Who are the people on your train?

(With apologies to Sesame Street)…

Who are the people on your commuter train?

Oh, who are the people on your commuter train?

Who are the people on your commuter train?

The people that you meet each day?

Okay, ‘meet’ might be a stretch. You rarely meet people on the train. You observe people as they endure the daily commute.

There’s the pre-10am crowd, dressed in suits, carrying laptops, and all but 2% wearing long, black overcoats. Taking a train before 10am means giving up any sense of personal space. Literally nose-to-armpit with no room to manoeuvre.

The far more entertaining crowd stumbles onto the last few trains at Waterloo, some time between 11 and 11:30pm. Miss the last train home and you’re faced with a 2 1/2 hour bus ride home, IF there even is a bus to your home. Many people in the late-night crowd wouldn’t pass a breathalyser test if they had to take one. While you will get a seat on the late-night train, you’re likely to be assaulted by the smell of Burger King. There’s probably other fast food too, but it seems Burger King odours overpower all others. (Note – there’s no McDonald’s in Waterloo, which is why there’s no McSmell).

I was never quite sure about the late-night, drunken, french-fry eating crowd, but I’ve come to realize that they provide great entertainment. Take for example the couple behind our seats a few weeks ago.

Take one slightly intoxicated computer geek with his nose buried in a tech magazine of some sort (I couldn’t quite read the title as I looked through the crack between our seats) with a bag from, where else, Burger King.  Add a more intoxicated girl (definitely couldn’t see her face through the seat crack) who collapses into the seat next to Computer Geek. She is on the phone, relating the trying events of her evening, culminating with a sorrowful account of how she hadn’t eaten since lunch time and was literally about to collapse of starvation. Is Drunk Girl a bit of Drama Queen? Hard to say…. In comes Computer Geek, displaying a sort of chivalry and gallantry rarely seen these days. He offers Drunk Girl his Bacon Double Cheeseburger. She protests, he insists, she claims to feel guilty depriving him of his food, he responds by suggesting she needs it more than he does. And so it goes…and Drunk Girl eats the burger, eternally grateful, relaying the story to Friend on Phone the whole time. Computer Geek and Drunk Girl strike up a friendly conversation, culminating in an invitation from Drunk Girl to her Singles-Only Valentine’s Day dinner the next night. They exchange phone numbers, she tells Computer Geek that he really SHOULD take her up on the offer (after all, she says, he has nothing better to do, right?). It’s poetic…literally. She tells him that in 2008, Valentine’s Day was supposed to be great (and was everything but great), but this year, 2009, Valentine’s Day will be just fine. Using this logic, Computer Geek really should come to the party (says Drunk Girl).

We were tempted to follow them home (one of us certain that they’d go home together, the other a bit more sceptical), but Computer Geek got on a bus, and Drunk Girl went in the other direction. Did he text her, as he promised? Did he go to Balham for the party? We’ll never know. But the beauty of the late-night train is that there are always conversations like this on which we can eavesdrop.

Amman to Addis, via Cairo (with spoilers…)

OK, clearly we must  get things moving here. It’s been eight months and we still haven’t arrived in Ethiopia. And we have a whole bunch of Ethiopia blog posts that have been sitting in the ‘Drafts’ folder, waiting to be posted. So here, in non-movie script form, is a summary of the rest of our ill-fated journey.

