West to East Coast Travel

I am grateful to have a home, a place to come back to when there is nowhere else to go, where I receive constant love and support, and have time to regroup.  I was better able to appreciate it upon this homecoming for at least two reasons that I have identified.  Firstly, the culture shock is significantly less, as Salt Spring Island was not nearly as isolated as Sherkin Island, complete with shops, traffic, and crowds of people, especially during the summer months and at the Saturday market.  Salt Spring seemed somewhat similar to Western Massachusetts, perhaps like the Hilltowns or a smaller version of Northampton, except surrounded by water. 

Secondly, I keep forgetting how much I dislike the traveling part of traveling.  The flight out of Redmond, Oregon was quite nice, during which I was able to gaze in awe upon the landscape, since the plane was at a low enough elevation.  It passed over some of the snow-capped mountains, most likely those a part of the Cascade Mountains’ chain, which gave me such a different perspective of them, seeing the topography from above, which looked as if the ridges and divots of the mountains had been chiseled into the rocky, nearly deserted landscape.  I had become so accustomed to looking out at the horizon, where these giant formations hold their ground, yet I still felt intimidated by these pronounced forms surrounding and looming over the town.  I am more familiar and at ease with the hill-like mountains of the east coast.  I am still unable to comprehend elevations at which snow exists on top of mountains and they seem like giants even from hundreds of miles away.

On the second flight, from Seattle to New York City, I was hoping to sleep through the majority of it, being overnight travel.  Unfortunately, it was quite uncomfortable seating for a cross-country flight, I was freezing even with three layers on, and I kept having this internal dilemma about whether or not to wake up my seat mates to use the bathroom.  As a result, I slept for less than two of the five and a half hour flight.

When the plane landed in New York, it was raining as the weather report had predicted, but fortunately not down-pouring, as I made my way to the airtrain pick up spot.  The airtrain ultimately went to a couple of stations outside of the airport grounds, but there were two or three stops before that at different sections of the airport.  From the location that I had gotten on at, anyone could ride the airtrain, and since people who are transferring between flights use the airtrain between terminals, I do not believe that there is any kind of established security check.  Who’s to say that any random person could walk into an airport terminal and avoid security?  Maybe there is something in the system to prevent such an incident that I do not know about, but it seemed pretty sketchy to me.  Other than that little detail, the airtran was pretty low key, since few people tend to be up before the sun.

I transferred to the subway at Jamaica Station, and as soon as I saw those Metro Card machines, I knew that I was going to have troubles.  I am not at all a big city girl.  The last time I took the subway into Boston for a Peace Corps interview, my greatest difficulty was trying to figure out how to get the entry machine to read the Metro Card.  I felt like I had tried it every which way, but then one of the workers, I think, got the thing to work.  I felt incredibly silly, just as I did now in New York, with my huge pack and too exhausted to fully understand the picture instructions for how to insert the Metro Card.  That’s what my excuse will be, exhaustion.  Anyways, somehow, I finally figured out the machine all by myself and escaped through the gate into the railroad terminal.

Descending from here to the subway terminal was quite a shock to my system, as it was deathly hot and incredibly stuffy.  Of course there were already no seats once the subway pulled up, so I got amazing workout trying to hold myself upright with my pack against the momentum of the train.  As more people entered the train at each stop, I think I became a bit claustrophobic.  It was crowded and breathing became more difficult; I felt light-headed and nauseous; I was sweating profusely.  I had to get off of this train, otherwise I was sure to black-out, as these were the tell-tale signs.  I tried to hold out through a couple more stops, but finally decided that it wasn’t worth the risk, and so, I burst out of the train doors at the Queens stop, dropped my pack, stripped off my layers, and plopped down on the floor.  I was in no state to care what the people around me thought or what disgusting things had been on that floor.

After watching the E train pass by four more times, I mustered up the courage to get back on and ride it again, even though, I still didn’t feel quite right, but this probably wouldn’t be remedied until I got away from the subway system completely.  It was now rush hour and the trains were packed so full that people literally spilled out of the opened doors onto the platform, but managed to stay on their feet.  I chose a subway car that seemed slightly less crowded and I was able to at least prop my pack up against the wall where I stood.  Eventually, a seat became available and sitting down helped me to keep my horrible physical state at bay.

The subway finally reached Penn Station, where throngs of people were milling about in every direction, making it difficult to navigate around them or at least to avoid getting in anyone’s way.  I ducked into the nearest restaurant/café that offered seating, where I ordered a light breakfast and tried to calm my stomach and my nerves.  I decided that I was in no shape to go wandering around the city, and instead, I would simply remain at the station for the hours until my bus departed.  I learned that the seating at the center of the station was only for Amtrak and New Jersey transit customers and the unfriendly woman at the information desk seemed to believe that I was crazy for thinking that there could be a waiting area for bus patrons, since the busses didn’t stop at Penn Station.  Neither she nor anyone else could tell me about the location of the Megabus stop and all I had to go on was that somewhere between 31^st and 33^rd streets on 9^th Street, there it was, but that would be quite a distance to cover.  I decided to not worry too much about it until the time came closer to noon. Instead, I sat on the floor, propped up against a wall with one arm through the shoulder strap of my pack and my hat pulled far enough over my eyes, so that I could nod off occasionally without anyone suspecting that I was actually asleep.  This is how I spent about four hours waiting for the bus.

Finally, the time came and I suited up in my rain gear, while still sporting my crocs, and hiked over a block to 9^th Street, which seemed a lot longer than the distance in the station between 7^th and 8^th streets.  I was quite relieved, as I approached the next intersection, to see the obvious Megabus logo on a parked bus and signs around a fenced in area with tarp tents inside, just across the street.  I was even happier once I actually boarded the bus, knowing that I was on my way home, and cuddled up with my daypack and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, the combination of exhaustion, hunger, dehydration, and residual subway effects were taking their toll on me with a painful headache that lasted the entire ride home.  I felt horrible that I wasn’t able to express much gratitude for or excitement at seeing my parents when they picked me up at the terminal in Holyoke.  I shared with them some of what I had done in Oregon and they updated me on the happenings here, and soon after arriving at the house, I ate a banana, guzzled some water, took and ibuprofen, and fell asleep for a few hours to remedy my current health issues.  Amazingly, the headache was gone when I awoke, so I was better able to appreciate the comfort of home, after that long and uncomfortable trip.

Now, I find myself trying to regroup.  I had left my room in chaos when I left in May with half of my things packed into boxes, partly from moving back home last spring and partly anticipating my next move out, and the other half of my things set in random places, as an attempt at organization.  I don’t think I would have remembered exactly where I had left everything, even if my roommate hadn’t reorganized the room. It looks much tidier now, but the set up will make it difficult to live out of the boxes, as they are all now stacked upon each other.  I am also having difficultly remembering what little projects I had started or where I had paused with them.  I know that I was trying to get rid of unnecessary possessions, condense my life, but how far I got or what still needed to be sorted, I couldn’t tell.

Yet, even though I have this disoriented feeling, it also feels like I never left home.  For the most part, everything and everyone is the same as when I left.  All of the things that I’ve done and seen and the people who I’ve met seem like part of a dream, like some kind of time warp.  Maybe I fell asleep one night and entered into this alternate universe, also known as Canada, where five months is the equivalent to a matter of hours in my reality.  In spite of the strange feeling, I think that it’s pretty cool to have really lived a dream.