion swaying from one topic with the people behind us to another to the people on our right and a few questions for those in front. Again a perfectly nice lady, but still I felt somewhat relieved that I didn't spend the entire journey sat next to her. Far more entertaining was the man who sat next to me after she decided to move away from my unfriendly presence.
Now this guy claimed to have never ridden a bus before. And he demonstrated it brilliantly by breaking most of the rules/suggestions set out by the bus driver. Especially the "do not have loud phones or phone conversations, do not use walkie talkie technology as it interferes with the system." This man didn't even know how to turn his phone off (neither did I but that is a different story, bloody iphone), the constant beeping, loud whispering and just plain ignoring all the sounds coming from the phone began to seriously irritate what had been a largely catatonic bus crowd.
For some reason neither Ed nor I can explain, after exiting the bus after about a 9 hour bus journey, we decided to go around and enter the station through the back. A lot of things make sense after 9 hours of having your brain on standby. Completely missing the person who was meant to pick us up. I barely knew what he looked like, though he is family I hadn't seen him in years and had just been shown a small photograph which I had already forgotten. Eventually he found us and managed to recognise me. We had arrived in North Carolina, the home of my ancestors. Well some of my ancestors. My recent ones. Recent ones who had lived in America. So I was home in a strange and poetic kind of way. But not really in a realistic or factual kind of way. It still felt good.
