Albany Antics

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Now this was fun! My friend Rowan and I hitchhiked down to Albany (capital of New York). We arrived on a busy stretch of highway just outside of Montreal at about 4pm, ready for a long haul of unaccomodating drivers (beep! - several). I decided to take the plunge and take first thumb, selling my body for the whims of the drivers, but for naught. I was out there only 15 minutes before Rowan stepped into the frey. He was there a good 30 seconds before he managed to pull in a car, and here I had just got comfortable.

The road down to Albany from Montreal is a wonderful drive at the end of september when we did it. The fall colours are defiently something to see for people who have come from a continent used to deciduous trees. The guys that picked us up were a couple college students from Pennsylvania. While the drive was nice we did run into some drama.

As all who have met these beasts, the border guards of the USA are not something to tangle with, or so thought. The back story is that Rowan, being Australian, requires a visa to visit the US. Which unfortnately was expired by quite a few months. No biggie we think, but somehow we were proved....right? We pull up the border and hand over our passports, 2 American, 1 Mexican (student however) and an Australian passport with an out of date visa. Just to make sure, we mention it and the guard tells us that we need to get another one. He says this about 2 minutes before handing back the passports, and waving us through saying that he hopes we´ll enjoy our trip. Yay! Illegal immigration! (technically)

After a few minutes of well deserved confusion we continue, only to have the police appear behind us with flashing lights. We freeze, thinking that they had realized their mistake (or the fact we were speeding). But no, just responding to a little fender-bender up the road. The journey continues anew and we arrive in Albany just as night falls. Our gracious drivers let us go and we´re up against what Albany offers.

We dicide the first order of buisness is a place to rest our heads so we start of in pursuit of a suitable place. We find one which looks absolutely perfect...an abandoned warehouse in the industrial section of Albany. Away from attention, private, partial protected and fitting perfectly with the horror story theme of the horrible axe murderer taking care of a couple hitchhikers!

What happens is amazing, we sleep really really well. The next day we decide an American dinner for breakfast will be appropriate. Nice brekkie, but not really that interesting. We dicide to change Canadian money, find out that we can´t so are directed to Albany international airport, as the only place in town that can help us. (on a segue we find a beer that is $3 US for six pack! and the cans were 500mls!, we weren´t sure if it was alcoholic or not).

Now, at the airport all is running smoothly until we decide to fix the supposed issue with Rowan´s visa. After changing the money he starts calling people. After calling the airport security, Homeland security, customs and the point of immigration point in Canada, we get several different stories. The most severe was that if caught, he couldn´t enter into the US for 5 years, but we like the story about there would be no problem, just more screening. With that solved we were stuck at what to do, hitchhike to Springfield (Simspon geek, I admit) or catch the bus to Boston. Outside the airport we meet a bus driver, who after misunderstanding us (gotta love those Aussie accents) decides to take us the Greyhound depot for free, problem solved!

And so, begins the bus ride to Boston

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