Oh to have had my camera.

The good news is that I was lucky enough to have scored a Chinatown bus that had wireless internet. Also, I got to see some of DC's finest at work. Here's the bad news: it's 2:21 am and I'm somewhere between Philadelphia and New York. The way I see it I should not have been in Pennsylvania at any point on my journey from NYC to Washington DC. I guess it's only a little out of the way, but I'm tired and I want to BE IN MY BED! Chinatown Bus is not my friend right now.

Everything went fairly smoothly. I planned to make a day trip to DC to meet with my friend Hilary about lesson plans for a Japanese class I'm teaching next year. She has taught Japanese for several years and had all kinds of wisdom to impart and I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately I only had a day to spare, having wasted much of my summer vacation doing absolutely nothing. So I woke up bright and early to catch the 7am bus to DC. (I didn't actually catch that bus. Who knew that Broadway and E Broadway were two different streets?) I did catch the 8am bus which got me there with plenty of time to meet with her, wander for a bit, meet my friend Micah for dinner, wander some more (ps convenience stores/pharmacies are not as conveniently located in DC as NYC) and be back for the 9pm bus.

The 9pm bus is where the story gets exciting. First they were showing Bourne Supremacy, which isn't the exciting part but still cool. Our fairly full bus started off on our trek in a timely manner. Just after we got out of the city the driver pulled to the side of the road unexpectedly and turned off the engine. He didn't speak english so no one had any idea what was going on. We continued on our merry way a few minutes later. About forty minutes outside DC he did the same thing. It was a little harder to ignore the second time it happened. We sat in the dark for a few minutes before passengers started smelling smoke. When people smell smoke they sometimes imagine that they see fire. Suddenly everyone was out of their seat and pushing to get off the bus. The lights were still out, our driver still didn't speak english and we were on a friggin' bus. I was particularly frightened as I was at the back of the bus. I wonder that no one considered emergency exits. We all just yelled at the people in the front (who were taking their sweet time) to leave their stuff and hurry. (I wasn't willing to leave my stuff btw. I had my computer for crying out loud. I might die in a real fire when I stop to grab my stuff.)

So, picture this if you will (this is where I wish I had my camera on me, so you wouldn't have to picture it and I could have done it for you.) 35 people standing next to our bus on the freeway. So we're all off the bus (because we thought it was on fire!) and then someone realizes that the bus is on the left shoulder and should be on the right shoulder. I thought either shoulder worked for emergencies. Apparently I was wrong because they started herding us back onto the "burning" bus so we could drive to the other side of the road. I think the fire truck showed up at that point and we got off and on one more time before moving the bus. Keep in mind we still had NO IDEA what's going on.

On the other side of the road we unloaded again. The fire truck was still there and two highway patrol cars showed up and a very nice looking officer proceeded to put out flares so we wouldn't get run down. That totally would have screwed up our night. At that point the fire truck left, never actually having seen a fire. They did inform us that another bus was on its way. An hour and a half after the mess started as I was about to die of tiredness, the second bus arrived. After a stop through Philly I can see my NYC in the distance. I only call it my NYC with any kind of affection when I've been through some sort of ordeal in getting back to it. It's actually happened quite a bit. It seems like it should be easier to get to America's largest city, right?