Train ordeals, the sequel

The leaders of various union organizations (doctors, teachers, train conductors etc.) decided to strike this afternoon in order to express disagreement with the latest steps of the government and its social, retirement, and who-knows-what-else policies. The strike ought to begin at 1pm and although the spokespeople claim an ordinary citizen should not experience any inconvenience, that will be rather difficult to accomplish if the trains will stand still for 75 minutes.

I do not necessarily concur with the reasons of the strike; the reasons are short-sighted and don’t take into account the need for economic reforms. But let’s say that I respect everyone’s right to strike.

What angers me, though, is the situation where yet another maliciously scheduled railroad repairs are in progress and the train from my station will be 10 minutes late. Those extra ten minutes will overlap into next hour, when the strike should start. So it’s very likely that I will get stuck on a train once again, this time because of brilliantly coordinated sequence of obstructions designed to slow down the travelers as much as possible.

No rush

In one of the previous posts I described the necessary change the inhabitants of less affluent suburbs will have to take to cope with the recent economic changes. Here in the Czech Republic we’re witnessing a similar phenomenon of leaving cities in favor of living either in our “special” suburbs, recently artificially created self-insufficient developments characterized by the houses in the light shades of beige that give a new meaning to the word “crowded”, or simply villages. Although there is a visible shift in the lifestyle of the “villagers” (for some reason this word bears negative connotations to me — as though a person residing in a village was supposed to be oblivious to modern world, still living his own life surrounded by animals he will later eat; I live in a village-house yet have no edible animals on my front yard), some further adaptations will be necessary in the near future.

Take these examples: our neighbors have seldom anything to do. I don’t understand it, aren’t they supposed to work or something? What consequences does this have? That whenever there is any exciting activity going on on someone’s garden, they must be aware of it. Their reactions depend on the level of excitement, however can be simplified to two categories: 1) lower level of excitement – the person is casually looking out of the window while you’re mowing the lawn; 2) higher level of excitement – can be divided into two too: the person runs out of his house to meet and greet the contractors that a) were hired to rebuild your staircase – in that case he comes to talk to them every time they leave the house b) were hired to build you a fence – then the neighbor will be incessantly advising the people how to built a better fence. This abundance of attention gets really annoying.

Or for example random encounters with domesticated animals of any size: I am no longer surprised when I take a turn on a narrow road that leads to the train station and suddenly find myself standing right in front of a horse. His owner is reluctant to repair the broken pound and prefers to chase the horse around every time it runs away, about three times a week. Given the numerous opportunities to practice the move, I now master the slow quiet escape backwards that after a few steps turns into a desperate run for life. You can’t get such adventure anywhere else!

Speaking of train stations and trains, that’s another area of peculiarity. I live in place that’s almost in the middle of the road between two larger cities. Of course it’s not a fault of the Czech Railways’ employees that the trains are always late, but oftentimes their operations are questionable. Because I take a train almost every other day, I observed that the trains are on average ten minutes delayed. Thus I don’t come until five minutes after the scheduled departure of the train and spend the time at home on something more meaningful than waiting for the archaic pieces of metal that serve our unimportant route.

But that’s where I came short today: after arriving three minutes after the regular departure time and seven minutes before the — correctly — expected departure time, I stood in front of an unoccupied counter for nine minutes, hence missing my train. It’s not that there wasn’t any clerk to sell me the ticket, I saw one in the other room, separated from the waiting room by a rather opaque glass divider. Yet she didn’t see the fear in my eyes, neither did she hear my banging on the counter with a coin (I’ve observed knocking is even less effective). For her I just wasn’t there. Finally a clerk came over with a self-satisfied smile of yet another successfully departed train. She asked what I wanted and I replied I wanted a ticket, although it might be too late. She said the train was late, as if that was changing anything, as if you can take a train that’s late unless you properly wait for it and express a genuine surprise when the loudspeaker announces the delay. I stared at her for a moment, then paid for the ticket and left for the platform. There I’ve been sitting for 45 minutes now, waiting for a delayed train to arrive and take me to a golf lesson. And then I will wait for another twenty minutes for my connection. Twenty kilometers in two hours, that’s just great.