New York. Getting There is Half the Fun!

People have been hyping up New York for years. "You'll love it, you won't want to leave." "It's the most amazing place." "It's so exciting." "You have to go!" Did it live up to the hype? I'm going to post my thoughts in a couple of posts. Which, believe it or not, I'm not writing in the middle of the night, rushing against the countdown until my time runs out and the internet cafe cuts me off...

View of the city from the bus before entering the tunnel from New Jersey.

There was some talk about going to New York with my family, but unfortunately that didn't happen. (Partially because my parents ran off on a last minute trip to Estonia for a traditional multi-day wedding.) But then I started looking at bus tickets to New York and decided I was going with or without them. (Greyhound and Megabus have good fares if you book ahead of time and don't mind a 10 hour bus ride.) My cousin Hendrik decided to come to Toronto for a few weeks from Estonia around the same time I wanted to go to New York. So I bought some bus tickets and off we went.

Hendrik and me in front of the bus in Toronto. Before we knew we were in for a 15 hour drive.

I left work on Friday, July 30 and took the bus to Toronto. Hendrik and I had dinner with my mom and aunt Christina, who gave us a ton of tips (and helped out a lot with arranging things for us to do). Then it was off to the bus station... We took a Greyhound to NY. Our bus left an hour late for some reason. And then we sat at the border for 4 hours. There was some confusion at the border because Hendrik is a minor and the border guard didn't know how to dial an international number... But it was all fine in the end, even though we were 5 hours late arriving in New York...

Hendrik on the bus in front of our first glimpses of New York's skyline.

There were a few interesting "incidents" on the bus...

• There was a man sitting near us who leaned his seat all he way back. Unfortunately, he was sitting in front of two rather tall men, who politely asked him to lean it slightly forward. When he refused (rather rudely), they got the driver involved. The man with his lean on had this smug smile the whole time and kept looking at us as if we approved. It was rather bizarre. The driver ended up asking him to move elsewhere.

• I learned the most effective way to get your toddler to be quiet: Yell "SHUT UP!" repeatedly in a whiny voice.

All that said, the bus ride was better than the many overnight buses Tiina and I took in Spain last year. Mostly because I actually slept, even if only for about 2 hours at a time.