Don't Cry for Me Argentina, Part Four

First Real Snow of the Calgary Winter
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

There were many people who wouldn’t usually take a Greyhound at the bus station. The canceled flights meant that a lot of people, who would prefer not to be stranded in Calgary for Christmas, were seeking alternative means of transportation.

You could see who had taken the bus before. They had bags of food, blankets, many layers of warm clothing and pillows. Me? A tube of Nicorette lozenges and my iPod. You see, I’d been hoodwinked by the Greyhound website, with its talk of reclining seats, heating, entertainment and refreshments.

What followed was the most uncomfortable 16.5 hours of my life. The coach alternated between freezing cold and the burning pit of Gehenna. My seat didn’t recline properly, or much at all to be honest, and there was no entertainment other than the stories of the woman in front of me, who was travelling from Winnipeg to Vancouver, on the Greyhound, entirely of her own volition. For the second time this year. I finally managed to fall asleep, but was shaken ruthlessly awake at Kamloops because we had to change coaches. Finally, I knew what it felt like to be a veal calf in the 1980s, being crated across Europe. Although I am not sure a veal calf was ever as depressed as I was as I realized the new coach had no heating at all and was being warmed by the slowly condensing breath of my fellow passengers.

There was quite a lot of grumbling. People had already been questioning how they were going to match us with our luggage, as there appeared to be little organisation about which of the two coaches making the journey we were on, and which our belongings. For those people used to airtravel, the lack of any sort of automated luggage tracking system (or in my case, the actual lack of an official tag, other than one the security guy made with my name and final destination on it) was an especial concern.

So you probably won’t be surprised to read that when I arrived in Vancouver, two and a half hours later than expected and with a window of an hour to get to the Consulate, I discovered that my luggage was missing.

The Greyhound employees couldn’t have been less helpful. They had no idea when my luggage might arrive, because they didn’t actually know where it was. They thought it might be on the other even more delayed coach, which they thought might get to Vancouver in the next hour or so. They weren’t sure. I tried to explain my situation to a teenager with a singularly bored expression than can only come from being terminally moronic, who just shrugged. If I were to go to the consulate and my luggage did arrive, they would take no responsibility for it and it would be just left out at the station.

I eventually found a Greyhound employee who was willing to take responsibility and if my luggage was on the coach, keep it in their office until I got back. So off I went to the consulate to get my passport. They were the epitome of British steadfastness in the face of adversity and I had my temporary passport in 90 minutes.

When I got back to the Greyhound bus station, they insisted on seeing some ID before they would release my luggage to me. I smiled as I produced my passport from my handbag.