Stayed up late working on the damn 24 Hour Comic solution. I've got it pretty far done, to be honest, and I set it up universally, so it'll work for any of the seven Probeersel.com artists. Quite awesome if I do say so myself. Will try to finish it tonight.
Anywho, it took some booze to get me to sleep after that. And so I nearly overslept again - opened my eyes about one minute before the 'first bus'. In case I never explained this before..
Pay attention, because this story will get complicated. But it involves some of my most important morning routines, so I thought it was time I told you.
I live around the corner from two bus stops (one around the corner left from my street, one around the corner right from my street). One of them is the stop for city lines 46 and 47, which run pretty often. The 46 line makes a turn to the other bus stop and 'turns into' line 42 there (so, practically at my house). After over two years of living there, these two lines have grown personalities. I like the 46. The 46 is reliable, often seems to have friendlier bus drivers, less people on board, usually on time and if not, most commonly it's too EARLY. The 47, however, is your average slacker. It runs through the Reeshof which causes the big delays, but it can be as much as 15 minutes late ! And it's nearly always crammed full of people. And, naturally, considering the delays and huge amounts of people, the bus drivers on that line seem to be unfriendlier. So you have reliable, sometimes overzealous, friendly 46, and hostile, sloppy, unpleasant 47. There's also the beforementioned line 42, but I don't have much of a relationship with him. I only take him as the occasional best alternative if my other two 'friends' let me down.
This all might sound funny to someone who doesn't routinely take a city bus, but it really sort of is how the mind starts to work. These lines become individuals with their own personality traits in your mind.
Now, I try to catch the 7 29 train from Tilburg Central in the morning. This train takes me straight to the train station in front of my office in Amsterdam, and I can sleep for an hour and ten minutes straight till there. It's the ONLY train that runs directly from Tilburg to Amsterdam on a day. Any other trip involves catching the 8 or 38 past train to 's Hertogenbosch and then transferring to a train to Amsterdam (Duivendrecht) and in Duivendrecht catching either a subway or a stop-train back to Bijlmer. Obviously, from a convenience point of view, the 7 29 is a very pleasant line and I try to catch it whenever I can if I have to go to Amsterdam.
To catch this train, I can take the 7 04 bus, which is line 46. Sometimes it's too early, most commonly however it's right on time. It will get me to Central in 10 minutes. That leaves me bored with little or nothing to do at the train station for 15 minutes !
Another alternative is the 7 11 bus. This is a line 47, so I might not have a seat and it's not a great fun ride, but it means leaving my house 7 minutes later (so potentially sleeping for 7 minutes longer, and at an early morning, 7 minutes can make one hell of a difference) and it will get me at Central at around 7 25, with ample time to catch the train but obviously a lot less time to linger about bored. A preferablye choice, were it not that the 47 lines are often LATE ! Opting for the 47 may mean I miss the 7 29 train, meaning I have to take the inconvenient, more complicated train route to Amsterdam that I described above.
Then there's the 7 16, which is a 46 line also, but it will most commonly miss the 7 29 train by one or two minutes. This bus ride's only an option if I'm lucky and it's early. When the 7 11 (47) is very late, sometimes this one shows up first.
So I open my eyes at 7 03. I immediately realise that my trusty friend, the 7:04 46 bus, will loyally run on time and there is no way I'll catch it. If I hurry into my clothes, however, and hurriedly combine brushing my teeth with putting on socks and shoes (this takes skills only habitual oversleepers posess) I can make the 7 11. So I hurry out of the house and nearly slip on the pavement - EVERYTHING'S COVERED WITH SNOW !!
So I carefully walk to the bus stop, and of course (snow, Reeshof) the 47 IS LATE. However, miraculously, it arrives at 7 28. As I peek out the bus window, however, I see no train waiting yet. Usually not a good sign.
I bump into colleague Tim on the perron, who informs me everything's delayed, nationwide, busses, trains, there's even huge traffic chaos, because of the snowstorms last night. (Which explains why I slept so damn well) I'll keep the next part of this story short because if I tell this one, I might as well tell you a train adventure daily because not a day goes by that the National Railroad company seems to let me down one way or another. Short version: there's barely any trains in our direction. No news from the 7 29, but after some 20 minutes we find ourselves on the other side of the station in a late '38 past' train that was redirected to this other perron. It waits for a long time, then we finally go to 's Hertogenbosch. After a not-entirely-ideally ride (I should also mention the train was even fuller than the 47 bus) we have a nearly perfect connection to the train to Amsterdam in 's Hertogenbosch. Though this train is pretty full, we both figure our troubles are over and we'll get there just fine. He sits down somewhere else (seats were scarce) and I fall asleep.
We get to Utrecht only to hear an announcement that all train traffic to Amsterdam is currently impossible and our train won't go any further. If we'd all please exit the train and try to catch a (rare) stop train to Amsterdam from here.
Now.. these stop trains obviously have two or three wagons. For thousands of people to try and fit themselves into.
Not a good idea.
I'm somewhat of a public transportation veteran by now so I know my alternatives. But, as it turns out, all other trains are indeed also hopelessly delayed and the buses to Amsterdam, I was told by one of the drivers, take about two and a half hours because of the traffic jams. In a case this extreme, even I run out of options pretty quickly.
The only train running reasonably on time is, in fact, the train BACK. Which my colleague Tim catches because he decides, at a little after 10, that this is indeed hopeless. I, however, keep trying and behold, at 10 15 train traffic slowly restores itself, with a big-ass intercity train arriving and yours truly quickly conquers a seat on board. While this train was even fuller, it actually got me in the office at around 11 15 (with the beforementioned subway transfer at Duivendrecht).
And then I arrive in the office only to find out there's barely anything to do. And I have a no doubt equally hopeless ride home to look forward to.
I should have just stayed asleep and not hurried to catch the 47. It's all his fault. Stupid 47.
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