I really miss it. I didn’t realise how brave it was to travel across America alone and on such a whim! I was meant to study abroad but since it didn’t count towards my degree, I ended up using the money I saved up to book cheap tickets around the United States. My GPA (grade point average) was so bad, I got yelled at by a few professors.
My favourite story was when my friend from home, Charlie, randomly told me that he and his dad were coming to the States for a festival somewhere in Kansas. He told me to join them but I didn’t think it would be serious. I ended up buying last-minute train tickets and rode on the Amtrak for three hours from Michigan to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Kansas City was like six and a half hours. To kill the time, I read a lot and would see from the windows real Midwestern America with gorgeous yellow fields and watch old sleepy towns go by.
I got stuck for a while and almost missed my bus to Wichita. Then I had an argument with the bus driver because I printed my ticket double sided and he refused to let me on. A random bus driver let me get on his bus, but I didn’t know it was full of men who just got out of prison, so I was just hanging with these dudes, watching them play cards and smoking cigarettes with them. I got to Wichita in the end, and since I arrived way earlier than expected and was tired from two hours of sleep, I slept in the bus station until a nice conductor told me I couldn’t stay and pointed me to a McDonalds. I ended up buying a coffee and napped in the McDonalds until Charlie just sat in front of me like a mirage. By that time I was pretty out of it, I thought I was in an episode of True Detective. His dad and family friends were shaken that I made it all the way out alone.