I remember the first time I visited New York. It was back in 2006, and I had an amazing time exploring the city with my friends. We did everything a good tourist should do: speed-boat to get to the Statue of Liberty, chill on the Rockefeller Center’s rooftop, eat ramen noodles in Chinatown, take a cheesy picture in the middle of Times Square… You get the idea! Without a doubt, NYC is a fun and vibrant city, and I’ll probably write about my favourite New York spots in a future blog post, but not today. Because the last time I was there, 14th September 2017 to be exact, it felt more like a bad dream, like a long, beige, sad waiting room… mostly because of me and my typical impulsive decisions. The CSSC: Chloé’s Stupid Spontaneity Curse.
Let’s rewind to a month prior to that date. I was going on a meditation and hiking trip in Nepal, very excited, but mostly heartbroken because I was leaving the love of my life behind in Montreal. I was supposed to be gone for four months and a half, but after 30 days, I could not bear my loneliness anymore, and I impulsively bought tickets to come back home, back to my love. Isn’t it romantic? I was travelling across the globe, from Asia to America, to be reunited with my soulmate. But in reality, it was hell. I realized when I planned my return that it would take me a good 3 days of traveling and, mostly, patiently waiting to arrive to Montreal. Yet since I am an experimented traveler, that did not scare me or stop me. I had an objective.
To save money, I booked a flight from Kathmandu, Nepal to New Delhi, India, and another one from Delhi to New York’s JFK. After that, I booked 3 night buses (NYC-Albany, Albany-Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh-Montreal) that cost way less than a New York to Montreal flight. The thing I did not know though was that I would spend these three days being sick, money-less, sleepless, and on my period. How fun!
On September 13th, I woke up early in Kathmandu. I took a taxi to the airport, already feeling a little ill. My first flight to New Delhi went well; there were no clouds in the sky, and I got to admire the Himalayan mountains from my window. When I arrived at the Indian airport, it was about noon, and I was tired and feverish. My flight was scheduled at midnight, but was delayed to 2 am. I had 14 hours of waiting to do which felt like days since I was so anxious to come home. When I got hungry, I decided to buy something to eat and I suddenly realized that my banking cards were all blocked, and that there was no free WiFi at the airport so that I could contact my bank. (Obviously paying for WiFi was not an option since my cards were blocked: I was stuck.) On top of that, I realized that I had forgotten my passport at the security checkpoint. I started to panic, ran back to the security checkpoint, miraculously found my passport (that gave me faith in humanity to say the least!), and found myself a place to try to sleep (the floor). I knew I had a fever, I was hungry and thirsty, my whole body ached, and I was so, so, so bored.
After the agonizing wait (yes, I am melodramatic), my flight finally took off from New Delhi. I was only happy because they were serving four meals on the plane and I was starving. It was a 15 and a half hour flight, I was in the middle of the middle row, and my neighbours were quite annoying. On top of that, my period had decided to start, my throat was hurting, my ears were hurting, I was sweating, then shivering. I figured I had caught some sort of flu. I also had a migraine that was so painful, it kept me awake the whole flight. In other words, I did not sleep at all. I was in a zombie state when we finally landed at JFK early in the morning of September 14th after having been on that plane for more than half a day. The jet-lag was hitting hard too. Luckily, getting through customs was surprisingly fast, and once I found my heavy backpack, it was 8:30 am. My first bus was at midnight, which means I had more than 15 hours of waiting to do (again!). Since I was getting sicker and sicker, there was no way I was going to be able to walk around the city. I felt like shit, and quite honestly, I looked like shit too.
Still at JFK, I was going through my bag and miraculously found some Canadian money in it. I almost cried tears of happiness since I did not want to spend another day penniless. I mean, you never know what can happen. There is always the risk of an emergency, so being foresighted does not hurt. I then exchanged my precious CAD for USD bills ($20+$20+$1 to be exact). I felt rich. I bought a coffee and a bagel (for like $8 because airports are so ridiculously expensive), and sat down waiting for the rush hour to pass before taking the subway with my huge backpack and therefore avoid pissing off a whole train of stressed-out New Yorkers on their morning commute to work. It was now 9:30 am, I had already been traveling for 37 hours, and was more than exhausted. I had not slept a minute in those 37 hours, and reality felt more and more like a big blur.
At 10 am, I left the airport, hopped on the JFK AirTrain, then the subway’s E-line, and arrived an hour later to Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was now 11 am and my first bus was at midnight. By looking at the departures board, I realized that there was another bus at 10 pm that was going to Montreal, with stops in Albany and Plattsburgh, but no bus changes. I went to the counter, and hopefully asked the lady behind if I could change my ticket. “Yes you can, but it’ll cost you $20”. Happy that I had that 20$ (talk about an emergency!), I paid, and was glad that my waiting time was now two hours shorter. It was destiny. Or not. I was a zombie after all.
I now had $13 left for the day, was feeling super ill and tired; I could barely stand up. Luckily, at about 1 pm, while I was charging my phone, I met this girl, D, a travel blogger/instagrammer. She was one of the nicest people I had ever met. I believe that she felt sorry for me, or pitied me!, because she decided to spend the whole day with me at the sad and grey bus station. We shared doughnuts, talked about our lives, listened to music, and laughed. Yes I was still weak and sick, but D. managed to make the day feel less miserable and way more human. She was a lovely girl with a lovely soul. We added each other on Facebook and exchanged our WhatsApp numbers (as we do in our day and age!), and are still in touch to this day.
At 10 pm, I said goodbye and thank you to D., and I finally got on the bus. I wanted to cry tears of joy. I was going home. The bus ride (with its three stops) was an absolute nightmare. There was one man who started to scream at some point that he was the Messiah and that we were all going to die and go to hell. He started running in the bus which was extremely dangerous so we left him in Albany. Then later, the bus driver got into a literal fight with one of the passengers. Police arrested the passenger in Plattsburgh. When we got to the border, there were some racist insults which I won’t give the details of, but another man was arrested. Seriously, what the hell was that bus ride about? I, once again, did not manage to sleep, not even a second, because of these people seriously scaring me with their psychotic behaviours.
Nonetheless, on September 15th, at exactly 5:35 am, after 57 hours of traveling, waiting, bleeding and not sleeping, I finally arrived at the “Gare d’autocars de Montréal” with the biggest grin on my now green face. I had made it. My man was waiting for me. Love had won! Woo-Hoo! Cue the confettis! He drove me home, and I slept like a rock for days! It took three weeks before I healed from the mysterious Asian virus I had caught. But I did it, I survived.
To this day, a lot of people around me ask me if I ever regret my spontaneous decision. I mean, I had abandoned my dream travel, I had lost thousands of dollars, I had no job waiting for me in Montreal… But my answer does not change; it’s always no! I listened to my instincts. I made the right decision, and I would travel the world again and again for that man.
Bittersweet Travel Memories 