Sure enough, the customs officer quizzed us and led us into a back room, where we sat, hearts thumping loudly against our chests, for 20 minutes while everyone else got back on the bus and our driver began walking around, looking for us, the missing passengers. My American wife and I bolted out, because her application for Canadian permanent residence was processing and we anticipated getting held up. She didn’t say anything else to us until we arrived, at which point she instructed us to remove all our belongings from the bus and line up inside the office. Our driver stepped off the bus and found someone who presumably knew how to handle the situation. The couple in front of us-the guy was wearing a #ParkdaleLife hat, revealing his downtown Torontoness-laughed nervously. I asked, “What questions?” but she didn’t hear me and stepped off the bus. “Does anyone, like, take this route regularly? I don’t know how this works. “Is anyone here a regular rider?” she asked. We pulled out of the Duty Free line (no, she learned, it’s not meant for Greyhound buses) and crossed the Buffalo River, reaching the border behind a lineup of several other buses by around eight o’clock.Īfter another half-hour of waiting and occasionally inching toward customs, our driver stood up. ![]() This was our first hint that something was wrong. I don’t normally take this route I drive the other route.” “Do you need to check your Duty Free items?” asked the man from the doorway. She opened the door and asked someone if she needed to be in this lane. Buffalo’s Coca-Cola field from the cheap seats.Īs we approached the Peace Bridge to Canada, our driver, a young woman who at this point had still yet to collapse into a fuming pit of exasperated depression, pulled into the Duty Free lane behind several 18-wheelers. We passed the skyline of the city’s beautiful Art Deco city hall and miniature Statues of Liberty topping the industrial-era skyscrapers. We were heading toward the border, past Buffalo’s Coca-Cola field, where we’d seen the Buffalo Bisons AAA baseball team lose an exciting game a few days before. By the time we left, it was 7:40.īut, okay, it’s just a little delay. A friendly balding man in a Greyhound bus uniform assured us that a third bus would be added to accommodate us.īy the time it showed up, the lineup had grown. ![]() There were still maybe 20 of us in line, waiting. We waited in line while the two allotted Toronto-bound buses filled up with passengers and left well before 6:55 p.m. Not unusual, I figured it was the same coming here from Toronto. We got to Buffalo’s downtown bus terminal a half-hour before our departure time, and there was already a hefty lineup for the bus. We were scheduled to leave Buffalo at 6:55 p.m., and arrive in Toronto at 9:25. It was a Monday night. Traffic wasn’t too bad. It was sunny and windy after some weekend storms.
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