New York to Washington

Today started very much like yesterday – waiting for a shower. I gave up on that in exchange for breakfast at the diner round the corner. At least I would start off well fed and perhaps any smell I might generate might keep away the nutters on the bus. The other thing which annoyed me was that most people seemed to get up early and I didn’t get time to disturb or annoy them with my alarm clock. Damn!

I checked out of the hostel – can’t wait for the feedback request – and walked down the road to 96th Street Subway station. On the #2 express it is only two stops to Times Square/42nd Street and from there one can walk through to the Port Authority Bus Depot.

As I said before I had gone there the previous evening to make sure I had got the right place. However, yesterday I had entered from the street level and there was an electronic information board right inside the doors – there are lots of doors! This time I entered from the Subway station and realised the place was a fucking aircraft hanger with signs pointing to Gate 200 and beyond! Where the hell was I to start heading? As it was Sunday all the information booths were shut but I did manage to find one which had a disinterested attendant in it (a true New Yorker?) who looked up from her newspaper, briefly, said “Yeah” in a most unhelpful way and looked back to her newspaper. I put on my best behaved English accent (whatever that might be) and asked “Excuse me, I am travelling by Greyhound to DC. Can you tell me which gate I need to head for please?” I had also held my ticket up to the booth window. She looked up glanced at the ticket and said “Gate 27, straight on and down the stairs” and promptly returned to her newspaper. I couldn’t resist, I had to say “Thank you so much for your kind and attentive help ma’am. Have a nice day”. I think the sarcasm passed harmlessly over the roof of the booth, but I felt better at having got it in.

Needless to say, true to the sour bitch’s word straight on and down the escalator pointed to Gates 20-29, or 20-50 or something – all I knew was that 27 was in its range. Having found out I needed to execute a U-turn at the bottom of the escalator – this was due to a surge of panic at facing a dead end and gates numbered 20-25 – I then located Gate 27 with a huge queue emanating from it. I joined the queue and in true British fashion waited patiently and queued properly until I arrived at the gate.

The e-ticket worked and I trundled towards the indicated bus. I was greeted by a baggage loader who hefted my bag made some comment about a bad back, it being overweight and basically hinting for a tip for doing his job. I said “no problem mate” picked my bag up and loaded it into the luggage bay. As he started to protest I just turned my back on him and boarded the bus. The words of the Professor came back to me “One can tire of America” and I was certainly getting tired of everyone trying to extract American Dreams from me. One thing America is: capitalist, exploitative... oh sorry that’s two! Two things America is; capitalist, exploitative, commercial... oh that’s three things! Among the diverse things America is, are; capitalist, exploitative, commercial, shallow, green (Yankee Dollar colour), materialistic ...dare I go on?

The bus was full, and as soon as it was we left – some 15 minutes ahead of schedule. It was also an express, which means it doesn’t stop (well, until it gets to its destination) so I was quite pleased at that. I had my bottle of water, MP3 player and noise reducing headphones – I was set.

I started off quite well as I stayed awake until we cleared New York City proper. After that my broken and reduced sleep of the night before took over and I slept for most of the journey.
I did wake up in time to witness us crossing an elevated stretch of highway over a large expanse of water. I realised I hadn’t slept long enough for us to have reached Key West but had no idea where I was – I left that to the bus driver.

I believe I must have nodded off again because when I next awoke I saw a sign saying Washington DC 25. Well it looked like the journey might pass off painlessly.

It did – and the baggage guy in New York had left my bag on the bus!

I headed out of the door with the sign pointing me towards the Metro station and hit the streets. Union Station is just down the road from the Greyhound station and a very helpful attendant instructed me in how to buy my ticket from the machine and which platform I needed for the train to Metro Center.

Having got to Metro Center I had no problem in finding my way to the hostel as DC uses a similar grid system to New York; Streets 1-whatever, bisected by streets A-whatever.

I got checked in, found my dorm and encountered Stephen one of my roommates. Stephen is a Kiwi who has recently got a job in Virginia – literally just down the road – and is staying in the hostel until he can find somewhere to live. [Note Washington DC is its own area and is not part of Virginia or Maryland.] He had spent five years working in the UK and then applied for a job here, not really expecting to be successful – but he was. Anyway we chatted for about 45 minutes about all sorts of things before he had to catch up with someone who was helping him sort out his social security card.

I headed for the shower and was able to walk straight into one! Hooray! Feeling much cleaner and much refreshed I got into my last clean shirt and trousers and headed for the laundry.

Having completed all my laundry I then headed out for something to eat. I thought I would head for Chinatown as it was only about six blocks away – so I did. This was more like it a large Chinese style gateway over the road – I will get a picture of it in daylight – and loads of restaurants & shops the other side of it.

I picked a Chinese restaurant and went in.

I had a lovely meal, but, as I had opted for a starter (spare ribs get me every time) I couldn’t finish it all. This is no problem because any restaurant or diner will always put it in a “take out” bag. That was another meal sorted out for me and I could even heat it up in the hostel’s radiation oven.

Satisfied and full I had a gentle stroll beck to the hostel, stashed my goodie bag in the fridge and headed for bed.

I fell asleep almost immediately and was not woken up by anyone or anything!