The Magic Not-So-Cool Bus

This trip.  Wow.  Vakken A.  This will probably be a trilogy, because I need to get to sleep.  I will write the other two parts tomorrow, and I'll add pictures to all three blogs when I'm back in Rotterdam.  

Episode 1:  The Magic Not-So-Cool Bus

Yesterday I took the Eurolines bus from Rotterdam to London.  I can't tell if it was the biggest mistake ever, or the most uncomfortable adventure of all bus-time.  To start, the bus was 20 minutes late.  What happened to Dutch punctuality???  With that lovely start to the day, all seemed to be going well: passing through the Dutch countryside, seeing new parts of Rotterdam, etc.

We first stopped in Breda, The Netherlands.  All was going well...until the bus driver hit an electric pole.  Yes, the kind that supplies live electricity to things.  He fucked up his side mirror, then went upon his merry business.  It was clear, at that moment, that this was going to be a long bus ride.  At some point when we got into Antwerp, I had to pee.  There was a bathroom on the bus, but the non-obvious door handle made it seem like someone was in there.  I was standing around for 15 minutes before a British lady yelled from her chair "Ju' tur' i' tew the roit!"  I had done that already.  But apparently my mojo wasn't flowing hard enough into the knob.  It needed that extra vote of confidence from a true Brit.  I was immediately greeted by a very smelly, backed-up poop stew in the "toilet."  I'll just leave it at that.

Our next stop was Brussels.  Bruxelles, je t'aime.  I forgot how much I loved being there.  All the memories and emotions of being a study abroad student FIVE YEARS AGO came flooding back when I saw the Atomium from the window.  The lovely feeling passed, however, when the bus driver let us off for a rest stop.  He stopped along the side of a non-descript road and gave us 30 minutes to do whatever.  I wandered around for about 28 minutes looking for lunch, but there was nothing in the area I could find.  Eventually, I found a Quick and ordered a "Beef Holiday."  As in, your health is taking a holiday.  I'm not proud of it, but damnit I was hungry!  I managed to make it to the bus on time.  Because the bus wasn't turning on.  I still don't understand what happened, but we were delayed for about 20 minutes while he repaired it.

A short while after Brussels, we stopped at a gas station, which happened to be a Delhaize!  I remembered it immediately from my Brussels trip as a pretty good grocery store.  I picked up a sandwich for dinner, and came across Andalouse Sauce, which is the nectar of the gods.  Again, my good fortunes soon turned to...not good fortunes.  The air conditioning turned off for a good hour.  It was kind of like sleeping in a greenhouse, except filling with the permeating scent of poop stew coming from the "bathroom."  The driver insisted that the A/C was working, until the rest of the bus mutinied and killed him.  We then had Sandra Bullock drive the bus instead but if she went too slow we would have blown up.  At least that's how I remember it.

Then, we encountered a massive traffic jam just before the crossing into England.  The bus driver took a diverted route of some kind for buses, and we ended up at a passport check point.  The customs agents joked around with their unfunny Britishness on display, all the meanwhile making me fill out a "landing card" because I didn't have a visa for the UK.  Once the ENTIRE BUS went through, we hopped back on for about 10 seconds.  Lo and behold, customs wanted to check EVERYONE'S bag.  Because the bus originated in Amsterdam.  And people from Amsterdam are 110% drug smuggling bastards who want to ruin this great kingdom.

After step 2 of border control was through, and we missed an earlier ferry (which was already behind our schedule), we had to wait around for half an hour until the bus could be loaded onto a ferry.  Awesome!  Looked like we were gonna finally make it to London!  ...but the ferry took 95 minutes to cross over to Dover.  (Speaking of which, I now understand the song Cliffs of Dover - that place has really tall cliffs!)

The second we drove off of the ferry into Dover, our bus was diverted to ANOTHER customs check point.  AMSTERDAM BUS! BETTER RECHECK FOR POT.  BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE WE CHECKED RIGHT BEFORE THEY GOT ON THE FERRY!  That took another half an hour :)  We were finally in England!!!  ...except that it was like 10pm and it takes 2 hours to get to London from Dover by bus.  The route just so happened to be covered in what's known in the bus trade as 0%-darkness-visibility-while-driving-on-cliffs.  Not the most frightening thing ever, but it was close.

We got into London sometime after midnight local time.  I then had the honor of walking by myself through dark sidewalks to the hostel, which was not as close as advertised by Google Maps.  Eventually I found the hostel, and had the even greater pleasure of notifying everyone who at that point probably thought I was dead that I was, in fact, not dead.  This is quite difficult when the Internet is powered by hamsters on running wheels.  When they stop running, so does the Internet.  At least at that point I could finally go to sleep...just as soon as that guy in the room next door would stop playing Banana Pancakes on his guitar.

Next blog - Episode 2: Bangers and Mash.

I'm going to Stonehenge tomorrow at 7am, so time for bed...

Until then - Cheers, mates!