A ‘whoa is me story’ about the Dutch Public Transport System….

Well let me just start by saying, this story is a woah is me story. I am writing for sympathy, even if its just a little bit. You see sometimes we need to just talk about all that went wrong in a day, to make ourselves feel a little better for unloading it all, and to just laugh at how stupid I and my day was.

So here we go. My day began with waking up nice and early, with of course Alex turning my alarm off and actually waking me up. Whilst taking these classes I have been waking early and checking the train times just to ensure they are running on time etc etc. So that’s what we did and well I was just in luck the train was going again that day #winning.

The morning happened like normal and just in time I was on the train, on my way to Amsterdam.

When I arrived I walked out and over to the tram bay I normally head to. A tram normally comes every 7 minutes, so I waited. 7, 8, 9…15 minutes passed and by this time I had checked the app a few times to see if there was any news on its delay. Finally a tiny *information icon appeared underneath, so I clicked. Well it was all in bloody Dutch wasn’t it. And yes I’m taking classes but on this day I had already wasted 15 minutes standing waiting, and well lets just say Google translate is my best friend.

Once translated the message read something along the lines; “there are delays”.

A few moments later the message changed to “this line has since been cancelled”.

Well F***! Imy usual 40 minutes to get from Centraal Station to the school had turned into 25…

Now I will give you a bit more information, just to emphasis the terribleness of my day. Normally to get to class I had two options. The first was to take the tram which from Centraal Station was 22 minutes. The second option was to walk. I really enjoyed this option, but it did take a good 45 minutes.

I had in fact the few days before walked to and from class, it had been wonderfully sunny and warm even so early in the morning, so I had thought why not right?! Well in my haste to get to class on time I walked extremely brusquely, it was warmish for European standards, and in combination with my fast walking my feet developed these very annoying and painful blisters.

So to conclude at this point walking had been scratched from the option board given the relevant reasons.

Back to the moment I had realised my tram was cancelled. At this point I am beginning to panic. And I will admit, because lets face it I know I am like this, I flustered myself so much I couldn’t make my phone work, let alone put together a logical thought on how I could get to class. Real revelations here people!

In my moment of panic I managed to send a message to Alex and to a new friend I had made in my class.

Alex right away started to look for alternative ways for me to get to class and came up with a bus. Perfect lets give that a try. Except where the bloody hell is the damn bus station????!!!

So I learnt this afterwards, and really it just makes my ‘woah is me story’ better, but there are multiple bus stations that surround Amsterdam Centraal Station. At the time though I just panicked and even signs looked daunting to me.

I walked around like a headless chicken for a few minutes, looking for any staff without success but then eventually spotted the bus Alex had mentioned I could take.

Yes! Off I ran in the bus’s direction, and then it began to drive. Luckily it was only driving around to the stop to pick people up, so I ran. Unfortunately, and thankfully not due to me, I missed the bus. Yep I missed it. I missed it because as I was running, I was also weaving in and out of bloody people standing everywhere in the way. I may have pushed past a few people roughly and then had to walk back past them, but well, I missed the bus so feel sorry for me please?

In the moment that I missed the bus, another 5 minutes had passed, however my friend from Dutch classes replied and said she would send me a car…

In that moment I replied and told her I didn’t have any car ride apps on my phone. She instantly said, no mate I am sending you a car. SENDING ME A CAR PEOPLE!

So then the dilemma was to locate the location of where to meet the car. My friend was so lovely and sent me a number of screen shots, and I sending her my location, and yet do you think I could locate where I had to go?

Well after 2-3 minutes, which at the time felt like I’d wasted 10 minutes, I finally realised I was standing on the wrong side on C.S. So off I went running again, but I ran fast this time after missing the damn bus. Finally I could see the car and got there #finallycatchingabreak.

The driver had been told all about me by my friend, that I was blonde, looked very lost and seemed a little flustered. So when I got in the car very excitedly he just laughed with me at the situation.

As I sat down I had felt this terrible pain in my feet and realised one of those damn blisters had decided to end its life. And lets not leave out the fact that with all my stressing and running around I was damn warm and sweating disgustingly.

But lets focus on a positive for a moment, I was finally in a vehicle and on my way to school. And can you believe it, but I got there on time, even before my teacher?!

What a bloody legend my friend was right?! I mean she sent me a car, how amazing is that!?

So the class began and the day went nicely given the start to the day. But here is where my day of terrible luck continued.

I normally walked back to C.S. after class but as you know that option was off the table and after the morning, was off the table for a while. I hobbled up the road to the tram stop and began to wait. Only to have it be delayed by 20 minutes. I mean seriously hows my lucky right?!

Finally it arrives and I just hope so badly that the trains are going. And they were! But because of the damn tram’s delay I missed my train and had to wait a half hour.

Not that long but really after everything it just wasn’t my day was it?!

After all that waiting the train came, it went and I arrived at my destination yay! Sadly for me though, I had to hobble all the way home. And to top off a pretty shitty day, I had forgotten my keys to the house.

So sweaty me, with bunged up feet sat outside for a while, reflecting on how terrible of a day I’d had and just laughed!

But what do you think? how’d I do, did I relay the terrible events in an effective woah is me way?

#goodoldnssytem (ns = Dutch Public Transport)

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