I took Vindobona (1) to Villach.
For some reason, it wasn't Orient Express or some such that would invoke the proper train travel romantic and call of the distance for me, it was Vindobona. It didn't go through my back of the woods so I only started using it while going from Prague to Bratislava twice a week (2). Vindobona was a Roman camp where today the centre of Vienna is located, in the province of Pannonia, after which a train to Budapest and further is named. clearly remember that I used to take Pannonia train at a certain point of my life and I think it went from Berlin or Hamburg to Bucurest via Prague, Bratislava and Budapest but I checked only to see that things are different.
There's even a list of named trains! Not exhaustive in any way so when I set up an account on wikipedia and find a time to play with timetables.... well, anyway, hail to Wikipedia, source of all (albeit not always right) knowledge.
I hate when things get different and woe be upon those who decided to tear down the Südbahnhof station in Vienna. Woe upon me, too, for years I decided that one day, when I will be without tons of baggage, I'll take some pics of the station hall, with those Escher-esque moving ramps. I will sadly miss Ein Augenblick Zeit, the two big blinking eyes that made a weird sound from time to time, the linked article says that the exhibit was moved to Karlsruhe... where the fucking hell is Karlsruhe and why should I bother to go to some goddamn modern art gallery when I hate them as a concept?
I never managed to take my pics and now, from the passing train I saw a huge triangle of... nothing. I had heard some things about the railway mix-up and that Südbahnhof was torn down but I thought it a misinterpretation, exaggeration or some such. Nope. I think I should start photographing railway stations stat! because I see that many of them across the whole Europe are getting uglified - they call it modernized in the newspeak, leading to, among others, hard job of finding the trains there. And the rails are so neatly welded that you don't hear the proper rhythm of a train going:
At Villach I changed for a sleeper. I remember reading about wagon-lits in a detective story when I was maybe six and that was cool thing, romantic and practicalat once. This time, I had a bed proper, for the second time in my life (3), because for some strange railway reasons, it was cheaper than couchette. Alas, I had only 6 hours and 12 minutes to enjoy, of which I was mostly sleeping (badly).
Well, in the morning I landed in Florence, found out that the bus stations are reorganized again (have I already stated my general attitude to rebuilding things?) and since then, I'm sweating and wondering how to survive and work.
No, I never had a model railway.
And, some Victorian porn for entertainment value:
-----------------------
(1) EC 172/173 going from Villach Hauptbahnhof to Hamburg Altona and back.
(2) I would love to have a simple, plain and somewhat boring life. Sure, it would mean that my brain would have imploded long time ago but sometimes not being is a welcoming option, like just now when I feel that I may boil alive.
(3) The previous time... well, that would be entirely different story. Next time, maybe.
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Friday, 11 June 2010
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Amazed
I detest flying.
In the good olden days when one was allowed on board with as much water and booze as they could carry, when the personnel and crew was nice and one got cushions and blankets without asking, it was tolerable and sometimes even exciting. Now it's the century of Fruit Bat, we've had terrorists that made travelling miserable for us dehydrated people, volcanic ash which made the tickets disgustingly expensive...
Alrighty, a silly story, you deserve it.
So, there was 9/11. We were scheduled to go, or to be exact, to fly to Cyprus two weeks later. We included yours truly, my mother who is able to get lost at a Podunk bus station, her sister, my scaredy-shit aunt, who had never really travelled, her two teenage sons and all my grandparents that were alive at that time, three pieces altogether, including an alcoholic and chain-smoker grandma and slightly senile and considerably idiotic know-it-all grandpa.
Cynical as I am, I ordered diabetic fare for grandpa because he prefers cakes - yes, there were days when they actually served meals included in the price of the ticket. I took a huge first aid kit that included a bottle of alcohol and required my mother that she take one onboard - it was before someone decided that cheap vodka could be used to poison the captain or wtf.
Things went as crazily as they could. I knew the hotel so upon seeing the keys, I assigned to me and to my mother the room most distant from the others. Later on I learned that the downstairs room with garden view was meant for alcoholic grandma who claimed that she wouldn't be able to climb the stairs. Gah. At Day 2, mom crept to me asking for the sunburn ointment for grandpa who knew what's best for him, the best of his day was refusing sunscreen. Alcoholic grandma was sulking for no apparent reason. Aunt got hives so I pulled out allergy meds and hives ointment. Normal grandma got sunburnt - more panthenol and hardcore sunscreen for her. Teenagers were annoying. During the first five days, I used up all betadine, band-aids, mosquito repellents, ibuprofen, anti-diarrhoea stuff and sunscreen I had. My father was to arrive for a few days only so he was ordered to plunder the pharmacy, booze wasn't exactly required due to easily obtainable local wine and I was grinning smugly and whenever someone whined about someone else, I smiled and said I had been telling it all the time.
