This is a great story.

Read the post before this one if you have not already, otherwise some of this post might not make sense.

D.C. was great. Steph and I definitely relaxed and got to watch Wimbledon, which was incredible, can we say women's finals 2003 repeat? Can we even bring up the men's finals? Unless you feel bad for Federer, do not talk to me. :)

Katie and Andrew were the best hosts for us over the weekend and let us lay around all weekend. After arriving at their house in Virgina on Thursday we finally ventured out on Saturday night. Yes, we hibernated until Saturday night. Andrew and Katie took us to Maggiano's. Awesome Italian food. A lot of Italian food. A lot of to-go boxes, but worth it.

**If you know me, my stories are usually long in person, so writing them, is just the same, get ready for a pretty good story that happened this past Sunday.

After our smooth sailing trip in VA and D.C., we took the metro into the city to catch our bus to get back into New York about 9:00 p.m. Sunday evening. Well, Sunday evening, turned into early Monday morning. And for a few hours Stephanie and I sat on the side of the New Jersey turnpike debating on whether or not our situation was worthy enough to put upwards of two hundred dollars on our "emergency" credit cards. Well, thanks to my cousin Katie, and some common sense, we didn't call a cab to take us an 95 minutes home. We waited and waited and waited for another bus to come.

Oh... would you like to know why we were sitting on the side of the NJ turnpike? Cruising along finishing up the Red Leather Diaries, listening to my ipod, Steph hits me, mid panic. "Do you smell that?" she said. I said yes, but really thought nothing of it and just took deeper breathes. Really I was too into the book to notice anything other than Florence's relationship with M and Nat (reference to the book). After telling her to ignore it, a few seconds later Steph is perked up looking back at the five rows of people behind us, who are also freaking out. "Something is burning!" "It smells like gas!" "It's really foggy," were the comments being shouted through the back of the bus. (Oh and one girl on the back row had her shirt covering her mouth and nose looked like she was going to pass out...).

"Hey bus driver, pull over." "Yo captain, something has to be wrong here." "He's not going to pull over and we're all going to die." I was in a bus full of over reactors and people who literally were ready to jump out of a 56 passenger bus moving 70mph along the NJ turnpike. Steph was shook up and I think was nervous because I wasn't. And not that I'm trying to act like i wasn't scared or anything but it was a very surreal situation. We were all taking very deep breaths and the back of the bus was very foggy and unclear, we knew something was wrong. Finally someone got the bus drive to pull over. He got out for a minute and came back on and started driving.

"What the hell driver!" "You have to tell us what happened." "We're paying for this ride, if something is wrong, I'm getting off," yelled random passengers near Steph and I. The bus driver said, I'm going to New York, Penn Station, the engine was fine, nothing is wrong.

By this point about ten minutes have passed and the front of the bus is annoyed because the smell and fog has not made it up there yet and people in the back are yelling and complaining. I was amused and entertained. I told Steph that we were going to get off. It wasn't a good situation to be in and we both wanted off. So I told her, once we get the driver to stop again we are going to grab our bags and just walk straight to the front and get off. The two nice British guys sitting next to us went up to talk to the bus driver a second time while he was driving because we had opened all of the emergency exit windows and vents in the ceiling for ventilation, and it was still there.

Completely annoyed with the back of the bus, the diver gets off the bus and gets on his cell phone. I tell Steph its our chance to get off and we'll just figure out what to do next when we get off. Of course I go up to the driver first and tell him, "I am getting of this bus right now." He said fine do whatever you want. I said okay, let me go get my stuff, and walk back to the back of the bus...

Stephanie and I grab our things and get off. We walk about 300 yards to a service station to see where we are. Not speaking the same language as the woman working, she printed off a reciept to inform us we were in Hamilton, NJ. (You'd think with my spanish background and Steph's french, we would have gotten somewhere, but no...we got no where with this lady). Continuing I call my cousin Katie back in VA because I knew this would worry my mother to death because she would not be able to help in any way possible.... except worry. So what she didn't know, didn't hurt her. *I did tell after we figured out what we were going to do.

(Okay I am going to make this go a little faster...) We had two options... wait about 2 hours for a cab that would cost upwards of $250 to be split between the two of us, or wait for another bus to come, oh, after about thirty minutes everyone else got off the bus and was told another bus would come in 3 hours or so.

So that was our decision. I had to work at Banana at 9:45 Monday morning and Steph had to be at work at 10:30 Monday so we both had to get home asap. Deciding against the cab, with the influence of cousin Katie, we waited on a bus. Thankfully Steph and I lucked out and two hours later, a bus came with, if i remember correctly, 10 spots on it. Steph and I creeped our way in and made it back to Penn Station a little after midnight.

In the middle of this bus ride our third roommate, Bridget called and told us, half the fuses in our apartment were blown. The only one working was the the one the AC is plugged into. THANK GOD! She had also been in D.C. for the weekend and had just gotten home. She filled us in that the train at Penn Station took about 20 minutes then the L train took about 15. Steph and I bypassed the subway entirely. We paid ten dollars took a cab and crashed when we got home, with full working fuses, thanks to Bridget.

It was an adventure hope you enjoyed reading that saga!