New Orleans can be pronounced either Norlans, nu (as in shoe) orlans, nu orleeen or if you are me new (as in you) orleens. All depends on where you are from, all seem to be acceptable. But before we got there we had to get out of Georgia and go across Alabama and Mississippi into Louisiana.
Ed made a vital discovery on the bus. The seats near the front, technically reserved for wheelchair use, had great legroom.
We got off the bus at the stop in Alabama, I could feel my face wrinkling in the heat. We went to a fast food place called What a Burger. They push the words together so it sounds more like saying wuddaburger. They were highly amused as I slowly asked "could I have a what a burger burger please." One person dropped their milkshake. His friend turned to him and said
"you know why you dropped it?"
"Why?" asked his friend, eager to learn the source of his error.
"Cos you a bitch."
Ed and I had a brief conversation with them, they told us that the "greyhound bus sucks." We already knew it. And it became even more apparent as we returned to an announcement of a delay on our bus.
Even worse, every time I stood up on the bus, I hit my head on the ceiling. Every time. Probably my unconscious mind trying to lose more brain cells so that I wouldn't be as keenly aware of the discomfort I was in.
"The bus is nice, you'll get to see America as you go past." Someone had told me. But you don't see America, you see trees. I was pretty sick of trees. "It's such a romantic notion, travelling America on the greyhound" I had read somewhere. It might seem that way when you nostalgically look back on some trip you made as a fresh faced youngster out to explore 20 years ago, but the reality of riding the bus across such a massive country is about as romantic as having sex in the disabled toilets of a McDonalds.
