Detroit…. rock city????? 2 hours of terror!!!

Ok, after we played in Toronto (which looked so much like Melbourne, I just wanted to stay there!!) we made it out of the venue and headed to a place called Kitchener, which was an hour or so away I think? I can’t remember.. I was a little intoxicated…. fancy that… me…. intoxicated??

Anyway, after a night in Kitchener, and a few hours sleep,  we headed to the bus station in Kitchener to head back into the US seperate toour friend’s Urn for various reasons that we won’t go into right now.

So we get to the bus station, and find out after alot of tooing and froing that the tickets that were supposed to be ready for us, weren’t… so after sorting that situation out, we got on a bus to Chicago… 16 hours…. on a bus….. yes… that IS a long time!

So taking in some of the lovely Canadian country side, which were did enjoy, we ended up in London, Ontario, Canada. We were supposed to wait here for about 20 mins and catch the next bus to Detroit… but there were delays, which kept us in London for nearly two hours. Looking at our schedule for the rest of the trip, we saw that we would probably miss a connecting bus in Detroit.. so we made sure we would still be able to get back to Chicago… which we were told was not a problem… we would be able to catch any bus… so that was a relief… but little did we know what would await us in Detroit.

So, we drove on through Canadian country side, which was actually quite nice. After a whole bunch of hours, we got to Windsor, which is the Canadian side of the border… Detroit being on the other side.

The border crossing here takes you through a tunnel, half way through the tunnel you have a line with a Canadian flag on one side of the line, a US flag on the other… I almost felt like jumping out of the bus and hopping across the line… now I’m in the US…. now I’m in Canada… now I’m in the US… now I’m in Canada… but I think it was much too serious a border to be messing around like that!!!

Ok, so we get to the border, and get off the bus and go into Imigration and Customs. When we crossed into Canada, we had no grief, but this time we went through individually, and even though we all got the same officer, she really for some reason either didn’t like me, or found in fun to hassle me, but we got through and got into Detroit….  now keep in mind, we were told that the Detroit bus station was in a very bad neighbourhood, and after we got back to Chicago, we were told by a friend of Urn’s, who drummed for them after Chicago, who was also a Homocide detective, that Detroit is the worst city in the US for violent crime …. this was an experience.

So, we get to Detroit bus station… this was an interesting place… I think we were the only non-Americans in the place… so we probably stuck out like a sore thumb!! At the beginning, we were keen to maybe leave the bus station and get some food, but after sitting down for a minute, we soon realised that the kind of people in and around this bus station, were maybe not the kind of people we wanted to be with alone….. it was like Jerry Springer live and scary!!

Probably one of the scariest people we came across was a woman who was maybe 5 ft tall, maybe 6 ft wide, maybe three teeth in her mouth… a little moustache… maybe a little beard too… screaming into her phone for about 30 mins about how she wanted her damn money… I think one line she used was “I’m out on f*ing parole, and I want my f*ing money now or else I’m gonna f*ing kill someone”… so we kept clear of her… very clear!!!

There were quite a few very shady characters slinking around the bus station, one guy looked like he came straight out of The Deliverance… and was spinning his keys around his fingers, and just kept sitting across from us and looking at us.. and then would get up and walk around, and then come back… I kept hearing “You got a perrty mouf” in my head…

So… after being on a bus for a while, we were pretty peckish.. and the vending machines only took $1 notes… and the change machine only took $5 notes to change into $1’s… we didn’t have alot of $1’s or any $5’s and so I went to the counter to ask for some change… they didn’t give change, but there was a burger king a block and a half away….

After asking Mark and Dave, it was decided that they weren’t going outside the bus station no way no how… so if I wanted change… I had to go.. a block and a half out… into Detroit… I could do this… sure… no problem… I think.

So.. out I venture into Detroit… I walk to the corner… no problems… turn the corner… walk to the next corner… no problems. I look down the street and I can see the Burger King… nice… but between me and there is a couple of what looks like condemed buildings, some very abandonded looking cars… and some other buildings that look somewhat dodgy… I can do this… I’m a big scary looking Aussie guy… and yes I am shaking a little, but that’s ok!!!

So off I walk… wondering whether or not I’m going to die in Detroit… I get to the Burger King in once piece.. that’s a good sign, and as I walk in, I walk past a big guy who is on the phone… I hear “She called the f*ing cops on me?? I’m goin f*ing kill that b****”… ok… I just need to order and get out.. not hard!!! So I am in line, I order… if you order a large meal in America, you get about a 2 litre drink… insanity! Anyway, so I order, and as I move down the counter to pick up me meal, I notice there are two 7ft tall, 6 ft wide big african american dudes looking at me, the kind of guys you see as body guards…. the kind of guys who could snap you in half in their sleep!!!

One of them says “hey boy, where you from?” … my stomach sank… loads of butterflies… scared like a little girl… So I say “I’m from Australia”… to which he replies “Dats Cool” and went about his ordering… So I grabbed my meal and headed out into the street and got back to that bus station with some food and some $1’s as fast as I possibly could!!!!

Got back to the bus station, told the guys my story, gave them some $1’s and sat there eating quietly, not making eye contact!!! At this point there was someone sitting opposite Dave, Dave was eating starburst, and had some chips that were not to his liking… this person opposite Dave looked over and said.. “Hey.. gimmie some o dat candy”.. Dave gave this person some of the chips instead, and we all lived happily ever after… till we found out this person was a girl, apparently, and Dave called her “bro”… but I guess they didn’t catch on because no one said anything!

Ok… not long to go now… 15 mins till the bus… that was when the first woman, the one on parole, sits down right next to us… ok, we’re up and off into line to get away from her and get onto that damn bus!!!

So we wait in line, waiting… waiting… that 10 minutes seemed like 30 to me… and we eventually got onto the bus and sat down… we had escaped Detroit without being bashed, shot, stabbed, killed.. it was a good feeling!!!

The rest of the trip was quite relaxed, we met a young guy who was a singer, but looked like a white rapper, who was going back and forth to Canada to hang out with his girlfriend. Nice guy. Our next stop was Kalamazoo, MI. Dave and I went to the local Maccas for some drinks…. $1 any size… good lord!!!

Back on the bus, and the 4 or 5 hours left to Chicago… I think we slept alot of the way … or at least I did, and once we got to Chicago, we met up with the Urn guys again, and back to bed and off for some much needed R&R at Dom from Urn’s house…. Ahh yes, we made it back… in one piece!!!