Adventures in down town buffalo

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Well what a bloody palaver that has been. We are now finally sat on the night train to Chicago but the journey here was not a simple one. After getting on the mega bus at Toronto we were a little late leaving as a woman was arguing with the driver and demanding that she be given two seats together as she had booked them for her bad back. She had however arrived late and was not aware of the policy of first come first served. So as the rest of the bus started hurling abuse and food she finally gave in and sat the hell down. Anyway with that over with the bus was fairly uneventful till we got to immigration at the American border. We were all marched off the bus with our bags to be checked again, and as Nath and I looked like butter wouldn’t melt and the immigration officer had been stationed at the American air base in high Wycombe, we had no problem. However one guy was drunk out of his skull so ended up being watched by the police whilst we waited, but that’s not the exciting bit and this is where I am glad that we British don’t tend to make a fuss about little things. On boarding the bus again most of us went back to the seats we were in originally. However some just sat where they wanted which meant that others now had to move and so on and so on. You won’t believe the arguments this caused, people hurling abuse about sticking to the seat they were in etc. It was like an episode of Jerry Springer.

Once we got to the bus terminal (the rest of the bus heading for the airport and then onto New York) we started to make our way to the address of the station we had found on the website. I’d spent ages the night before mapping it out etc and it wasn’t far. We ended up picking up this lost polish lady who was going the same way as us, with not much English we managed to tell her to follow us. After dragging our bags round the streets of Downtown Buffalo for 20 mins we found the station. It was small and shut which should have been our first clue. Once we got there there was a sign saying that the train we wanted didn’t stop there anymore and we needed to go to another station (10 miles away said the helpful 24/7 phone operator for Amtrak) so with no phone to call a cab and no money we were also now running out of time!. We had arrived at this station in plenty of time but now needing to get the other side of town we were going to be late!!!

Just as we had given up hope of finding a pay phone to even call a cab, one showed up. The guy had past us earlier and come back (with his current fare in tow) as he said “it’s not a nice part of town to be left walking round at night if you get my meaning” so he didn’t want to leave us there. So we now had a cab filled with us, a non English speaking polish woman and a local woman who was being dropped home en route, but didn’t understand how urgent our trip was!. Once her bum was literally out the door and the cab driver had realised we weren’t Australian it was a mad rush to the station we actually needed, which was by the bloody airport!!!

So finally after paying the taxi driver a large tip for his efforts and checking our luggage in very late I am now typing this whilst it is fresh in my mind before I go to sleep,………… hopefully

What an adventure!! Now I really feel like I’m travelling

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