So I took a train to Amsterdam this morning, where I would rendezvous with some foreign investment personnel and interview some pharma people for a possible article. I booked a 30-euro ticket last night for a 2.5-hour trip from Brussels to central station (with that all-important stop in Antwerp).
Half the seats on the trains face “forward’ and the other face “backward,” so that 50% face forward either direction the car is traveling. So I sat in the middle row, with a set of seats facing me, so that I’d have more leg room than in a seat that faces the back of another row.
Pretty empty train; comfyish seat. The guy in the row behind me spilled his coffee, but I noticed in time and lifted my bag from the floor so it wouldn’t get wet.
Two stops into the trip, leaving Brussels, a bunch of passengers boarded. This included pair of Thai women with fake boobs and rock-hard bodies. They decided to sit in the two seats facing me, and began groping each other. I smiled, laughed, went back to reading Stephenson and listening to the iPod. They kept trying to catch my eye, every time that I looked up to check out the landscape. (For the record, I got to see the sun for a 2-minute stretch outside of Brussels. This marks the first time since Saturday that I’ve seen the sun. I’d go on a kill-spree if I had to live with that weather.)
The women continued to flirt with each other and stare at me, which made me laugh. Everytime a man would walk through our car, they’d do the same thing.
At Rotterdam, they got off the train, and the football fans (Island Defenders) who had boarded a few stops earlier congregated in my row, so they could all hang out, facing each other, and drink some beers.
Oh, not just drink some beers. One of them also broke out a bag of weed and started rolling a massive joint; he was only stopped from lighting up when one of his compatriots pointed to the “no smoking” sign on the window.
So that was my morning: Thai prostitutes and soccer fans rolling a bone on the commuter train. It’s going to be an interesting two days . . .