Off to Valencia: The Broken Bus Adventure

“Yeah mom... Cecily and I are going on a seven hour bus ride this weekend to Valencia to hang out with these cool French Canadian guys that we met on a bike tour in London a week ago. They’re sweethearts, and not sketchy at all – it’s completely legitimate, I promise.”

After meeting Fred and Laurence on the bike tour then hanging out with them for a few days in London, Cecily and I were immediately convinced that all of us should hang out again. After looking at our very booked travel schedule we realized that this October weekend was the only realistic time that we could accept Laurence’s invitation to visit. So, two days in advance, we changed plans from embarking on a school day trip to the mountains (which we later heard was cold and boring anyway) and bought tickets instead to spend a few days at the beach, traveling by bus on the typically strange and uncomfortable early morning/late night route from Salamanca to Madrid, then Madrid to Valencia and back.

Although bus rides are definitely the cheapest way to travel, we've started to realize that they also attract some very strange people, and always result in very interesting and unpredictable situations.

Four hours into our bus ride to Valencia, we were traveling through a hilly region of the country, when our beast of a vehicle started making loud chugging noises and slowing down to about 35 miles per hour. Suddenly, we heard a loud "POP" noise, and with that the buss rolled pathetically off the highway to a nearby reststop, and we had to all gather our stuff, get out, and move to a new (but significantly older and less comfortable) bus.

On our way between Madrid and this point of rest, we met a bunch of Stanford kids who were also studying abroad and on their way to Valencia for the weekend. Our new friend Cameron ended up being the unluckiest of the bunch, as he was the last person to get on the bus, and got stuck in the very back seat next to a drunken and snoring middle aged man who was half passed out on Cameron's chair.

In the first 15 minutes the man woke up and proceeded to tell Cameron his life story, then without warning just fell back asleep and returned to snoring loudly in Cameron's ear. Cecily and I just about died laughing watching this whole scene, so we decided to record it - unsuccessfully, until after about three failed attempts, when we were finally able to quit laughing and pull it together. (There are two videos, this is the first, then another 45 minutes into the trip. I´ll upload the second when I get higher speed internet :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyV2FsSlEpQ