Double Deckers... mmm... sandwich.

At around 7 in the morning on Monday, Voorhees dropped me off at the train station on the way to work. She said I'd be fine, just follow the crowds and I'd end up in New York City, there was no way to mess this up. It was easy getting from her part of Jersey to Newark Penn Station. That's when it got complicated.

I saw a giant crowd flood out of the train and head down the stairs and onto another platform. Of course I followed them. After standing there for 10-15 minutes, I looked up at the monitor explaining what trains where heading where at what platform. The train I was supposed to take into NYC was not on the screen. Probably because it had already left. From another platform. A train pulled up and I asked a man next to me if it was headed into New York. He stared at me and I was about to repeat the question when he said, "No... it's going to Hoboken. But there are a lot of trains going to New York."

Fabulous. So after that, I stood and waited on the platform until I saw OBVIOUS tourists and followed them to the right train. How did I know they were tourists? The sneakers with the high socks, the American flag t-shirt, the fanny-pack. Perfect. They led me straight to Penn Station.

I had an hour to kill before the bus left, so I went to Borders and browsed around. Half an hour later, I headed back to the bus stop and this is the Hell I saw:

I asked the two people in front of me if this was the Megabus to DC. They were both Asian and the woman nodded and said really loudly, in a slow voice, "Yes, we're in line." Thank you. I don't really care that you're in line. I can see that. Also, maybe if you speak louder and slower, I'll pay more attention to what you're saying and less attention to how stupid you sound. After like 5 minutes, the Asian man in front of me turns and holds up a banana peel. "I'm just going to go throw this away, ok? I'll be back. Throwing this away in the trash can. Over there." Ridic.

As soon as he gets back, the Megabus guy looks over at us and yells out, "Yo, where y'all going?" The guy behind me yells back DC, and the Megabus guy hollers that we're in the wrong line. At this point, I don't even care anymore and use my bags to knock the two Asians out of my way.

I still don't understand how everyone is going to fit on the bus until this monstrosity pulls up in front of us.Yes, that is in fact a giant double decker bus. Huge. I got on and went upstairs. While I was waiting and staring out the window, I saw one of the sketchiest things I've seen in NY.



The first picture is of a man talking to a cop with a drug sniffing dog. The dog all of a sudden went insane and lunged at the man. It was snapping it's teeth and pulling on its leash. The cop kept having to restrain the dog, pulling it back, pushing it down to the ground and basically disciplining it. The dog would absolutely not stop. It was barking and pulling and generally going nuts and drawing attention to the man. Finally, the man kind of backed away and took off running (as you can see in the second picture). And then the dog was fine and just stood there like nothing was wrong.

Total sketch.

$1 Bus = best $1 purchase outside of a winning lottery ticket

For all those doubters - it was an adventure/trip well-worth the $1 I paid.

Things people told me about my $1 bus ride:

1. There will be no bathroom.
2. There will be no A/C.
3. It's going to be a school bus.
4. You will die.
5. They are going to steal your luggage.
6. You'll have to pay $50 to get off the bus.
7. They are going to knock you out and steal your organs.
8. You are stupid.

But who wins? I do. Because there WAS a bathroom, and A/C, and it was coach bus, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY I am alive.

The bus stop is at this major intersection outside the Metro Center stop. There's the little megabus man logo on a sign. I wait there and the luggage policy on the website clearly states that you can have one piece of luggage to go under the bus and another to store in your overhead compartment.

This is the woman in front of me.

There are more bags behind those. She had like 6 bags and I was pretty sure she wasn't going to get on. Then this man in a red vest starts yelling for "MEGABUS TO NY."

He checks my confirmation/reservation number and then tells me to have a seat on the bus. I start pulling out my phone to take a picture of the bus and of the Megabus sign, and he stops, stares at me, and says again very, very slow, "Take a seat. On. The. Bus."

Of course I then scurry on and find a seat near the front where I can creepily watch everyone else board the bus.

A bunch of young ladies get on the bus, and then this classy young thing rolls up with an older classy thing. And I think it's totally cute until the mother starts talking to the driver. She asks him where the bus stops, and when he answers, she yells onto the bus after her daughter, "DID YOU HEAR THAT? WHERE ARE YOU GETTING DROPPED OFF?" Then asks if she can board the bus to say goodbye to her daughter. Climbs onto the bus, her sunglasses still on, and tries to make her way down the aisle. Meanwhile, her daughter is absolutely mortified and tries to pretend like she doesn't see/hear. Her mother immediately pivots and hobbles off the bus, announcing loudly to all the passerbys on the street and the driver, "She doesn't want to see me." She then proceeds to have another conversation with the driver who is trying to check more people in until he finally stops acknowledging her. After talking outloud to the street, she just wanders away, like a woman who has walked too far from the nursing home and doesn't remember where she lives.

I am sitting in my seat, taking a nap, when this woman across the aisle from me starts to talk loudly on the phone. The first thing I wake up to is, "What's up sugar?" I assume, because of the volume of her voice, that she is talking to the driver and trying to make friends.

No. She is of the breed where the smaller the phone is (or the more ethnic looking an individual is) the louder you talk. She proceeds to have this ridiculously loud conversation. But I also feel bad making fun of her because she might be suffering from a disease. The one where you can't control the volume of your voice.

On the bus, at one point, the bus driver realizes he is in the wrong lane on 95. AKA the left lane and he needs to be in the right lane. We are right outside the city at this point. He pulls a Little and veers across 4 lanes of traffic, just as 95 splits. There is a HUGE difference between doing that in a little Hyundai and doing that in a GIANT COACH BUS.

Also, at one of the stops, the driver was talking on the phone about how some guy hit him on his way to the airport and drove off and at the time apologized and said it was his fault and is now recanting. The driver then yells on the phone that he's getting a lawyer. Who hits a bus? If you hit a bus, maybe you shouldn't be driving because it's not like they're easy to not see.

It reminds me of a time in elementary school when our bus was making a turn and we told her she couldn't make it and she told us to shut up and of course, she didn't make it. She crushed the entire front left side of a Mercedes as the guy was dropping off his daughter. She said that thanks to the Mercedes being like an inch over the "kiss and ride" line (the line cars pull up to to drop off kids, not a line cars pull up to to pick up prostitutes), she was off scot-free. That afternoon, she hit a trash can on the side of the road because she was distracted by the older kids who had found her trashy romance novels and who were reading outloud the graphic scenes to the first graders.