So, like, this Australian doctor dude we told you about, he was like a total time freak, y’know? He was, like, paranoid he was gonna miss his flight, so on our tour of Amman, he kept saying to the driver make sure we, like, get to the hotel by 6pm, man, ‘cos our flight leaves at 10pm and we have to be at the airport by 8pm. And the driver kept saying, like, yes, yes, my friend, no problem, and then kept, like, driving us to all these souvenir stores to buy, like, dead sea exfoliating cream and mosaic jars and stuff. And then we get to our hotel and, like, this American dude on our flight who’d stayed in the hotel comes running out of the lobby and he’s like, guys, like, hurry up, the airline called and they’re, like, saying that they’re putting us on a flight that leaves at 8pm so we have to go to the airport right now! So we run up to our rooms and, y’know, like, shove all our stuff into our bags and run back down to the bus and at the airport, this bmi dude takes us through security and tells us to, like, line up at the royal jordanian check-in, and we’re like, why are we lining up at the royal jordanian check-in and he’s, like, just wait here, they’ll give you your tickets. So we, like, wait, and wait, and wait, and it’s like, 8pm now and we’re still waiting in the same spot we were when we got there, and we’re, like, totally starving, right? ‘Cos, y’know, we’ve, like, eaten nothing for eight hours, and we’re all scraping the bottom of our bags to find stuff to eat, and we’d, like, made some granola bars that we’d brought, so we’re sharing them out with 20 other starving people. And THEN, one of the guys says that they’re putting us on a flight to Addis, via CAIRO!! Like, Egypt, man, where the pyramids are and stuff! Unreal! So I’m, like, cool, maybe we’ll get stranded in Cairo, too, so we can see the pyramids! And G’s like, dude, that’s, like, so NOT funny! And then this American lady starts, like, totally ranting at the airline dude, ‘cos they wouldn’t give us boarding passes for our connecting flight from Cairo to Addis, and she’s like, well, when we get to Cairo, who’s gonna look out for us? Who’s gonna make sure we get on that flight? And they airline guy’s like, chill out lady! Everything’s gonna be A-okay. But now you must hurry, flight’s about to leave. So we’re, like, bombing it down through some more security to the gate, and we get herded on to this plane and two hours later we get to Cairo, and of course, nobody tells us where we’re supposed to go, right, so we just get on this shuttle bus to the terminal, and get off, and then someone’s, like, no, not here! So we get back on the bus and drive off somewhere else, and then get off, and then this Irish woman who’s travelling with us is, like, wait! my stroller, where’s my stroller! So she, like, has to go back to the plane to find her stroller, and we to through some other security check and join another line and get told to wait. So we, like, wait and wait and wait. And we’re asking this Egypt Air guy about our boarding passes and he’s like, I need to see your tickets, and we’re like, dude, we don’t have tickets, our flight was cancelled in Amman, and he’s like, wait here, and we’re like, that’s all we’ve been doing is wait here! And then 20 minutes later, he, like, pulls out a wad of boarding passes that have been sitting behind his desk all this time and he starts calling out our names and giving them to us! And the guy’s not even checking our passports or nuttin’! And then he says, now you must hurry, flight’s leaving soon! And we’re like, yeah, well if you’d given us our freakin’ boarding passes earlier we wouldn’t have to hurry. So we’re bombing it down through some other security check, make it on the plane, and we take off and we can see the pyramids at night and stuff and it’s all cool. But THEN, we get to Addis airport and we’d already missed our connecting flight to Bahir Dar with Ethiopian Airlines by a day, right, so we go to the Ethiopian Airlines desk and they’re like, well we can re-book you but you’ll have to pay a penalty and we’re like, but dudes! It’s not even our fault, right? And they’re like, well you didn’t  fly here with Ethiopian, so it’s not our problem, you’ll have to go through immigration and go to the bmi desk. So we go through immigration and look for the bmi desk and it’s, like, 3am by now, right? So we go to the bmi window and there’s some guy tapping at a computer and we start telling him our whole ordeal and he’s like, dudes, I don’t even work here, my flight got cancelled and I’m just helping myself to this computer to see if I can find another flight! But then this bmi woman comes up and she’s like, well our only responsibility is to get you here, so you’ll just have to pay the penalty and try and claim it back from bmi. So now we’re like, stuck in some airport in some strange country in the middle of the night, and we’re starving, and we haven’t slept, and there’s no flights out till 7.30am, right, so we’re like sitting on some crappy chairs, trying to get some sleep, and then I see some guy sitting at the Ethiopian check-in desk, so I go up to him and ask him if he can re-book our flights, and he’s like, I’m just security. So we’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and then at about 5.30am the check-in desks open and we ask the guy if he can re-book our flight and he says there’s a flight at 7.45am, but it’s full, so we have to wait until everyone checks in to see if there’s seats available. So we’re waiting, and waiting and waiting, and then finally he calls over and he’s like. I have two tickets for you, so now you take this paper, go over there, pay your penalty, come back here and I give you your boarding passes. So I pay, take the receipt back, get our boarding passes, and the guy’s like, but you must hurry now, flight’s about to leave! And I’m like, yeah, whatever…..

An Extreme Weather Event…

…or How London Came To A Grinding Halt.

Step 1: Forecast heavy snow for two days. Watch as some people act like the armageddon is coming. Watch as others treat it like another erroneous forecast from the Met Office. They are famous, after all, for issuing forecasts like ‘Bright and sunny with some cloud and some rain. Generally fine.’

Step 2: Witness large clumps of snow falling from the sky. The ground is lightly covered with white flecks. Canadians call this a mere dusting and get on with things. Britons say, ‘Wow, it’s really coming down hard!’ They walk around with heavy parkas and umbrellas. Umbrellas?!

Step 3: Wake up, look outside, and see snow everywhere. About 10cm of it. It’s eerily silent. Turn on the radio or the TV. All you hear about is the snow. There is no other news. Major roads like the M25 are backed up for 7 miles or more. Schools across the nation are shut. Trains cease to operate. London buses – yes, those large, red, double-decker things – are no longer running. The London Underground suspends most of its trains. My first question…isn’t the Underground, well, UNDER the ground? Turns out that it’s also partially ABOVE ground. If falling leaves can cause delays on the Underground, imagine what snow can do. And here’s just how much snow fell in this great city:

Outside our front door

Step 4: Turn on your computer and receive a flurry of emails from the university telling people to go home, or not to come in at all. Libraries are closed. Cafeterias across campus are closed because no groceries were delivered. The M25 is still backed up. London has become a ghost-town.

Step 5: Laugh, I mean, really LAUGH, when the BBC weather woman says that with the wind chill, the temperature in London will be a BITTERLY COLD -5C!!  Yes, that’s right. It was bitterly cold. HA HA HA HA…sorry…

Step 6: Think back to the great snow storm of 1999 in Toronto when they called in the army to help dig themselves out. The rest of Canada laughed and mocked Torontonians. Then again, they did have over 80cm of snow. London had 15cm at the most. This city, however, appears to have few snow plows. And despite the repeated forecast, sanding of roads appears to be a slow process. A BBC radio announcer on Day 2 of the Extreme Weather Event, in response to the wide-spread criticism about London’s lack of preparedness for the snow, says, ‘It is not beyond the wit of man to put grit on the roads.’ Only on the BBC…

Step 7: If there’s snow, then what choice do you have, but to play in it?! Here’s what we did in the London Snow Storm of 2009: