The Greyhound Bus

Back in Eureka!

Yesterday, Matt and I took the Greyhound bus up to Eureka. Wow. Every preconceived idea I had about the Greyhound bus is true. First of all, it took 9 hours to do a 4 hour drive. Second of all, everyone on the bus was a freak, including the bus driver. We made the mistake of sitting near the back of the bus. We had no choice though, the only two seats together were in the back. This is also where the most freakiest people were.

There were two guys that literally just got out of San Quentin. They were still wearing their prison issued clothes.

There was a young looking blonde girl with a very cute two year old son. She was wearing a tie died tank top that she got through a "nifty lifty discount." I think that means stealing. Her son was so cute, but she was letting the poor guy run around the bus station with no shoes on and sit on the bust station floor and put things in his mouth. It was gross. A weird ghetto looking guy even told her that people puke on the floor sometimes. Of course, I understand that it is hard to have a kid and she looked young and was probably tired and stuff. It is still sad though...She was totally racist. It turns out that she knew one of the guys that just got out of prison from some parties in Arcata (just north of Eureka). He said he knew some guys for her and she was like, "as long as they are white". She kept making comments about Indians and black people and kept confronting these two black kids sitting near us. Also, she would yell at everyone to keep their language clean, but her language was not very clean at all!

There was a guy from Garberville who also knew the San Quentin prison guy. They knew each other from the Humboldt County prison. He was a really nice guy, actually, and he gave up his seat for a girl "cause that is what a real man does". He grows pot and sells it in Washington and Oregon and on the Arcata square. His front teeth were chipped so they looked like a triangle. At least he had teeth though...on this bus there were lots of people missing teeth! He spoke with a very interesting accent, I think it is a country accent. He was talking about how the Chicago Greyhound bus station is ghetto and he was afraid there...I made a mental note never to get near the Chicago Bus station.

There were lots of hippies on board. They were nice. I guess one of them just got back from a Rainbow Gathering in Colorado. They didn't jive so well with the racist girl...one of them stepped in and said he couldn't sit next to someone talking so bad about Indians. The girl got really quiet, then the San Quentin guy got mad cause the hippie hurt her feelings. Hmm. There were lots of weird verbal fights on this bus ride.

There was also this odd older woman. She was quite huge and seemed semi homeless. She was talking about churches where you could get food and clothes. It was really sad cause I heard her telling the man behind me that her Dad got remarried and her step mom didn't like her so she was kicked out when she was 14. She seemed nice enough, except that at one point she yelled a warning to everyone on the bus that "there might be narcs around" so they shouldn't talk too openly about drugs. I was like, "Oh no, I hope she doesn't think Matt and I are the narcs! We are the only normal people on here..." I was slightly afraid, cause the population on the bus was slightly unstable...they liked to get mad about things and gang up on people. There was lots of weird confronting and fighting going on.

There were black boys who looked like they were about 13 years old. One of them had all gold teeth on the bottom. One of them tagged on the back of the seat in front of him. I am not sure what they were going to do in Arcata. These boys sounded and looked like they had never been out of Oakland before. They were really rambunctious and kept yelling and cussing and the racist mom kept yelling at them. They said they were coming to see their girlfriends and buy pot. They were so young though, I think they were trying to sound tough...Matt says he thinks they said they were visiting their Grandma.

Other than that, there were some elder Humboldt county residents and a rich San Rafael girl holding a Louis Vuitton bag, playing "hippie" and talking about her pot dealing boyfriend.

The bus driver had a hard time dealing with everybody...Greyhound had sold too many tickets so their weren't enough seats. People had to sit on the floor in the aisle. He kept getting mad cause we were off schedule, but he took forever to load people on and off the bus. At one point, he tried to make everyone stopping in Ukiah get onto another bus, but he realized it was too hard to get all of their luggage off, but he spent a half an hour trying! Later, he told a woman with two babies to keep her kid quiet or she was off the bus. She yelled, "It's called eight hours on a bus, asshole!" He called the CHP and they came to meet us in Willets. They made the family change buses. The people on our bus were so mad, that when we stopped at McDonalds for dinner, everyone confronted him and were mean. He was walking around talking to himself about how the bus had to stay orderly and how he was "keeping a positive attitude to do the right thing". I feel bad for him because it wasn't his fault Greyhound sold too many tickets. He shouldn't have threatened to send the baby off the bus, but still, no matter what he did the bus was going to hate him. They seemed to hate all authority figures. Most of the conversation on the bus was about drugs, but if they weren't talking about drugs, they were talking about cops and how stupid they are.

