Home again, home again...

Jiggity jig. How is everyone? Well, in case you haven't got it figured out from the title, we are back in the good old US of A. As it turns out, we were running out of both time and money, and I wasn't able to get back online while in Canada. But, fun was had and I am here to tell you all about it.

Where did we leave off? Oh yeah....

The Hydrofoil People Bite the Big One

There's not much more to this story, but I just wanted to put that up in bold letters one more time.

The only good thing that they did was give us bus vouchers. So, we took a crazy cab ride to the bus station in the heart of town. Crazy why, you ask? Remember when I said I should have paid more attention to the posters saying when the gay pride parade was going to be? Well, I wasn't kidding. Because as we wound our way to the center of town, our cabbie was becoming increasingly frustrated by all the streets that were blocked of with barriers and police getting ready to set up for the parade the following day. That's right, folks, they started blocking off the streets that the parade would be using the day before it even started. Consequently, what should have been maybe a 5 buck cab ride turned into 10 pretty damn quickly. And the man had to drop us, and our very heavy luggage, off in the middle of an intersection. That's an intersection with traffic, honking horns and similarly pissed off people. Most of whom did not speak our language. It's really hard to yell, "Como se va 'I'm sorry?'" which means "How do you say 'I'm sorry?" at people who are whizzing by you pretty quickly, just inches away from your feet and luggage. So, I just gave up and ran out of the intersection. We were supposed to get a receipt to fax the aforementioned big-one-biters for reimbursement, but given the situation, Franz forgot to ask for one. We barely had enough time to throw money at the cabbie, let alone think about getting a receipt.

In short, the biters made money off the tourists. Fuckers. I hate them.

The Long Walk Home- Well, Kind of...

So, Franz and I started walking for the bus station. If the road to it had not been blocked off, the cabbie could have dropped us right at the front entrance. But, since it was, we had to walk down another narrow alley for a few blocks. I was hot, sweaty, tired and in a significant amount of pain at this point. Franz was hot, sweaty and tired, too. What I haven't mentioned, up until now, is that I was having cramps the size of I-don't-know-what... maybe the Grand Canyon? Okay, I know I need a better metaphor than that. Okay, cramps that came with an amount of pain that could easily fill the Grand Canyon. How about that?
Add to that the fact that I was carrying a pack (through total fault of my own) that was heavy enough to make me fall over if I didn't concentrate on keeping my balance, and I was about ready to drop. Seriously. I was dizzy, my chest hurt, and I seriously thought I might faint.

Curiously, I still did not want Franz to think I was a wimp, so I said nothing.

He went up ahead to get our tickets and I trundled on. I was pretty sure I would die before I got to the bus station anyway, so it didn't really matter.

When I finally got there, Franz was near the front of a very long line, and I was thankful for his strength and endurance. Because if it hadn't been for that, we wouldn't have gotten tickets for the bus that left in only 5 minutes. Which we managed to get on, instead of having to wait another hour for the next one! WOO HOO for Franz and his crazy German strength. God, I love that man.

So, we got onto the bus, and I was so overcome with gratitude for him, tiredness at having schlepted my things so far, heat exhaustion and the aforementioned National Park sized cramps that I just started to cry. I made sure I was sobbing quietly, but I just couldn't stop. I haven't had pain like that, both mental and physical, in a good long while. And it felt good just to let it out. Franz understood when I asked him to move over to another chair so I could have some space. And I cried quietly enough that if anyone noticed, they probably just thought I was leaving a loved one behind. Five minutes later, I felt better- alomst refreshed even- and Franz came back to sit with me for the remainder of the three hour bus trip.

Did I mention I love him?

That's all for now, we will get to Quebec City in the next post.

Love to all,

Sherry