The real Rio was the journey back. I left my shoes in the room and checked out. Then I realized I was barefoot, explained at the reception, got the keys and went back. Meantime the room was serviced and the maintenance denied existence of my shoes so I was going back in beach thongs.
Grandpa fell asleep at the airport bathroom and the flight was delayed because of our group.
My father is the alpha male which sometimes interferes with my traditional rank of navigator and the who deals with natives - he snatched the ticket stubs and I was somehow required to place the chaotic mob of my relatives not knowing where while being yelled at by several angry flight attendants (they probably immediately recognized who is the real boss here, that's what I call good training). I reclaimed the stubs and found out an elderly couple blocking our seats. Upon polite request, they refused to move so I channeled the attendants' anger to them.
We were seated, grandma got pissed at grandpa that she wanted the window seat and they started arguing. Alcoholic grandma installed the sickness bag on her lap and started explaining, including vivid gestures, how sick she is going to be for sure and that she will die soon. Cousins started fighting for something. Aunt had stupid questions and mom made faces at her. Father yelled at his mother, the alcoholic grandma, to drop it. Grandpa wanted to have a smoke and I needed to tell aunt, who was at hand, to get the cigarettes away from him, plain explanation that this is a non-smoking flight elicited a reaction along the lines of Nobody will tell me what I can do.
It took just around ten minutes for the attendants to get the point and they kept me inundated with champagne while smiling understandingly. I ended up in Vienna in an improbable state of mind, smiling widely and wearing beach thongs in snow, which didn't matter to me at all.
That's how I realized that being drunk doesn't make flying any nice but it makes me not to care.
Long bus routes are like flying. Sans onboard meal and much longer. That's why I try to avoid buses as much as possible.
Trains, on the other hand....
I've always loved trains. There is a theory that it's the genetics, my great-grandfather was a railroad engineer (and a sailor before that) but most likely it's just because.
I'm going to a conference in Leeds. The previous time I checked the airline tickets were around 300 euros, meantime there was that volcano with sexy name (1) doing its job and today the price soared to around 700. And I hate flying. I hear that it's never gonna get any better, prices rising, service worsening, security idiots being idiots... so I simply decided not to fly. It's not that convenient anyway. One day, I'll extend this no flying policy for trips overseas. After all, if the gods had wanted us to fly, they'd give out the tickets for free. (2)
I'm in the midst of planning the train trip via Cologne, Brussels and the tunnel. Exciting.
-------------------------------------------------------
(1) Sure I know how to write Eyjafjallajökull. I like silly jokes, that's it.
(2) The who gets the Terry Pratchett reference right will get a large sample of Sira des Indes, of which I intend to rant soon.
In the good olden days when one was allowed on board with as much water and booze as they could carry, when the personnel and crew was nice and one got cushions and blankets without asking, it was tolerable and sometimes even exciting. Now it's the century of Fruit Bat, we've had terrorists that made travelling miserable for us dehydrated people, volcanic ash which made the tickets disgustingly expensive...
Alrighty, a silly story, you deserve it.
So, there was 9/11. We were scheduled to go, or to be exact, to fly to Cyprus two weeks later. We included yours truly, my mother who is able to get lost at a Podunk bus station, her sister, my scaredy-shit aunt, who had never really travelled, her two teenage sons and all my grandparents that were alive at that time, three pieces altogether, including an alcoholic and chain-smoker grandma and slightly senile and considerably idiotic know-it-all grandpa.
Cynical as I am, I ordered diabetic fare for grandpa because he prefers cakes - yes, there were days when they actually served meals included in the price of the ticket. I took a huge first aid kit that included a bottle of alcohol and required my mother that she take one onboard - it was before someone decided that cheap vodka could be used to poison the captain or wtf.
Things went as crazily as they could. I knew the hotel so upon seeing the keys, I assigned to me and to my mother the room most distant from the others. Later on I learned that the downstairs room with garden view was meant for alcoholic grandma who claimed that she wouldn't be able to climb the stairs. Gah. At Day 2, mom crept to me asking for the sunburn ointment for grandpa who knew what's best for him, the best of his day was refusing sunscreen. Alcoholic grandma was sulking for no apparent reason. Aunt got hives so I pulled out allergy meds and hives ointment. Normal grandma got sunburnt - more panthenol and hardcore sunscreen for her. Teenagers were annoying. During the first five days, I used up all betadine, band-aids, mosquito repellents, ibuprofen, anti-diarrhoea stuff and sunscreen I had. My father was to arrive for a few days only so he was ordered to plunder the pharmacy, booze wasn't exactly required due to easily obtainable local wine and I was grinning smugly and whenever someone whined about someone else, I smiled and said I had been telling it all the time.
