Crossing the border Canada/USA is a real procedure; the train was stopped for 2 hours and a dinning car was turned into a custom office. We were questioned why, where and how we were going to spend our time in the States, had to fill out a paper claiming we were not terrorists, another paper claiming we were not carrying any livestock and food, and finally pay six dollars of a stamp and a paper stitched in our passports. Moreover to say the train from Montréal to NY was extremely slow! Not as it was old, but the railway had probably stayed in the same condition since the time it was built by first colonists... It was just single-track with unsecured road crossings, so either we were waiting for a train in the opposite direction or going very slow across those crossings (plus these two hours in borders). In total 357km in 7.20 h, wow!
We arrived to Schenectady on Friday 7th of May, easily found Union College (looking like weirdoes as we were walking and with huge backpacks :), met with Martin, got a room in a dormitory, went for a great all-you-can-eat dinner (so good, especially when you are hungry), and later joined other exchange students at a party in Language house and after in Frat house. Frat house is a kind of weird clan accommodation system: in the house can permanently live only guys (!) belonging into a particular fraternity (or brotherhood). Getting into a fraternity is very sophisticated process consisting from 10 weeks of pledging (= serving) for older brothers (basically an applicant has to act like a "bitch", like in the army). In the evenings the house turns into huge alcohol bordel. There young students get very drunk from extremely disgusting Bud Light, or other cheap US beer and lose all their human manners :D Funny. Especially if you realize the campus is alcohol free, there is a campus police, campus safety, canteens, and everything needed for an easy-going student life. Of course for this comfort you (or your parents) have to pay hell a lot of money!
Next day we made a campus tour and had an opportunity to visit on of those Frat houses, where Tom lived. I can say I'd never be willing to live there, not even for free. The place reminded me nothing but a huge squat, smelling from beer, garbage and whatever else. Ah and there was a black guy in pledging status cleaning the mess, taking out beer bottles, etc.
Buying beer in Schenectady:
Not easy. We managed to find only one store selling beer and without a passport no beer. They really follow all the laws and our national ID wasn't on the list of accepted documents, LOL. Only good they had Pilsner Urquell, so can could have bought tasty good beer.
We were leaving Schenectady on Sunday very early morning. After Saturday party there was no one owning a car or sober enough to drive us to Albany to catch Megabus to NYC, so we had to call a taxi. The driver was a strange guy from Middle East (probably) with a terribly old car, but he managed to get us there in time!
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| CA13 Union College 7.-8.5.2010 |
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