“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
What is it with bus stations and people freezing to death? Are all Architects sadistic assholes or just too rich to give a fuck about people who have to use public transport? Just wandering. I used to commute to the university until three years ago. They were building a new train station and when it was finished, it looked amazing. elegant and dynamic white design. Shops downstairs, and covered train trails upstairs. just open on all the sides so that when you get the wonderful and romantic snowy winter the wind can through frozen water at you even in the shopping hall. Thank god the architect put in a waiting room with seats and monitors showing the arrival and department of the trains. Of course, he could not know that more than twenty people like to stay warm while waiting for the train, but one can always go and try to drag one’s heavy bags through the book shop. The small spaces between highly complicated lifestyle magazines and romantic books with apparently good-looking and surely not anatomically accurate Tarzans on a pink cover, present the perfect opportunity to train your lifting and spatial thinking skills. It’s like those toys for children where you have to put the round objects in the square ones. And like that I was sitting on a frozen wooden bench in a plastic box that was open in the front and on every side so that the wind could gently caress my already numb face. Why? Ask someone who designs those things.
And so, I missed the first opportunity to go to the airport. After waiting the remaining 20 minutes there was still no sign of my bus (line 10) but line 2 appeared again like a fata morgana. I asked the driver how long it would take him to go to the airport. 37 minutes and I was already in kind of a hurry. Line 10 needs just 17 minutes so I took my chances and was probably secretly hoping to miss my plane (that will get paid from work next year) just to have an excuse not to go to the congress. I know I know. Last year I wished for more adventure and travel and that is exactly what I got. I just don’t really have time for it right now.
The bus came late, and the bus driver showed no signs of distress. Finally, we got to the airport. I was the only one getting off and the bus station was farther away from the terminal then I thought. I checked in in two minutes and got past security without complications. That’s a first. In fact, I was so shocked that it took me a minute to realised I was now proudly owner of 90 minutes of spare time. “Coffeee!” I sat there all my stuff with me, did not even loose anything, payed 4.50 for an “americano” without knowing that the Americans have become smaller since the last time I drank one and quickly burned my whole mouth with it. It woke me up pretty fast.
I sat again, because what better way to move from A to B than sit the whole day, and I looked around while trying to feel my palate again. The nice thing about travelling alone is that you don’t have to talk to anyone in the morning. The bad thing about travelling alone is that you are getting stared at like a wild animal at the zoo. Some exotic type of tamed jaguar. Like this old guy sitting in front of me. Actually, he was not that old, but he looked kind of old. One of those guys that are younger than they look like. Whose faces look a little bit like they are melting because of the lifestyle they chose. One of those with slick black hair with some curls on the bottom. He was accompanied from one of the other guys who usually accompany those guys. You know: the not so intelligent but loyal kind of guy. Both kept looking at me which made me feel really uncomfortable. “do I have something on my face?” “are they part of some gang and if so, are they thinking of hiring or killing me?” and most important “where can I go to go away from them without being too obvious?” Fortunately social media is always almost always a good way to distract yourself and put your brain on stand-by.
After the obligatory half hour of mindless movements and thumb movements on a flat surface I was ready to fly. The airline was not. And there it was, the doubt about flying being faster than taking the train. You have to be there at least 90 minutes before, you have to check in, go through security (which involves basically stripping naked, putting all your stuff in containers for all to see and then getting everything back in under a minute – I wonder if they time us every time we struggle to get everything back in the bag. And the new security measures are just ridiculous: you are allowed to take one gas lighter with you. First of all, my lighter is an electric one and I’m pretty sure that it is safer because less subjected to the changes of pressure in the cabin. Second what difference does it make if I bring one or three besides the fact that you have more gas at your disposure, which could be avoided with electric lighters (yes I’m still angry that I had to buy a gas one)? And three if I wanted to set fire to something, I would just need one.
Fluids. You can bring as many as you want as long as they are in a plastic bag (which you’ll only get in a box containing at least 30 of them) that you can close again. This definition is very subjective because if you want you can close almost any plastic bag again. The containers cannot contain more than 100 ml each in a 1L bag. So I could bring my water with me I just have to put it in 10 different containers? But let’s not dwell on that and let’s move on.
Once on the plain you can study first-hand the stupidity of mankind. Just lean back or better stand because it will take a while for you to get your seat and watch closely your fellow human beings. Do you feel proud about being in some ways related to them? I don’t and that is way I won’t describe the scenes you can see in their natural habitat. It would spoil the surprise.
On the plain, the flight companies like to show you their kindness and greatness offering you about 4 cl of something to drink and some shitty stuff to eat in case you forgot that you paid a shitload of money to sit in a very small space in a metal box full of strangers that would panic and kill you if they were to survive an emergency which they would probably not. Again: you pay, you wait – a lot – they treat you like a murderer or a terrorist, take your water away (but they let you skip the cavity search if you are nice) you voluntarily step into a metal box that will be flying in the atmosphere and get a “free” drink and in my case some really cheap profilatio..bonifatius… scnatiu…. Christmas cookies, wrapped in plastic. Isn’t that nice?
Aromatic deception 