Seattle Bound

Well I write this as I’m on the road to Seattle. It’s amazing that I could take a coach bus from Vancouver to Seattle for $25. Granted the coach bus is a Greyhound and not the best but still it’s better than nothing. For comparison, I once had to take a taxi from my home in Eagan to the MSP airport, a short ten minute ride. The driver of course made sure to take 35E to 494, the long way, to squeeze every dollar out of me he could but it still cost me $30 before tip, the guy tried to not take a credit card even though I requested this when I called and he had a sign on his cab that stated he took Visa. Anyway enough about that guy, this trip is cheap comparatively.
So last night was my first “bad” experience at a hostel. I wouldn’t really call it horrible, frightening or anything like that but it was not desirable that’s for sure. When I first got to the room one of my roommates was sleeping, it was about 2:15 pm. So as I am in there I need to try to be quiet which is quite difficult when you have to unpack, unload heavy stuff, get your bed ready, and such. I felt like a jerk moving around in there but I had to get moving so I skipped changing and got my bag ready as quick as I could. The lock I brought which is super secure did not fit on this locker, which was a first for the trip. Luckily I brought another lock, a cable lock I had intended to use to lock bags to things if ever I needed. It worked but again it is kind of noisy, long, and can be difficult to handle at times.I made sure to get back to the hostel at a decent time so I could get things ready for the next day as I was due on a bus at 7:15 this morning. So it was 10:30 pm when I came back. I knew I was back at a good time because there were a lot of people in the lobby just checking in. Now the only problem was that EVERYONE in the room but me was already in bed, asleep, and with the lights out. I was shocked! I got my phone out and did a quick check of the beds and it didn’t look like anyone had an eye-mask on or ear plugs in, so I had to be quiet and work in the dark again. This was very frustrating as I wasn’t able to properly prepare earlier in the day. I decided then that I would wear the same clothes minus a new undershirt I had available. I then went to plug in my electronics, my ipad was pretty low as I used it extensively and the ipod was almost dead as I hadn’t charged it yet, only then did I see that there wasn’t a plug by me. I was on the upper bunk and unlike the other hostel this one didn’t have plugs for everyone. So I had to either not charge my stuff or worry about it as I hadn’t actually met and talked to my roommates yet. I decided to plug em in and worry about them. You could hear every movement on the beds so when the guy below me kept tossing and turning I naturally didn’t sleep well concerned he would wake up and see a free gift he could grab. You can tell how much I trust people huh? I probably need to work on that but considering my current life was on that thing I didn’t want to risk it.Finally at 4 am I decided to lay in bed for a few more minutes and then get up for the day. I would quickly gather my stuff and leave the room. As I lay there I could hear people outside talking as they walked by. Someone mentioned something to the effect of “Yeah let’s do it” and “you be the lookout.” That was followed by conversation that led to a drug buy. I then decided my idea to walk to the local Denny’s would wait an hour or so. I got up went to shower room, realized I would only shower in this stall if I wore my Keen’s and decided I didn’t want to get them wet before a long bus ride so it would be no shower for me, second straight day. I then went to the lobby and started reading the news and wasting time.I asked the hostel host about buses to the Greyhound terminal and he gave me what seemed like an easy way and confident directions. I went to the bus stop at the time I was told and waited. Another bus came but it wasn’t the right one. I waited ten more minutes before calling the transit help line and was then informed that bus line didn’t start picking up for another hour. Frustrated, I took off on foot. It was a 1.25 mile trek carrying my full backpack and my luggage at 6:00 am when I hadn’t showered so the added sweat only helped me smell worse. I then made it to the train I knew would take me to the transit terminal only to see that the bus I had passed up and which the host failed to mention to me also would have taken me to this train stop. Oh well, I gladly bought a ticket, happy to not be walking with my luggage anymore and went to Starbucks and waited for my Greyhound departure.

The ride so far has been quiet which is good for this tired guy. It did take us an hour at the border to get everyone checked out and back on the road. At the next stop in bellingham a fellow jumped on the bus and needed a seat so I offered him the one next to me. Good thing I did because we started talking and I asked him where he was going. He said Longview. I have no idea where that is so I asked him and he decided to look at his ticket. As I looked on I could see his ticket was for a roundtrip Bellingham to Seattle. He was quite confused and frustrated. Sounds like someone else bought the ticket for him and it was the wrong one. He couldn’t decide what to do so I told him to go talk to the driver before he left so he did. He came back a few minutes later grabbed his things, said goodbye, and was off to figure out how he was going to get to his destination while it sounded like he didn’t really know where it was.

We are almost to Seattle now and the mountains are very green and beautiful. Something about the landscape or roads or something has a very USA feel to it, which is nice. I’ve already started scouting some hotels near the downtown area. I am going to check out the hostel but if it’s like the one last night I’ll be finding someplace else to sleep. I can’t afford three straight sleepless nights and this hostel is one of the pricier ones so it better be nice or I’ll take my money elsewhere. Once I get my housing figured out I’ll head into town with what I need for the rest of the night. I’m going to the Mariners vs. Twins tonight and have pretty good seats so I’m looking forward to that. Hopefully they can build on what they did last night. I’m also a bit worried as I think I saw the pitching rotation when I looked last week would have Nick Blackburn starting tonight. Please correct me on that if I’m wrong so I can quit worrying. Talk to ya later. Peace.