Stories from the NY trip

Posted on September 29th, 2006 by Sacha Chua

The e-ticket from the bus company said that people should arrive
twenty minutes early in order to keep their reservation priority. The
pickup point was 1.5 km from my residence. I was taking no chances,
though. If I missed the bus, I had no idea how I’d get to New York
without spending way too much on a plane ticket! I requested a cab for
5:00 AM (meep!), giving myself _plenty_ of time to get there.

Too much time, apparently.

As it turns out, waiting alone on the sidewalk at 5:10 in the morning
is nerve-wracking, even in Toronto. Toronto feels like a generally
safe city (compared to Manila, at least!), but I was still pretty
nervous. Someone with a thick Irish accent asked me for help getting
back to Oakville. I normally don’t give people money because, well, I
haven’t sorted out the best response to panhandlers yet, but I was
just so rattled that I gave him the smallest amount I had. Didn’t have
any coins, so I ended up giving him CAD 10. Fortunately, he headed off after that…

… but then I was sitting on the sidewalk, shivering, scared, and
more than a little worried that the bus might not actually show up.
After all, I wasn’t going with an established company like Greyhound.
Knowing that I’d charged it to Visa and could dispute the charge just
in case they scammed me was small comfort waiting there at 5:15 in the
morning with no bus in sight.

Waah.

And that was one of the times I felt really, really, really lucky to
have friends I can call at 5:17 in the morning.
Jedediah Smith lived closest to the
intersection. Although I knew he wasn’t really a morning person and
he’d probably need the sleep, I called him up anyway. I was starting
to get really nervous.

And he came, and that was awesome. =) We chatted for a bit before the
bus showed up. It turned out to be non-dodgy. Whew! But it was
wonderful having company. =)

Yay.

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