The real Rio was the journey back. I left my shoes in the room and checked out. Then I realized I was barefoot, explained at the reception, got the keys and went back. Meantime the room was serviced and the maintenance denied existence of my shoes so I was going back in beach thongs.
Grandpa fell asleep at the airport bathroom and the flight was delayed because of our group.
My father is the alpha male which sometimes interferes with my traditional rank of navigator and the who deals with natives - he snatched the ticket stubs and I was somehow required to place the chaotic mob of my relatives not knowing where while being yelled at by several angry flight attendants (they probably immediately recognized who is the real boss here, that's what I call good training). I reclaimed the stubs and found out an elderly couple blocking our seats. Upon polite request, they refused to move so I channeled the attendants' anger to them.
We were seated, grandma got pissed at grandpa that she wanted the window seat and they started arguing. Alcoholic grandma installed the sickness bag on her lap and started explaining, including vivid gestures, how sick she is going to be for sure and that she will die soon. Cousins started fighting for something. Aunt had stupid questions and mom made faces at her. Father yelled at his mother, the alcoholic grandma, to drop it. Grandpa wanted to have a smoke and I needed to tell aunt, who was at hand, to get the cigarettes away from him, plain explanation that this is a non-smoking flight elicited a reaction along the lines of Nobody will tell me what I can do.
It took just around ten minutes for the attendants to get the point and they kept me inundated with champagne while smiling understandingly. I ended up in Vienna in an improbable state of mind, smiling widely and wearing beach thongs in snow, which didn't matter to me at all.
That's how I realized that being drunk doesn't make flying any nice but it makes me not to care.
Long bus routes are like flying. Sans onboard meal and much longer. That's why I try to avoid buses as much as possible.
Trains, on the other hand....
I've always loved trains. There is a theory that it's the genetics, my great-grandfather was a railroad engineer (and a sailor before that) but most likely it's just because.
I'm going to a conference in Leeds. The previous time I checked the airline tickets were around 300 euros, meantime there was that volcano with sexy name (1) doing its job and today the price soared to around 700. And I hate flying. I hear that it's never gonna get any better, prices rising, service worsening, security idiots being idiots... so I simply decided not to fly. It's not that convenient anyway. One day, I'll extend this no flying policy for trips overseas. After all, if the gods had wanted us to fly, they'd give out the tickets for free. (2)
I'm in the midst of planning the train trip via Cologne, Brussels and the tunnel. Exciting.
-------------------------------------------------------
(1) Sure I know how to write Eyjafjallajökull. I like silly jokes, that's it.
(2) The who gets the Terry Pratchett reference right will get a large sample of Sira des Indes, of which I intend to rant soon.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Oops.
I've become rather fed up with travelling lately. These days, things do not improve.
On Friday, I was going to see my dear friend O., got my bus ticket a few days ahead, knowing that there could be pretty much traffic on Friday afternoon. After a lovely perfumista meeting, I rushed to the bus station, gave the ticket number to the steward, he couldn't find me in the list neither by name, nor by codes so they called the Centre and found out that I did indeed buy a ticket for the same line, same time, same date... opposite direction.
Yesterday, on my way back, I went on autopilot; Platform 4, to the right, upstairs, to the left, where the trains in my directions always are. I settled in the compartment, started reading a trashy novel I snatched at O.'s, noticed that the train is going in the opposite direction but the tracks of Prague are one huge Gordian knot with some reconstructions going on and in my case, it was possible to get on the right track both by going ahead or back. After a while I noticed that it the train was going totally elsewhere and when I pondered how could I get home at midnight, it stopped on a suburban station. Well, I hopped off, took the metro (a person I used to know lived in the general area so I at least knew where I was. It could be worse), got back to the central station (I wonder whether it's still named the Woodrow Wilson station? I think not, it would sound too creative to the administrators...), took the next train and at least that worked fine.
Still, it seems that Buddha, Elvis and Jesus are telling me to sit at home. Not gonna happen, alas.
Meantime, I'm corresponding with the railway e-shop, their System ated my tickets due to lack of idiot-proofing. Now, I need to persuade them to give me my money back.
