Hell has frozen over... and changed it's name to Iowa.

[X-Codes]

I recently moved to Iowa City to attend the University of Iowa for a while.  Needless to say, I have been living in a much warmer climate for over a decade and so questions of "Why?" have been the joke that never gets old with me.

Well, today it all went to shit.  I went to Omaha to spend time with family for Turkey Day and the next day's football game (at least half of the family wound up happy) and was on my return trip this morning (morning means 1am) on a budget bus operation.  Budget being the key word, here, because apparently they gave us a bus that couldn't finish the trip back from Omaha to Iowa City.  We were stranded on the side of the road for 3 hours on a bus with no heating while the driver kept asking for another bus but the guy on the other end kept trying to get the bus driver to fix it (which was never going to happen, it was completely dead) before another bus came and got us.

When the next bus came along, we got to have another, little mini-drama with our baggage.  Since the bus was completely dead, some of the cargo areas with opening mechanisms relying on air pressure were dead.  As a result, my bag with half of my clothes and toiletries was now suck on the bus along with everything else.  What's more, after the second bus left, the manager decided to have us double-back and pick up the driver of the last bus, wasting another hour of time.  The hilarious thing is that in this time, the other driver thought he had figured out how to get into the remaining baggage compartments and get us our bags, so we were all made to march out in the middle of a fucking freezing night in the middle of nowhere, yet again, to wait to be told that no, our bags really were stuck for a while.

So, fast forward a bit... my bus, scheduled to arrive at 2:40 am in Iowa City, arrived at 6:40 am, instead.  Exhausted from the whole thing, I go back to my apartment, find it cold inside, and go to turn on the heater.  It's broken.  What. The. Fuck.  I pick up a pizza and head to a nearby wifi hotspot to spend the day, which is where I am posting from now.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

  ... and the tryptophan didn't make you sleepy either.

[Tshern]

What was the problem with the first bus? Here in the UK all sorts of transportation find it fashionable to take a day off when someone within a thousand miles has seen a snowflake, so I am kind of used to buses, trains and airplanes sucking big time.

[bhu]

hugs fo x

buy a dozen kitties.  we make for good winter company

[SorO_Lost]

Buses are HORRIBLE to begin with. I had a 8 hour trip in front of me and thought, hey why not take the bus. My PoS at the time was held together with spit and tape and it was reasonably the same price gas wise.

The bus was too full at one site and had to wait two hours for another, that driver didn't know where the hell he was going, and I had a 6 hour lay over because they were late and didn't know how the hell to manage passengers vs number of seats on a bus. To top everything off my online ticket plotted only a 9 hour trip with layovers, but the agent printed mine out for another route which was 12 some how.

So when a 16 hour trip was thrown at me, I drove anyway. Blew a brake pad so hard I ground most of my roter away but it was worth it. I even have got there faster than the expected too, ticket free.

Moral of the story: Drive. Burrow your Mom's car if you have to, buses are hell.

[Tshern]

Depends on the place, they are fine in Finland. Burrowing a car is probably a bad choice everywhere.

[skydragonknight]

Ride Greyhound. That is all.

[InnaBinder]

You get what you pay for.

[X-Codes]

What was the problem with the first bus? Here in the UK all sorts of transportation find it fashionable to take a day off when someone within a thousand miles has seen a snowflake, so I am kind of used to buses, trains and airplanes sucking big time.

First it started making funny noises, then it wasn't accelerating very well (the driver really revved the engine, but we only went a little faster).  The driver then decided to pull over and re-start the engine, but after he cut it, it wouldn't start again.  IIRC, that's how old Ford cars die.

You get what you pay for.

So true.

[veekie]

Depends on the place, they are fine in Finland. Burrowing a car is probably a bad choice everywhere.

Maybe if you had a drill...

[Tshern]

Depends on the place, they are fine in Finland. Burrowing a car is probably a bad choice everywhere.

Maybe if you had a drill...

It must still be at least rude towards the owner of the car.

[X-Codes]

In any case, it seems that my landlord is kinda awesome, and my heating was fixed last night before I went back to my apartment to go to sleep.  The worst-case scenario for this weekend has, therefore, been averted.

[Maat Mons]

I go back to my apartment, find it cold inside, and go to turn on the heater.  It's broken.

When my sister was going to college in Minneapolis, she got back from Christmas break '04 to find her radiator pipes frozen solid. 

[awaken_D_M_golem]

No heat gets old fast.
Stranded in the middle of the night + "gravy" = ouch.


USA buses suck, and it's intentional via older style GM politicking.
Hopefully people will start moving around via instructions from their Blackberrys.
No really.