English 
Deutsch TL;DR: I spend the weekend in a Greyhound bus to Denver, a city bordering the Rocky Mountains. There’s a lot of interesting personalities in the buses. In Denver I buy the necessary equipment to start the bicycle tour.
On the way to the bus station I get off a few stops early. I walk through the streets of New York one last time. Soon I'm on the bus and see the skyline disappear. Bye bye, NYC! You crazy concrete jungle!
Sitting next to me is Samantha, a 47-year-old woman from Roanoke, Virginia, who now lives in Philadelphia and commutes weekly to New York. She works in a hospital and has two children, yes, they are doing well, but the older one was hanging out with the wrong people for a long time, at some point he was caught in a burglary that resulted in bodily harm, he's been in jail for two years now, three more to go, that’s of course hard for her, but he also messed up, luckily he can now train to become a carpenter... and by the way, did I know how beautiful Pennsylvania is and how tasty her rhubarb cake and so on and so forth. After an hour I know pretty much about her, but not vice versa, because as soon as I say a sentence she takes over and continues from there. I don't mind at all though, I'm very entertained. As we arrive in Philadelphia, she wishes me a lot of fun in Washington (huh?) and gets off the bus.
Night is falling and it gets little quieter. Sometimes the bus driver makes an announcement, but the speaker is crackling and I don't understand a single word. Well, I don't have to exit for a long time anyway. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a Saudi Arabian who doesn't speak English enters. He's about my age and looks nervous. Using Google Translate, he asks me and about ten others if this bus is going to Columbus until he has enough insurance. We exchange a few words on the same app, then he sits down next to me and after a short while falls asleep on my shoulder. I let it happen and listen to music.
In Columbus - it is now 5am - we all have to get out, grab our luggage and switch the bus. The Saudi is very jittery again, apparently he doesn't really know where to go, but at some point his colleague finds him. I look at the crowd. This is definitely working class traveling. No expensive clothes, no fixed teeth. Those who can drive a car or fly. Some look like they came straight from the street. Although America's internal contradictions were not unknown to me, it's something different to see it in real life. This has happened to me several times in New York – on the one hand, wild glamor in Manhattan, on the other hand, a subway car heading to the Bronx in which there is not a single White person other than me (all the White people got out until the last stop in Manhattan, while almost all People of Color stayed in. A depressing moment in which segregation became visible. I don't want to pose as an anti-racism activist that I never was. But it's still clear: something is wrong here).
We continue through flat land, this time with a nice lady as bus driver. Almost always straight ahead, interrupted here and there by an S-curve to bypass a factory. We go through countless small towns, then again through a larger center. The suburbs are huge, but loosely built, in order to have to drive as much as possible. The Interstate highway goes on and on, stretching forever towards the horizon. The US are huge, not just east-west, but also north-south. In the evening we arrive in St. Louis, where I briefly check out the world-famous Gateway Arch. After a night in the hotel we continue the next afternoon.
More quirky people. More straight roads. Someone wants to talk to me about Jesus. Another night on the bus. One time, there is not a single curve for 100 km. The land has been perfectly flat for about 1,500 km (“Great Plains” is the name of the region), and now there are even no trees anymore. The further west, the less population. Side streets all branch off at right angles. While I’m cruising through this flat land, eyes unable to cling to anything, I listen to “Bakerman” from Laid Back.
Irgendwann tauchen die Rocky Mountains am Horizont auf, und danach die Skyline von Denver. Endlich! Ich bin jetzt 2700 km von New York entfernt (gleich weit wie Warschau-Lissabon). In Denver kümmere ich mich die nächsten Tage um ein Velo und Ausrüstung. Es dauert, weil ich möglichst viel gebraucht kaufen will. Aber ich finde ein Velo, und aus einer Laune heraus taufe ich es Sepp (Martin, ja, es hat mit dem Namen deiner Katze zu tun). Sepp und ich werden ab sofort viel Zeit miteinander verbringen. Am Freitag, eine Woche nach dem Ende des Barkeeperkurses, kann die Tour beginnen!
