Public transport: $@%*^

I got a new slogan for the Belgian Railways. It goes like this: "Belgian Railways - Always a great adventure and good for your physics, but not for your mood". Story goes like this, this morning I got to the station when the station speaker blasted that the train to Antwerp Central station had a 25 minute delay and that the passengers were advised to take the train to Brussels South and get off in Lier. So I was running from the front of the rails to the back, took the stairs and ran to rail 5. So far so good. Once we arrived in Lier, it became one big catastrophe. The station speakers told that the first departure to Antwerp would be at rail 1. So yet again I ran the lungs out my body. Stairs down, stairs up. 5 minutes later the speaker announced that this train would not arrive at rail 1 but at rail 3. So yet again, from the front all the way back to the stairs and up to rail 3. Finally the train arrived at rail 3. We all got in that train when the train conductor announced that this train would not leave the station because the change of guard was too late and that we had to leave the train. So now everyone got kind of mad. We all got off and heard the next train to Antwerp would be on rail 1 in 5 minutes. So we ran to rail 1 yet again and when the train arrived, we were denied access with the excuse that the train was already full. 10 minutes later, the train I normally take arrived. So basically I better waited in my home town instead of running around in Lier. At the end I arrived in Antwerp with a 45 minutes delay and missed the first 20 minutes of class.

Luckily there were no delays anymore on the way home. But I was still in a fairly bad mood and there was this one guy with his speakers on loud sitting next to me so I'm now having a terrible headache of the punk rock music he was blasting. Then there was sitting this old woman across me who was snoring like she was cutting the Amazon forest. It really got on my nerves. Last but not least was this one person who was farting like shit. It smelled disgusting! Damn you would almost start to believe it is Friday 13th instead of Friday 12th. Or is it Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives (Anything that can go wrong, will — at the worst possible moment)? At one moment in time, I even wanted to take the train or bus, whatever came first, back home. Luckily I didn't because class was extremely interesting.

We had this guest speaker, I believe he was from Serbia or at least from a former country of Yugoslavia. He worked for an United Nations related organization, or so I was told because I missed the introduction part and the person sitting next to me did not master English very well. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was a great class and I had the best time ever listening to what he was telling. Afterwards there was a discussion were he defended his presentation. I kind of envied that guy for having this great profession. I would love to work for the UN too, or work for a NGO doing UN related work. It must be the best job ever!