Buses and excursions in the night...

Hey Everyone
Well I caught the bus to London at 4pm yesterday in Cork, we arrived at 8am this morning, and I am buggered!!!! I am now waiting to catch a bus to Plymouth at 11am, we won’t arrive until 16:40 this afternoon. It is 9:30am at the moment... It will be another long day. I had very little sleep on the bus and none on the ferry, so am wearing out. But good news, I got to talk to Kearie, my sister and nephew this morning on Skype. So that was excellent, I hope to talk to them again tomorrow morning. It was great to get news from home and to see my sister and nephew again. I love Skype!!

Well I have no photos today as I figure you have all seen the inside of a bus, but I have some gossip. Yesterday the bus left at 4pm, but being me, I was there early, so I boarded about 3:30pm, I may need to see someone about this ridiculous being early fixation that I have. Before the bus driver loaded my suitcase he grabs this large plastic bag out of the luggage compartment and in it is a big red soft bag, the kind young people use to tote their clothes around in. It was left luggage, apparently they don’t have a lost luggage room in this company, they just put it in a plastic bag and leave it in the luggage compartment, to slide back and forth for the rest of eternity or until the luggage hold gets so full of left luggage that you can’t fit any passenger luggage in, whichever comes first. Anyway after me this woman boarded who could not speak English, I think she was speaking Spanish, it sounded like it. The bus driver was really rude to her and snapping and stuff. It didn’t faze her much she just shrugged at me and let it go, but he was rude. There was nobody but us on the bus and she sits right behind me, so when I reclined my seat to get some sleep (I had been up since 4am, as I couldn't sleep) she goes "HUMPH" really loud, and I had to put it back up again. I was thinking, sit somewhere else, I was here first. So I was feeling way less sorry for her by now. I moved seats myself later, but still couldn't sleep.

Anyway after a horrendously long time on the bus, we got on the ferry and 4 hours later we were in England. We had to go through customs and show our ID. I fished out my passport and in my hurry I handed it to the dude still in the plastic book thingo. On one side is my passport and on the other is information from the Government for Aussie travellers, I haven’t read that... They always insist you remove your passport and I had forgotten, so realising my mistake I said “Oh sorry do you want me to take it out.” And he looking at the front of my passport and the government information, and says “no love, that’s okay” and hands it back to me. I was thinking, you really don’t care do you? Maybe they had to get him out of bed to check us in.. Or maybe I didn’t look like a terrorist, anyway I could have had anyone’s passport in there...

We get back on the bus and take off, the next thing we know the police with flashing lights are pulling us over. I knew it wasn’t for speeding, the speed those things go, I think I could run faster sometimes, okay maybe not, but you get my drift!! Anyway they tell the driver he has left someone behind.. Yep, he forgot to count, so back we go. As we pull into the port we expected to see someone out the front, you know, all impatient like, but nothing, nobody. The bus driver gets out to find the errant passenger when another policeman appears and I heard them talking, something about “we might keep them”. Curious!! Anyway the copper (can I call him that?) asks us all to get out of the bus and remove our luggage as they were holding someone and wanted to know if they had any luggage. We all removed our luggage and he pounced on the red bag, I told him it was already there and he said yes it is left luggage, so he knew all about the company custom apparently. Anyway he took the last small remaining case and asked if it belonged to anyone, which it didn’t. We were all chatting and trying to work out who was missing. Like you do. Well all the weird passengers were still there (you know, the ones you notice, all buses have them and if you can’t spot them, it’s probably you!) the Irish drunk, check. The ageing hippie, check. The art student with the weird hair, check. Suddenly Ros, (the friend I met on the bus) calls to me. Leonie the Spanish lady is missing, and sure enough she was, the art student with the weird hair was sitting in her seat. Well, we all said, fancy that!! The copper gets back on the bus and someone says “The Spanish lady is missing? “ He says “Yes and she isn’t Spanish”. “Oooee" We all say, raising our eyebrows questioningly. But he was not giving anything away, he just thanked us and assured us we wouldn’t be late into London because of the hold up, like he knew! So he trotted off, with his prize suitcase in his hand and we drove off into the night. Leaving the not Spanish lady to her fate! So was she a smuggler, or someone trying to enter England through Ireland without the correct papers, or something more sinister altogether? I guess we will never know. Mind you we were only 10 minutes or so late, so I guess the copper did know after all.

So that is my exciting night in a nutshell, I am so tired when I read this tomorrow it probably won’t make any sense. Bear with me I need sleep............

Cheers

Lones