The phone alarm got us up and out of bed. We had to get a coach over the border to Burlington. We were taking the infamous Greyhound bus from Montreal bus station. Our experience with Greyhound buses from some years ago was not great. It always had very interesting clientele, you weren't guaranteed a seat (or even a place on the bus you booked due to overbooking) and it wasn't the most comfortable coach - yet here we are giving it another shot! It was already looking better as we had an actual seat booked.
We arrived at the bus station, found our bay, grabbed a cuppa and a croissant (farewell French culture) and waited to be called. We boarded the bus via a passport and ESTA check (ESTA is the form you complete to gain entry to the USA). The seats were very comfortable, there were plugs and it wasn't even rammed full (Greyhound has definitely improved). It was a 3 hour journey via border control.
After about an hour and a half we arrived at border control and were asked to get off the bus and queue up inside the building. The staff there were checking passports, ESTAs and our plans in the USA etc. All in all it took just under two hours to get everyone processed and back on the bus - which was longer than we expected, but it seemed much longer than everyone else expected (including the driver). I suppose it is much more straightforward when it is just US and Canadian citizens - but on our bus we had Belgians, French, Brazilians, Spanish and us Brits. They were definitely thorough!
We arrived into Burlington at about noon and dragged our suitcases to our AirBnB (at this point really missing our hire car!). Although check in wasn't officially until 4pm, all of our codes worked and no one was there, so we dumped our stuff in our room and headed downtown.
Burlington is a pretty little lake side town/city, full of University students and I imagine full of tourists in the summer (for the lake) and winter (for the skiing). It is also the home of Bernie Sanders, the US presidential candidate. He was the mayor of Burlington for about a decade and is now the Senator for Vermont. He is a bit of legend and so this felt like a bit of a pilgrimage.
We mooched around the main drag in the town centre (Church Street) which was pedestrianised and decorated with bunting etc. It looked really quite nice. We noticed that there were no big chains in the downtown area at all, instead it was mostly full of independent shops and cafes. We grabbed an absolutely stunning lunch at August First which was clearly very popular with the locals as I had to work hard to grab a table by hovering awkwardly over people that looked like they were about to leave. There was a clear cut no laptops rule in place - to add to the vibe and the turnover of the tables, presumably.
After lunch, we then wandered down to the edge of the lake and walked along the front. It had a nice sort of promenade path right on the edge of the lake with swing seats instead of benches. Very cool!
We then looped back round and walked to the University campus (which was further and more uphill than both of us had thought!). We saw the campus on our way in and thought it would be interesting to have a look around. We noticed quite a few sorority and fraternity houses near the campus as well (marked out with Greek letters above the main door). The University looks really old and grand. Sometimes in the US we have found that things that look old have been made to look old, but aren't actually all that old. The University of Vermont was founded in 1791, so it is a pretty historical place!
After walking around the campus, we decided to head back downtown (down hill this time!!) and grab a drink. We stopped by a coffee shop and had a hot chocolate - it was pretty chilly by this point. Kirstie had found out that the Vermont International Film Festival was happening this week and there was a documentary we were both interested in seeing called '26.2 to life' which was about a running club at San Quentin prison in California. It followed a bunch of lifers who had taken up running and were preparing for a marathon within the prison yard. The tickets were all sold out, but there was a waiting list system, so we popped down and put ourselves on the waiting list. We were lucky enough to get in and so we spent the evening watching the documentary. The film festival attracted a certain crowd of local film buffs (many of whom seemed to know each other) and so it did seem a bit like we were crashing a party, but everyone was very nice!
After the film we headed back to the AirBnB. Burlington has left a good impression on us but we are looking forward to our road trip to Boston. Our first stop is the Ben and Jerry's factory for a tour - I had no idea Ben and Jerry's was based out of Burlington, but I am certainly not unhappy about paying it a visit.

The newly luxurious Greyhound experience.

Church Street. With a church at the end...

The Church

Burlington

Along the lake

Sigma Phi - Frat House

KΣ

University of Vermont

University of Vermont - Billings Library

Sunset by the lake

Documentary at the Vermont International Film Festival.

Film buffs of Vermont unite! (With two chumps from the UK).
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