Greyhound--Oakland to Arcata

Greyhound is much better than any European bus. First, they're not bitter and they believe in good old American customer service. The drivers are a lot more fun, and everyone is open to conversation and is in general much nicer. A good example of the difference between American and European hospitality is the European tendency to casually sell batteries by the battery and not by the pack. You'll see a four-pack of batteries for a Euro and think, "Hey, that's not that bad, especially in such a fine establishment as this!" and you'll pluck it off the rack and slap it down on the counter, thinking of all the CDs you can play with your brand new batteries, and then the lady will ask you how many batteries you want, and you'll say "what? I want the whole pack..." and she'll say "okay..." and then ring up the batteries and say "Four Euros." You'll realize what just went down and then look at the floor and glumly pull out four Euros and exchange them for the batteries, and at that point you don't even really want the batteries anymore, but you put them in your bag and go on with your life, sad and disillusioned.

So I was on the Greyhound, and it helps to come from Oakland, but I'm sure this goes for any major City/Ghetto, but everyone was very talkative, and the driver was upbeat. Here's a parable of his upbeatness: We had just taken the exit to San Rafael, and we were in rush hour traffic right at an intersection, when a sedan calmly slammed into the bus and wedged itself underneath. The bus stopped as we heard the crunch, and the bus driver got out of his seat and said "alright so here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna need you all to write on these slips whatever it was you saw happen..." blablabla the moral is that without skipping a beat, he dealt with all the formalities, and the police, and all that, even though they might have fired him on a less sunny day.

We sat on the bus talking for an hour or so, and then had to get off so that the tow truck could pull the sedan out and we could continue on our way. The great thing was that nobody complained. Nobody even said "damn, i'm gonna be late." The most negative thing anybody said was "Good thing I don't have a court date." As the mexicans all watched on their bikes, we filed back onto the bus, knowing we'd get to Arcata at around midnight, and departed again, hoping the bus was still structurally sound. We started, and the cars that had been stuck on the road behind us were finally able to go by.

We got to San Rafael and the guy next to me got a call from his friend who would be able to give him a ride to his destination. "Fuck this bus," he said, and left. This, of course, was good, because everyone else had gotten on, meaning that I had two seats to myself on which to luxuriate. I didn't get much sleep, but I finished a book I'd been meaning to read, and I ate a taco and a burger. The burger was better. Next time I want a taco I'll go to a taco truck.

After a few hours of driving, we started to smell burning. Soon after, the bus began bouncing up and down violently, like turbulence except it hurt the spine. We felt a strong vibration and then someone told the bus driver, who stopped, looked under the bus, said "looks like the axle's loose. Hopefully it'll fall back in place." Sufficiently comforted, we sat back down. The burning and vibrating stopped, but for the rest of the ride we rattled up and down like kids on a dad's overactive lap, while the two guys behind me discussed the finer points of growing marijuana. Apparently if you water the plant with kool-aid, you can make it change colors.

I arrived in Arcata and was alone at the station for an hour with an old burnt out hippie who was smoking weed, and for that whole hour, tried to make conversation with me. ("Hey man do you smoke weed?" ; "No." ; "Why'd you quit? Did you burn out or something?") It's hard to communicate with these people.

The difference between Greyhound and European buses is that Greyhound gets you there two hours late because it got in an accident or something like that, whereas in Europe, you get there seven hours late for no plausible reason.

Moral: Eurolines=It's better to hitchhike --- Greyhound=Better than Eurolines