Capitals Bore

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We left early morning to take an Amtrak from Montreal to Albany, New York. We figured it be best to travel more "normally" accross the border to avoid getting hassled and questioned excessively. Even on the train, when the inspector saw my passport stamps, he asked on top of the regular questions "how do you afford to travel to all these places?" I calmly explained to him that after high school I had been boring and worked hard full-time to earn money and just saved it and lived simply. I was careful not to let him know that I also travel simply, as I'm sure that would lead to more questioning. Corporate hotel chains are handy when they ask you where you're going to be staying. "Uh, Holiday Inn" They're everywhere.

Once we arrived in Albany, in late afternoon, we tried to find nightlife, or at least some place we could talk to some young people for info, and failed. Within an hour, we began to understand how boring and unuseful this city was. It's the capital of New York, making it pretentious, but without any sort of commodities for those "passing through." There are no computer+Internet cafes. People we asked on the street didn't know if Albany even had a library. Punks are harassed just for being on the street. There is only one music venue. Etc. Pretty much, the US culture of fear and confirmity was firmly embodied in this city.

We walked for a few hours, down to the trainyard to scope it out, and then back to a homeless mission for night which we had seen earlier. We had to show ID and sign up and give all sorts of information just to stay that one night. Alan had to show both his SIN and passport, and since I only had the passport, showed that. When I finally lay down with my borrowed mat and blanket, and tried to fall asleep, I was unable to for 3 reasons: 1) I had no clue what to expect of the people laying around beside me. Would they know I was from outta town? Was I the only white guy in the shelter? What would they consider doing to me in the night? 2) on the other side of the room, a guy would randomly giggle at random points throughout the night, for no conceivable reason. 3) the guy beside me, in the corner, would twitch kick his legs out and make sharp snorts all night long...perhaps jonesing for another hit?

I did not even passout for a second that night, between our 2am arrival and our mandatory 6am wake-up. The shelter, which was called Rescue Mission and was easily identified by it's neon-lit "Jesus Saves" sign jutting out of the building, was very strict. In order to received breakfast, one had to have slept there...in order to sleep there, one has to be there for supper....in order to be there for supper, you have to be there for pre-supper devotions...etc, etc. Coming from Sanctuary, this place felt sinister. Everything reeked of manipulation. The lazy "amen" of breakfasters after the morning devotions seemed fake and uninspired. I even saw a few people give "not this shit again" looks, but they kept their mouth shut in patience for food.

We left the shelter by about 7am, when everybody else had to as well. We bought a few last-minute items, spent a few hours trying to find Internet access anywhere in town, failed pretty badly, and then spent another 2 hours following peoples false directions to the I90 West. When we finally, ultimately, at last, eventually got there, a woman stopped and offered to take us to a thru-going truckstop. Thinking this was a great idea, we took it.

We spent all afternoon at the truckstop, trying to get a ride out. We signed right at the exit of the truckstop, and were never hassled by anyone but a cop, who told us that if he saw us still hitching when he came back, he "take us to other accomodations for the night." This was Albany in a nutshell. We hated this place. Of course, cops don't understand how great such alluded-to accomodations can sound to certain people, even when they haven't done much bad. We recalled a native guy we rode with out of Thunder Bay, who had told us that when he asked for the policeman to let him stay in jail one cold winter night, and the policeman had told him the cells were reserved for people who did something wrong, he had smashed the policeman's window, and gone to jail. There was a court case afterward, and the guy did not get punished because the judge thought the policeman should have seen it coming. True or not, the story was great.

We just continued to hold our sign on the yard, and hide it from the cops when the patrolled around. Some truckers were parking for the night after fuelling up, and gave us their cold waters which which were free on promotion for tank fill-ups. Another guy gave me $20 after finding out that I was a Christian like he, even though I made it clear that we were OK for money and food.

We ended up walking back towards town. I was so pissed off about not getting a ride, so angry at Albany as a whole, and so incredibly bushed from my sleepless night, that once we got to the intersection where the lady had picked us up, I touted our sign as blatantly as ever. Of course, nobody stopped or even gave a shit, since it appeared to be rush hour, and in 15 minutes, I just threw down my bags and took a nap under a tree. Al went to go shower, and I refused to, and napped out for an unknown amount of time. Al woke me up, I stamped back into down and did was I had refused to ever do on this trip -- bought a bus ticket to the next city: Cleveland. This was a bitter bullet to bite for me. After I had bought it, over-tiredness caught up to me and everything was funny, especially jokes about how terrible Albany was. Alan had introduced me to the art of writing cynical post-cards home during our stay at Sanctuary, so I wrote out two of them of Albany and felt genuinely better about it.

I knew that these moments would come during this trip, especially with the nature of hitch-hiking and not renting hotel rooms, etc, etc. Looking back now, I don't regret anything.

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