Anyway, now we are finally in Eureka. I already feel extremely relaxed and very happy to be here. Now my only problem is figuring out how to get over to Grandma's house in Lake Almanor...maybe the Greyhound? :)

Old Friends

Since Matt and I got back from Boston, we have been visiting old friends and trying to relax after our tumultuous trip to Boston. Looking for an apartment is hard work! We went back to Davis, and I was so surprised, it has barely changed at all! It was fun to be back in our old college town. I love it there, it was a great place to go to school. The only problem was the insane heat wave...it was literally 110 degrees. When it is that hot, you get tired really fast. (Or at least I do, Matt doesn't seem to have a problem.) We stayed with my old college roommate Ann and her boyfriend Jason in Sacramento. It was great to see them, I hadn't seen her since college! I always had a really negative view of Sacramento in my mind, but on this trip I really liked it. It has a lot of good qualities...it is less expensive than other parts of California, it is centrally located (close to the mountains and SF), it has a small and convenient airport with cheap flights, it has a really cute midtown area with old houses, and there seem to be lots of young people around. The thing I like most about it is that is feels fresh...I mean that it feels like the kind of city that hasn't reached it's peak yet, there is still room for new things to be done and lots of new businesses that could be started. I could be wrong, of course...There are some problems with it too: there are a ton of crazy/homeless types and lots of ghetto people, and the crime rate is high. Also, there is a lack of "cool" restaurants a bars and stores and stuff. But I think that is an advantage. If you wanted to start something, you could, and everytime I go to Sac there is more and more "cool" stuff.

Enough rambling about Sacramento...on to the cute baby in the pictures above! We went to visit my old roommate Stacy, who just had a baby. She is my first friend to have a baby, and I am so excited! Her daughter, Georgia, is extremely cute and also very well behaved. She is only two months and already sleeps through the night in her own room. Stacy and her husband Bill's house was totally cute and right in the middle of a vineyard. I should have gotten a picture, but I didn't... it was TOO HOT and the minute I got outside I just wanted to run to the car and the air conditioning.

Our Boston Apartment

Well, here it is....after a week of stressful, grueling searching for an apartment, we finally found one. Renting in Boston is alot more expensive than Matt and I had anticipated. We both really wanted to live in downtown Boston...we are used to Hong Kong and having everything right at our fingertips, it is so much more convenient that way and you really feel like you are part of the city. But, right now that is out of reach for Matt and I, it is just too expensive! Plus, since neither of us have jobs yet, it is sort of hard to sign a lease for an apartment you can barely afford while working, let alone while looking for work! So, we are living in Porter Square, which is in Cambridge. Porter Square is one train stop further than Harvard Square...supposedly we can walk to it from our house, but we haven't tried it yet. The nice thing about Porter Square is that there are tons of students round and it is really cute. It reminds me a lot of Davis...very liberal and progressive, with a small town feel and lots of students and eccentric intellectual-types cruisng around on bikes. Our apartment is on the second floor of the building, and our living room is the circular part of the building with the three windows. We have two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and one bathroom. Since it is an old buildign, there is not much storage space but the landlord said that we can use as much of the basement as we want. That will come in handy for our skis and other sporting equipment....we have tons of stuff. Matt is pushing me to get rid of lots of Dad's furniture, but I am going to wait to see how much I can cram in to the apartment, and put the rest in storage in the basement. Dad's house wasn't that big, so it might end up fitting. The other good thing about our apartment, is that it is right next to the T (Boston's subway system). The T stop is literally one block away...also, the main street is one block away, along with the grocery store. We are right next to Mass Ave, which is the main street and it has tons of restaurants and cute stores. The bad part about our apartment is that it is not in the city. I think Matt will end up moving into the city next year...we both like the city life. Laid back college towns are great, but I like to be right in the thick of it in the city. In the end though, the price was right for this apartment...it was the cheapest we found, plus, we are renting directly from the owner so there is no realtor fee, which is a ridiculously high...one month rent!

To celebrate, we went to the Union Oyster House for a lobster dinner. Supposedly it is the oldest restaurant in the US. The lobster was yummy, but expensive. I am always saying how I rarely eat meat, but that is not entirely true...when it comes to lobster or shellfish, if I get the opportunity I can gobble down as much as is put in front of me. I love it!