The Weekender

(Sorta, since I did go home this past weekend and did have *quite* the trip.)

I hate Greyhound. Passionately. I suggest that anyone looking to make a quick buck put together a rival transcontinental bus company, because Greyhound needs some competition to force it to raise its standards. I started for home at 8:30pm on Friday night, and after arriving about 15 minutes late, we began out FOUR AND A QUARTER hour trip (should take 3, +/- 15 minutes) to Albany. There were probably like 10 empty seats in the coach leaving South Station and only about 5 by the time we picked up the folks in Worcester. Why then did the bus continue to go into Springfield for more passengers? For, alas, more than 5 people got on there, and thus many were forced to sit in the aisles, stand up, or like one poor lady, find a seat on the front steps of the bus. Ridiculous. And although I wasn't directly affected, I still felt cramped. And then, on top of that all, we arrived some 20 minutes late into Albany. *grumble*

Saturday was fine; we had fun at the Canty camp as we always do. But I was dead exhausted by the end of the day and found myself struggling to stay asleep on the way home. I was so tired, in fact, that I went to bed at 11:45pm! It was like elementary school all over again, and I completely blame the misery of the night before.

After a predicted failed iPhone hunt on Sunday, I decided to take the 4:30 back to Beantown. We arrived at the bus station right on the dot, and it looked as if I had made it once again; Greyhound can never be on time. But I learned from my former TA and now grad school peer Greg, who was also in line and headed back to campus, that the 4:30 was overflowing and they were sending another ASAP. Of course, ASAP meant 45 minutes later. Now the good news was that there were only like 10 of us, so it was a total contrast to two nights before. The bad was that, upon arriving in Worcester, the driver got lost TWICE and thus we lost that time (Greg and I both could have helped him but we were far too lazy). Nevertheless, we arrived back at South Station safely, and my weekend travel adventures came to an end.

...Or did they? Upon arriving at Park Street, we were told it was the last stop. Ugh...construction on the Longfellow bridge put all stops between Park and Kendall out of service, forcing us to take a shuttle across the river. Seriously? So we made that transfer headache and finally made our ways back to our respective homes.

Late arrivals? Overbooking busses? Making people stand and sit illegally? Not knowing to how navigate? What am I paying for? What awful awful service; I have no desire to travel again anytime soon.

(That is, until August 2nd when I go to Old Timers' Day at the Stadium, but that's totally different.)