Just pull the f---ing trigger!!! I don't care

I hope I haven't offended anyone with this title, that's one of the things I saw yelled this week. One of the most interesting and crazy weeks of my life. This was the week were I went from Concord, North Carolina all the way up to Regina, Saskatchewan by Greyhound bus.

The adventure started on Monday, all my roommates but one had left and so I was left with my bike to get around Concord. I had to go to the court offices and Wal-mart and the Canadian's house twice and so I ended up riding my bike for almost three hours that day. I succesfully got my court date moved until january for my ticket for driving as a Canadian. That was really good but I was kind of dissapointed because there was a DA there but they said that they couldn't waive it because I had given the officer my North Carolina address and so I had to show up for the court date. I don't quite see the logical connective in those two things, but I'm sure it's there. Anyways so that's still good news. Then at about 5:00 I left for the Bus Depot we accidentally took a couple wrong turns and so Jordan my friend from New Zealand was pulling some crazy U-turns and whatever it took to get there on time. Thanks Jordan! The bus ended up being an hour and a half or so late and then we went like an hour or two north but that bus was too full so I had to take a bus down to Charlotte. I never left Charlotte until 3:00 AM in the morning so that was kind of ridiculous because it's only like half an hour from Concord.

Nonetheless I made friends with a really tall black guy named Kenneth, a girl named Heidi and Tim and Jim. Jim asked me "Are you going to Heaven when you die?" and then "How do you know for sure?". Just trying to make sure I was a christian. I appreciated that, he actually lived in Regina for several years so we talked a bit about that. I was going to try and finish reading the New Testament on my trip up but I got distracted a lot and only finished Matthew, Acts Romans and 1 Corinthians. But it was cool because that started a few conversations about the bible.

The craziest part of my journey happened when I finally made it to Fargo, North Dakota. Unbeknownst to me but I had purchased a return ticket back in August and since then they had totally changed the schedule so there was a lot of really long 5-6 hour waits between buses. Throughout it all I kept thinking "taking a plane would be $30 more" it's not much consolation and in hindsight it would have been actually way easier and smarter to have taken a plane. In the end taking the bus actually cost me about $75 more than taking a plane would have cost and it took me a week longer to get home than a plane would have. But anyways, I arrive in Fargo at about 10 at night. I find the next Winnipeg bus doesn't leave until 3:30 in the afternoon the next day. So I have to find a hotel. I call a cab and basically he tells me there is a really expensive hotel nearby and a really cheap one really far away. But with taxi fares included they probably both work out to the same price. So I decided to go to the one nearby. Unfortunately because it was American Thanksgiving all the prices were way higher than normal and just to go those 5 blocks to get to the hotel was $4 by taxi so I got directions from the taxi driver to the other hotel and started walking.

He said that it was about 3 miles away. Being a Canadian I kind of forgot for awhile how long a mile is. So I start walking alone in this cold windy dark city. I see a drunk guy across the street and he sees me and starts walking right towards me. He walks over five lanes of the street right at me. I know that I'm in good shape but I was still pretty scared because you never know what a drunk person is going to do. I say a quick prayer, and the funniest thing happens he just walks up to me and says "hi" and keeps on walking down the street. At this point I'm trying to look really tough so I am wearing my baggiest blue jeans and my hoodie with the hood on. Then out of nowwhere I get a nosebleed so I have blood all over my hands and face. Only really tough guys get nosebleeds. Hahaha I leave it on until I get near the hotel because I have an irrational fear of cold dark streets late at night. I pass a few more drunk people and after walking a bit more than half an hour I talk with a lady for directions and she says that the hotel I'm going to is really really far away and I should check out the radisson. So I walk all the way back to right near where I was and check the prices at the Radisson and it is even more expensive than the Howard Johnson but by this time it is like 1:00 in the morning.

So I give up and walk to the Howard Johnson and this one guy is trying to get in the bar but another guy won't let him and and they are both swearing at each other. Then the guy on the inside comes outside and starts yelling "I'm saving your f-ing life there's five guys in there who want to beat the "snot" out of you and I'm not letting you in there". Then the other guy gets backed against a wall and they're still grappling each other and he yells "Just pull the f---ing trigger!!! I don't care, just do it!!". I'm not even really looking at them because I really don't want to get involved but they yell something at me as I walk into the hotel. In the morning as I walked out of the hotel there was no blood or anything so hopefully things got resolved peacefully. But yeah it was a pretty intense night. The next day at the bus depot Bethel Free church in Fargo brought everyone in the bus depot a free thanksgiving dinner so that was really nice and thoughtful of them. But yeah the whole trip was an adventure. Have a happy thanksgiving all you americans!