…it bloody pours!
Both figuratively and literally because last week, not only were we inundated by (different) visitors who came from afar all at the same time and within the same week, we were also ambushed with a few other happenings at the same period such as:
- 90% of the school in the Netherlands were closed because the teachers were on strike for 1 day
- we had planned to travel to the South of the country over the weekend while trying to navigate/plan the visits of our faraway friends in between
- Silver Bullet has a new work assignment and now has to commute an hour longer to work that’s added on to our already long 2-hour daily commute
- my shitty, unfortunate luck with the train strike again!
Pretty impressive week, eh!
Let me get started on my luck with the train. If you don’t already know, the Dutch trains/trams and me are like sworn-enemies. We never are always on the same track because if there’s me having to commute by train to get to work or get home from work, 70% of the time there’ll be a little adventure.
The adventures would come in the form of the train transfers had been re-routed, the tracks would be under some maintenance or they decided that there will just be no train running anymore on the route I was supposed to be going and on an unfortunate day, someone had jumped onto the train track.
That pretty much was my mis-adventures ever since the very first time I got myself on-board the public train.
It happened again last weekend after a long hiatus of no-public train ride. I was dropped off at the nearest train station after my driving lessons AND it was raining cats and dogs. It so happened that there was NO train running at all over the weekend; they were repairing the tracks. AND Silver Bullet was too far away to pick me up. Brilliant.
It did not help that I already had an early and busy morning AND we were scrambling to get the kids ready to be dropped off to their grandparents as we had to prepare for our drive to the south. The day was not supposed to be that stressful.
So I found a bus that would take me somewhere near my home. It’s called the “Buurt Bus” aka the “Neighbourhood Bus”. Except that this turned out to be a bus that goes into the nook and cranny of every single neighbourhood. The trip took about an hour (otherwise a 20 minutes train ride, had the train been working!).
It was my first time taking the “Buurt Bus“. It took me to places I have not been before with fields and fields of cows, sheep and then nothingness. There were barely anyone in the bus too and only 2 other people joined me throughout the hour-long ride.
More cows. More hays. More trucks. More obscure-looking villages. It was a wonderful, wonderful day of sightseeing through the murky windows with the pitter-patter of the rain and cloudy skies. Sarcasm applies.
Then…
After almost an hour, we have civilisation. I saw things that looked familiar. Woohooooo! The driver dropped us off at another train station – only one station away from home. The prospect of having to walk home in the rain for the next 15-20 minutes was becoming apparent. Woohooooooo!
The ride had been fun, but unnecessary. I guess there’s always a first time to everything.
So. Tell me: How was your week? Any strange happenings and misadventures?