On Friday, I was going to see my dear friend O., got my bus ticket a few days ahead, knowing that there could be pretty much traffic on Friday afternoon. After a lovely perfumista meeting, I rushed to the bus station, gave the ticket number to the steward, he couldn't find me in the list neither by name, nor by codes so they called the Centre and found out that I did indeed buy a ticket for the same line, same time, same date... opposite direction.
Yesterday, on my way back, I went on autopilot; Platform 4, to the right, upstairs, to the left, where the trains in my directions always are. I settled in the compartment, started reading a trashy novel I snatched at O.'s, noticed that the train is going in the opposite direction but the tracks of Prague are one huge Gordian knot with some reconstructions going on and in my case, it was possible to get on the right track both by going ahead or back. After a while I noticed that it the train was going totally elsewhere and when I pondered how could I get home at midnight, it stopped on a suburban station. Well, I hopped off, took the metro (a person I used to know lived in the general area so I at least knew where I was. It could be worse), got back to the central station (I wonder whether it's still named the Woodrow Wilson station? I think not, it would sound too creative to the administrators...), took the next train and at least that worked fine.
Still, it seems that Buddha, Elvis and Jesus are telling me to sit at home. Not gonna happen, alas.
Meantime, I'm corresponding with the railway e-shop, their System ated my tickets due to lack of idiot-proofing. Now, I need to persuade them to give me my money back.
Friday, 25 September 2009
On the road again
I'm leaving Italy again.
The plan is this: My father has some stuff to do in Bassano del Grappa. I take train there, I'll hang around there on Saturday and we'll go back by car together. So far so good.
Yesterday I wanted to do some errands. Like, go to I Tatti, find a book, copy a few pages, go downtown, do a bit of shopping, go to Antella to see an exhibition, pack. Instead, halfway uphill to I Tatti, I wanted to take a pic of the landscape and found out that I don't have my diary with the post-it that says what I want to photocopy (1).
I did the going downtown bit, got an ice cream, dropped to Farmacia SS Annunziata to get me a bottle of Hyle and there I found out that I left my cards at home. Including the library card to I Tatti. We had a good laugh with the pharmacist and I went home, made an omelette, finished the bottle of Chianti and did indeed pack something. Far from everything, though.
Today, I managed to close the bank account, return all the books, went to Antella and back, in time at home to finish packing, in whose midst I found out that I forgot about my article. During packing, I had an obvious Tetris fail and had to dig out half of thecontents of my suitcase to get rid of the offending corner of a storage box; in the next round, my packing skills were brought to a new, exciting level because not only I placed the box elsewhere, but reorganized the things in such a way that I needed a huge skein of angora blend to stuff the remaining space so that the things wouldn't rattle (2). I don't really know how much may my suitcase weigh but I guess that it's well above 30 kilos; since it contains quite some yarn, there are no air bubbles to speak of (3). Anyhow, I just made it for the 1554 train to Santa Maria Novella. Life is what it is, so the train dropped at track 18, the farthest from the main platform; at the end I wasn't saved from dragging a heap of crap around.
On the 8minutes trip to SMN, I stood by the door with my heap of crap when an apparently homeless guy hopped in to have a ride. He was communicative and stinky, so he kept ranting. He asked me whether I'm German, for reasons unknown (the explanation may be that I carried my knitting in a huge canvas bag with Hedergrens på Stureplan printed on it) I said Nope, I'm from Sweden, which sentenced me to having to listen to a long diatribe on relationships between Sweden and Italy and Swedish history and geography and politics while the guy stank all the time.
I had a sandwich, half of a sandwich,to be exact, before my train to Mestre landed. Dragged my crap, found my seat and all the way to Prato, I listened to a fellow traveller across the table; if I listened more carefully, I'd learn several new curses but I didn't care, I had my eternal sweater to work on and a post-it of notes I needed to decipher.
In Prato, we stopped. Foul-mouthed fellow citizen increased the cadence of his cussing along the lines of Whenever I go by train, there are some fucking troubles, we pay our taxes and our tickets to only get fucking delays. At least, they are not on strike, I thought to myself remembering my past travel experiences. After some time, it was announced that the locomotive is broken, thus the unplanned stop. Foul-mouthed fellow traveller added a few expletives towards the state, railways and universe in general and we could continue.
After doing all the math and lots of pondering, I found out that there's some inherent mistake in my sweater and the pattern is not symmetrical to the whole sweater due to some mess in modules. I decided to forgo ripping it all, casting on again (this particular cast on is very difficult) and decided that a little irregularity doesn't matter that much but for the pattern in the armpits that I could live without but... who is ever perfect.
