[Beorn]

OK, so my new plan was to go by plane to Tampa Bay on the 30th and see my Florida Warcraft bunch. Then I'd come back to dine with the Admiral on the 8th, stop at Holland MI for the other Warcraft dudes on the 9th and come back to Quebec City some time around the 12th.

However, greyhound didn't like it like that.

The bus I took out of Tampa got late to the Jacksonville FL station, at 10pm. From there, I have been given ill advice on how to get to Holland on time.

I learned afterwards that there had been a bus leaving at 2am that would've taken me to Holland on time. However, I had only been told to come back at 6:30am or noon. I haven't been able to get on the 6:30 bus because the ticket desk girl wouldn't let me. Instead, she told me to take the 7:30 bus to New York. Considering it was 5 hours until the next, I took it.

At that point, I was putting a name tag on my bags. Meanwhile, the other Greyhound dude was loading the bags in the bus and tore the name/adress tag I was holding on the other hand. I didn't get around to replace it because he loaded it in another bus and that other bus left the station instantly. It did have a Holland, MI tag on it, so as the tracking progress goes for the bag, I might eventually get confirmation it's in MI and go get it. So we will meet.

First thing I knew, I was in Baltimore, a couple hundred miles off course, half a day late. Hadn't shaved, washed, changed in forever.

The ticket clerk in Baltimore was more helpful: she actually told me exactly how late I was, how the bag tracking worked and how I could eventually claim refunds for the tickets I didn't get to use to Holland and back from MI to Montreal. I figured I'd just sneak-stay on that bus and get to NYC.

So right now, I'm at a friend's place with borrowed clothes, after my first shower, good meal and toothbrushing in 3 days. Hardcore, painful traffic in the tubes though from eating shitty bus station food.

I'll try tracking my luggage and set a date for when I'll go see them MI guys. Until then, I'll try to work out my newfound racism and hate of buses. I swear to God, they were all black, all of them, and I'm working really hard to push that fact out of my system. The digestion curve is really good, so I probably will have forgotten all about it within days. Hard to think of myself as a racist, still.