More buses

It seems that my traveling on buses doesn't end just because my trip to southeast Asia is over. Yesterday I took a bus from Philadelphia to Easton, where my sister lives, so that I could celebrate Thanksgiving with her and our dad. And once again, the traveling gods were on my side:

In typical fashion I arrived at the Greyhound bus terminal just 5 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart; it was irrelevant to me that it was a holiday, so there would probably be lots of people there (and there were). The line was too long to wait to buy a ticket. So without even having a ticket, I went directly to the line to board the bus; I figured I would ask to buy a ticket at the first stop at Broad & Olney in North Philly.

Well, 10:40am, the scheduled departure time, came and went. There were about 6 people in front of me in line. And we were being told that the bus was full; there were no more seats. But somehow still, I didn't panic or worry in the least. I would just wait out the situation.

At about 10:45am, a woman Greyhound worker came up to those of us still waiting in line, and explained that they were going to switch buses: the bus already full only had a capacity of 47, while another empty bus right next to it had a capacity of 55. Doing the quick math, I knew that I could get a seat.

So I took advantage of the time that it was going to take to unload the first bus and then board the second bus, and I ran back into the terminal to wait in line to buy a ticket. I waited for nearly 10 minutes before I finally got up to the ticket counter. I told the woman, "one ticket one-way for the 10:40am bus to Easton." She said that bus already left; I told her, no its still outside. Then, she asked me if the bus driver told me to come inside to buy a ticket; without a moment's hesitation, I said yeah.

And just like that I bought my ticket at 10:55am for a 10:40am bus that was overbooked when I got there. And thus I was able to make it on time for Thanksgiving with my dad and my sister.

When I handed my ticket to the woman checking tickets at the door to the bus, she said, "oh there you are! I knew we had one more." HA!!!

ps. I'm writing from my sister's apartment in Easton right now. I leave in a little bit to catch yet another bus: this one from here to New York City to spend some time with my friend Corey. More buses!