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I am a white European and took a greyhound bus on a 12 hour night journey approximately 20 years ago. It was an experience to put it mildly. The words 'prison t
by thesaintlives 3y ago
I am a white European and took a greyhound bus on a 12 hour night journey approximately 20 years ago. It was an experience to put it mildly. The words 'prison transport' and 'LSD' spring to mind.
Inhumane, degrading, uncomfortable and totally weird. For some god unknown reason I decided the bus would be a perfectly good alternative to a short flight, my was I wrong. As the journey started the driver made a short announcement to the seated passengers -
"If you smoke crack I throw you off the bus.
If you have sex I throw you off the bus.
If you drink alcohol I throw you off the bus.
If you take off your shoes I throw you off the bus.
No toilet!"
With that strange welcome we were off.
The seats had no padding so it was impossible to get comfortable. It was cold. We were in late October just before winter. It was bloody cold to be clear, in fact the air conditioning was seriously blowing. Maybe it was colder inside than out.
Non of this made any sense to me. As we continued through the darkened landscape stopping occasionally to pick up, drop off and 'toilet' I decided to ask the driver if maybe he could turn off the chill air blast and maybe turn on some heat. I politely presented this request to which his reply was simply a shout:
'NO!'.
"No?" I am freezing to death I told him.
"What do you mean no?"
"The smell" he said.
"The smell. Any more trouble and I throw you off the bus."
At one place we stopped for about 40 minutes. It was some sort of downtown bus station. I witnessed a huge black dude walk through the seating area masturbating with his pants down around his ankles, otherwise fully clothed. He sort of shuffled past lost in a world entirely of his own.
USA is one strange place..
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoI really love it when foreigners visit this country and pick the absolute worst possible traveling conditions imaginable. Presumably so they can go back home and share their "authentic" American experience with whoever is stupid enough to listen. It's like they enjoy wearing this badge of honor that they witnessed the misery that is America or whatever. Were you expecting something better because you're a "white European"? I don't really get why that prefaced the story. I'm not white and I've never had such a bad experience as you in any country, let alone America, am I doing something wrong? How would it be if I visited wherever you're from and proud of, and intentionally stayed in a terrible part of town and got around by bullock cart, and then went back to America and bitched incessantly about your shithole of a country?
- suction 3y ago[dead]
- zhte415 3y agoHeads-up: You might want to email dang as your account seems to be shadow-banned. Your recent comments of the last couple of hours show as [dead] (logout and see).
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago[dead]
- thesaintlives 3y agoActually as explained it was simply lack of knowledge about your country. I had no idea basic services could be so bad. The history of the Greyhound coach service is actually very interesting. I prefaced with 'white European' because that is what I am. I considered it relevant to set my frame of reference. I have no idea what you are doing but I recommend more international travel. The world is full of amazing experiences, good, bad, indifferent but all valuable. It would be fine. If you commented about it I would suggest better alternatives. I never suggested America was a shithole. In my experience it is incredibly diverse. You have the whole gamut of experiences there from amazing to terrible!
- strken 3y agoThe thing about Greyhound is that it is genuinely unbelievable to people who haven't experienced it and for whom functioning public transport is like gravity or air. "Unbelievable" as in "if someone tells you about Greyhound, you won't believe them". It's not merely bad, it's worse than literally any other form of travel in a developed country, probably including hitchhiking. Americans probably know this, but for the rest of us it's sort of like being told a bar serves bad drinks, then when you get there it's a dude pouring shots of wood alcohol into used specimen jars.