I'll be the first one to admit that sometimes, I don't make the best choices. In fact, sometimes I make incredibly dumb choices - choices that seem okay at first, but in the moment I execute them I immediately regret everything I had ever done in my life leading up to that one stupid moment.
You would think that, in a foreign country, I'd be a little more careful with my choices. Unfortunately, thinking that I would be more careful with my choices was another mistake to add to my collection of mistakes, and as I now sit writing this blog post, I'd like to think that I am, hopefully, a little bit wiser than I was two days ago.
So it goes like this...
Vienna has a great subway system. It's very similar to the Berlin subway system, so we easily learned how to make our way all over the city. After Berlin, I felt like a subway pro. I rode the subway everywhere, by myself, during the day and in the evening (I know that's not much of an impressive feat, but hey, I can be proud of the little things, right?). I knew that we only had ten to fifteen seconds to get on our stop at Senefelderplatz, before the doors to the train closed. I even gave accurate subway directions to a German lady looking for a station I had never been to. I had practically mastered the subway system!
In Vienna, it was much the same thing. Until I made a grave error. A horrible miscalculation. You see, I was coming down an escalator leading to the U3 train platform, and I could see my friends hopping onto the train about ten seconds in front of me. The train doors were beeping, and, at first, I thought I would have to wait for the next ride. But in the moment the doors started closing, they bumped into the shoulder of one of my friends, and in response they opened again. That was my chance, I thought. They were going to stay open for a few more seconds, and I could run for the train. I could make it... no. I would make it.
I ran. I ran as hard as I could, because it seemed like the coast was clear. But just as I stepped into the train...
The momentum I had picked up caused me to slip on the slick floor of the train. In what could only be described as the biggest catastrophe of my life, I slammed into the pole in front of me, hitting the back of a seat and collapsing to the floor. It would have been fine had my glasses not flown off my face and onto the platform outside the train (I'm still not certain how they traveled so far). Practically blind, I could squint just enough to see them sitting, of course, just out of arm's reach. I think the only way I could react was by uttering a really bad word.
Thankfully, some of my friends helped me up and grabbed my glasses for me, just before the doors closed one last time. We took off in the direction of our hostel. Nobody on the train wanted to look in my direction. It was slightly embarrassing.
But I made it. Success!
I guess, in the end, there are two lessons to be learned from this. One is that you should never charge at a subway train as it's about to leave the platform. Two is that, if you're going to run anyway, you should at least make a big deal out of it, and have as grand of an entrance as I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment