New York City Day 4: The Departed

Day 4 was saaaaaaaaaaad:

Woke up, brushed teeth, kissed my hostel goodbye, got to Pennsylvania Station by noon, ended up waiting for our bus outside Madison Square Garden, and took off. The ride was nice...they have a Moe's grill inside the Garden, so I bought two tacos to eat on the bus ride home. We sat at a table on the bus and the tacos melted right through the bag and stained the table. I was so depressed I listened to some sad songs on my iPod. I'd miss NYC so much, we all agreed there was nothing that would top it. There are TOO many things to see. Anyways we slept most of the time and played an imitation game, imitating people close to us for fun. At around 9pm we arrive at the border.

THEY SEARCHED US.

Not a simple search, a serious frisking and questioning for non-medicinal drugs. Here's how it went:

We four went into the building as a group with the rest of the passengers. We wait in line and we're called up to a booth. He takes our passports and does a background check. Three of us are fine but then when he pulls up Greg's profile he sees a dropped weapons charge that was responsible for what would happen in the next forty minutes. I didn't know at the time about the weapons charges. The officer asked if we were carrying any tobacco back into Canada and Greg honestly claimed five Cuban cigars. The officer then leaned over his booth and asked how many bags we were carrying then walked around and said, "follow me". We walk to the other side of the office and sat down outside a room that looked like the room in The Dark Knight where Batman interrogates the Joker, very illegitimately. Both officers walk into the room first and we see their mouths moving from outside, they keep looking at the four of us and we're looking at each other like, Alright, who the fuck has the drugs this shit is not funny. One of them came out and asks who wants to go first. Farhan jumps up and says "I'll go!". He goes into the room and one of the officers shuts the door behind him.

I can't see what's going from where I'm sitting, and I was afraid to move because I thought the officer outside would tell me to shut up and sit down, so I was like fuck this I'm sitting quietly. I see Greg and George seeing what's going on. Then the officer outside the room puts on a pair of jet-black gloves and he snaps that shit around his wrist in a threatening manner while walking by us. So that one disappears into the room as well. Ten minutes later the door opens and I hear Farhan say, "Thank you so much" to the officers. He walks straight out and out of the building without so much as a glance or word to us.

Greg goes in next and same deal. I switch seats and I see Greg seems to be relaxed with these guys, but the officers seem to be giving him a hard time. George turns to me and says, "You're going to blog about this aren't you," "Hell yeah I am!". Greg comes out after fifteen minutes. I go in next and bring my luggage inside. Officer number one tells me to leave my luggage on the stainless-steel table. The room is tightly-spaced and smells of cold metal. He then asks me to sit down. Before he searches my bag he asks me, "I'm going to give you the same chance I gave your friends. You can claim any marijuana or guns you have in your bag right now. If you do and I find less than 30mg's of it I'll let it go. If I find more I'm going to arrest you. If you don't claim if and I find any amount you will be arrested." Knowing I smoked every inch of the weed garden we were growing at the hostel, I confidently reply, "I have none." (That was a joke by the way)

So they begin searching my bag. Officer number one asks me, "Hiding any marijuana in your boxers?" I chuckle a bit and say "aaaahhh no." He then mocks me, "aahhh no? What, did you have to think about that?" Then I'm like Shit don't shoot me I'm living a better life than you ever will so I answer "No definitely no marijuana in there." He continues to search the bag. He then asks officer number two to frisk me. Officer number two then snaps on the gloves and walks up to me. Here was the thing about these two cops. I understand it's their job to strictly enforce mandatory methods of preventing any kind of border-hopping or drug smuggling into the country, and these two definitely deserved an award for doing their jobs right. Officer number two was a very nice person, and I'm not saying that because the way he was about to frisk me felt like a massage, but because he knew who to suspect as a criminal. He was also polite. Officer number one loved being a hardass.

So Officer number two came to me like this. "I need you to stand up, turn around, interlock your fingers behind your back and spread your legs." In my head I'm thinking, Damn, I've asked my girlfriends to do this at one point or another. So I do what he says realizing I can't escape the frisk if anything is found on me. So he grasps my two interlocked hands in one hand and frisks me with another. He searches my entire body for...God knows what. He says I'm clean and I sit back down. At this point officer number one is done his searching. He looks at me and says, "So you said you've never been around marijuana recently? And I tell him, "Nope." He then eyes the luggage and looks back at me saying, "then why have your bags been around them." I paused here and thought to myself who the dumbass was that smoked weed near me in the last 48 hours. I came up with 0 dumbasses and I told the officer, "I have no answer to that. I WAS staying in a hostel and maybe someone there had been around it and came in contact with--DAB HIS HANDS. Officer number one cuts me off abruptly and number two gives me a small cloth. He tells me to rub my hands and forearms with it. I comply and give it back to him. He exits the room and I sit uncomfortably in there with officer number one. I don't know what he was thinking, but I was thinking about those tacos I ate, they were terrific. Then I realized if that cloth came back with a positive for the marijuana, I'm done for. I knew it wouldn't, but my bags were positives for some reason, so I was partially concerned. My escape plans was to throw my socks at them then steal the megabus. Then I'd call Farhan and the gang and tell them to rendevous back at a Red Lobster in Toronto.

Number two came back with a negative, thank God. "He's clean...for now." The fuck do you mean for now, I'm always clean. I've only ever smoked that shit once, it's nothing special. Then he asked me to pack up everything he pulled out of the bag. Before I left the room he told me, "When you go out, not a word or look to your friend sitting out there." At the time it was George and I walked right by him and out onto the bus platform. All the other passengers were looking at us like we were criminals. I stopped walking and looked back hard, then they found something else to look at in the sky. I met Farhan and Greg and told them what happened. So here's what really happened:

Farhan was pulled into the room and questioned. He was told about the marijuana deal and responded, "I can't be around marijuana or alcohol because of my medication." They checked his medication and just searched him and he was out of there, which is why he seemed so cheery upon departure, because they were harassing his ass.

Greg walked in and they searched his stuff first.

He told them, "I know why you're doing this,"

"Oh yeah, why?"

"Because you saw the weapons charges that were dropped back in 2005."

Apparently these things are invisible to employers but ever-present on your federal record. They frisked him up like they did me and demonstrated cocky attitudes towards him. They let him go with upset expressions after failing to find anything incriminating.

So we waiting about fifteen minutes for George, who we were very concerned about. George is a nice guy, but he ALWAYS looks like he's spliffed a tree, it's just his natural behaviour. George came out after a similar ordeal and we boarded the bus after holding up the other passengers for about half an hour. I was relieved but worried that this would affect my trip to Sri Lanka in two months. I later found out it wouldn't, but if I were to travel back to the United States within the next five years they'd ask me about it. That's a bitch.

So we got back to Toronto, it felt nice. Hopped on the subway at Bay Station from the bus terminal and for once appreciated the cool atmosphere of Canadian weather. It's the one thing Tdot trumped NYC on.

About New York:

People are nice, don't be fooled.
New York has plus 40 degree celsius weather.
Subways in NYC are another ten degrees on top of that 40, but the trains are well chilled with orgasmic air-conditioning.
NYC is too big to see in three days.
You'd need about $500 to shop, eat, and sight-see in three days, I brought $200 and borrowed money:P
NYC in real life is EXACTLY how it is in the movies.
People in NYC look a lot like Torontonians, but some actually LOOK American.
Central Park is too fucking big.
The top of the Empire State Building is very sighty.
DO NOT eat in Times Square unless you're a millionaire, if you have a girlfriend that wants to eat there, tell her to fuck off.
Ten hour bus rides there and back are negligible, not boring at all if you bring what entertains you...I brought porn, lots of it


JUST KIDDING


The New York Loft Hostel in Brooklyn is a safe and comfortable base to stay in for travellers on a budget.


And that is the last blog about one of my greatest vacations ever to my favourite place on Earth, hope you had as much fun reading it as I did living it! Highly unlikely!

-NEW YORK BLOG OUT LOYAL READERS-