The train was late about 20 minutes. The connecting train to Bassano del Grappa was already gone so I found another one... and yay for train blogging.
As for now, there hasn't been any railway strike but I'm not there yet. Updates later.
-------------------------
(1) External memory does have certain advantages. Disadvantages, too, as apparent.
(2) The other day, I went to O. with a suitcase of Italian food and various stuff and I was going back with next to nothing. We discussed the matter, finding out that suitcases should contain an inflatable pillow that could be inflated if someone lost fifteen pairs of shoes on the way so that the that remained wouldn't be tossed around. Maybe I should get the idea patented.
(3) Yarn is excellent stuffing for air bubbles, obviously. It can be squished just about anywhere.
The plan is this: My father has some stuff to do in Bassano del Grappa. I take train there, I'll hang around there on Saturday and we'll go back by car together. So far so good.
Yesterday I wanted to do some errands. Like, go to I Tatti, find a book, copy a few pages, go downtown, do a bit of shopping, go to Antella to see an exhibition, pack. Instead, halfway uphill to I Tatti, I wanted to take a pic of the landscape and found out that I don't have my diary with the post-it that says what I want to photocopy (1).
I did the going downtown bit, got an ice cream, dropped to Farmacia SS Annunziata to get me a bottle of Hyle and there I found out that I left my cards at home. Including the library card to I Tatti. We had a good laugh with the pharmacist and I went home, made an omelette, finished the bottle of Chianti and did indeed pack something. Far from everything, though.
Today, I managed to close the bank account, return all the books, went to Antella and back, in time at home to finish packing, in whose midst I found out that I forgot about my article. During packing, I had an obvious Tetris fail and had to dig out half of thecontents of my suitcase to get rid of the offending corner of a storage box; in the next round, my packing skills were brought to a new, exciting level because not only I placed the box elsewhere, but reorganized the things in such a way that I needed a huge skein of angora blend to stuff the remaining space so that the things wouldn't rattle (2). I don't really know how much may my suitcase weigh but I guess that it's well above 30 kilos; since it contains quite some yarn, there are no air bubbles to speak of (3). Anyhow, I just made it for the 1554 train to Santa Maria Novella. Life is what it is, so the train dropped at track 18, the farthest from the main platform; at the end I wasn't saved from dragging a heap of crap around.
On the 8minutes trip to SMN, I stood by the door with my heap of crap when an apparently homeless guy hopped in to have a ride. He was communicative and stinky, so he kept ranting. He asked me whether I'm German, for reasons unknown (the explanation may be that I carried my knitting in a huge canvas bag with Hedergrens på Stureplan printed on it) I said Nope, I'm from Sweden, which sentenced me to having to listen to a long diatribe on relationships between Sweden and Italy and Swedish history and geography and politics while the guy stank all the time.
I had a sandwich, half of a sandwich,to be exact, before my train to Mestre landed. Dragged my crap, found my seat and all the way to Prato, I listened to a fellow traveller across the table; if I listened more carefully, I'd learn several new curses but I didn't care, I had my eternal sweater to work on and a post-it of notes I needed to decipher.
In Prato, we stopped. Foul-mouthed fellow citizen increased the cadence of his cussing along the lines of Whenever I go by train, there are some fucking troubles, we pay our taxes and our tickets to only get fucking delays. At least, they are not on strike, I thought to myself remembering my past travel experiences. After some time, it was announced that the locomotive is broken, thus the unplanned stop. Foul-mouthed fellow traveller added a few expletives towards the state, railways and universe in general and we could continue.
After doing all the math and lots of pondering, I found out that there's some inherent mistake in my sweater and the pattern is not symmetrical to the whole sweater due to some mess in modules. I decided to forgo ripping it all, casting on again (this particular cast on is very difficult) and decided that a little irregularity doesn't matter that much but for the pattern in the armpits that I could live without but... who is ever perfect.
The train was late about 20 minutes. The connecting train to Bassano del Grappa was already gone so I found another one... and yay for train blogging.
As for now, there hasn't been any railway strike but I'm not there yet. Updates later.
-------------------------
(1) External memory does have certain advantages. Disadvantages, too, as apparent.
(2) The other day, I went to O. with a suitcase of Italian food and various stuff and I was going back with next to nothing. We discussed the matter, finding out that suitcases should contain an inflatable pillow that could be inflated if someone lost fifteen pairs of shoes on the way so that the that remained wouldn't be tossed around. Maybe I should get the idea patented.
(3) Yarn is excellent stuffing for air bubbles, obviously. It can be squished just about anywhere.
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