Guus Bosman

The journey from Washington to New York on Friday went very smooth, mostly because of the professional bus driver who managed to evade the most congested roads. On the way back we were not so lucky.

We woke up early Monday to take the train to New York at 10.30 o'clock. Irena brought us to the trainstation. We said goodbye and had plenty of time to take the train. When we arrived in the city we had a cup of coffee and walked to the bus stop. However, when we came there we saw nobody waiting, while there are usually people in line. So, we double checked the ticket, and we realized that the bus company had changed the location of the bus stop! We ran eight blocks across town, from 34th to 42nd but we were too late and just caught a glimpse of the bus leaving. I yelled and waved to the bus driver but that did nothing than attracting several cab drivers who offered us a ride.

Well, what do you do when you have a good hour to kill on Times Square? Indeed, we went to Starbucks and spend our time well. We were really early at the bus stop for the 1 pm bus (the correct location this time) to make sure we would get on. That was a smart move because a lot of people were waiting and some people couldn't get a seat.

Traffic was slow of course, there were a lot of people leaving New York, one of the reasons we had planned to take an early bus in the first place.

Traffic being bad is one thing, the bus breaking down quite another. We spent a very long time on a bus stop in south New Jersey, waiting for the busdriver to finish whatever he was doing. The most annoying part was that he didn't mention anything about the bus being broken -- he just went outside and started fixing stuff. Some fellow passengers got quite upset and yelled at him to explain, he was the calmness himself and just smiled. After 1,5 hours everything was apparently working again and we left. Traffic was now getting really bad, and especially at the various toll plazas we had to wait very long in line.

We arrived in Washington at 9 pm -- a full 8 hour journey. We immediately took a cab and wait to a nice restaurant, Woodgrill on Wilson, near our house to have a drink, dinner and forget about this experience.

Taking an early train.

The bus driver adjusting the pressure in the tire.