@kapolani: what country are you from? there are a lot of regional exchanges where you buy from some other private guy- the BTCs is in escrow and you have to transre money to his bank account. That way the transaction should be done in 1-2 days within EU.

I bought my coins with MtGox but that was 2 years ago.. BitInstant also seems to be very popular. Other than that, there is still the possibility to buy and sell some stuff for bitcoins (for example, sell your old laptop or something ).