Portland - Back to the real world

A little out of order in the blogs but the journey from Vancouver to Portland had its moments so we wanted to get it written down before we forgot. Woke up this morning with a raging hangover after celebrating our last night aboard the Serenade of the Seas with our dining companions who were a great laugh. We had an epic game of pool where we came back from 5-0 down to win 6-5. The upshot of this was that we got to bed late and very tipsy. We woke at just before 5am to start packing (!) in preparation for our disembarking at 7.30am. This is where we hit the real world again!

Got to the station at 8am for a coach that was due to leave at 12. Absolutely nothing to do but sit and wait, which we did patiently enough, the station had a rule that you were not allowed to sleep or you got thrown out, great! When the coach arrived four hours later the driver told us that there were huge delays at the border of about three hours and there was no chance of connecting with any trains in Seattle! Oops so not only is the scheduled four hour coach journey going to be extended by up to three hours, we are then going to have to stay overnight in Seattle! About a quarter of the passengers walked off in disgust and tried to make alternative arrangements but we got on. Cutting the story a little shorter the bus was pretty much on time with the delays miraculously clearing up in time. Car and truck lanes were queuing for miles at the border but the bus lane was empty and we blasted past them. Ok, so that means just four hours on the coach! We did not anticipate such a chirpy driver telling jokes the whole way. Then she offered the mic to anyone who wanted to sing. Oh boy, some Dutch girls went up to the front and sang some nursery rhymes in Dutch, and the famous "Pizza Hut" song, followed by a Clint Eastwood impersonator, a tone death rapper who continued even though some of us could barely breath we were laughing so much, the old-timer with "Country Roads", at Frere Jacques it was all becoming too much to bare and more than a little surreal.

We survived, just. Got on our train from Seattle to Portland to complete the last three hours of the journey. This time we had someone with a loud walkman right behind us not realising they were singing quite loud. Well singing, it was actually more like chanting and was quite scary. We recognised the songs but had never heard them chanted before with a wheezing voice. Vicky got propositioned by a drunk on the train who was sure he had hooked up with her the previous night in Seattle. We had a lady in a wheelchair asking for help with her taxi fare for Portland, just before she proceeded to empty the buffet car supply of sodas and giant size packets of chocolate snacks.

Tomorrow we pick up the car and start the fantastic drive down the West Coast, through Oregon and down through California to Los Angeles. Right now we miss the coddling of the cruise ship and her staff!