When The Strike Hits The Fan (II)

Of course you want to know how my adventure yesterday panned out! Well, I either underestimated or miscalculated… or both. Let’s go with the last option… I got up this morning with all the confidence in the world, ready to take the bull by horns. Sort of. I walked through my Narnia-like path, with a strange energy coursing through my body that could not explain. I just knew that something different was about to happen.

Well, as you know, I seem to be a magnet for misadventures, and my gut feeling did not fail me. I got to the platform with seven minutes to spare, and waited patiently for the train to roll at its usual time. 06:13 came and went, and no train in sight, and much to everyone’s horror, the announcement blasted out that the trains were running behind schedule again. Merde! I thought the strike was supposed to be over at midnight! When I looked up the information, it turns out that the last shift to come on duty before midnight would still be on strike, which meant that the morning commute would definitely be affected.

Long story short, by 06:45 three trains should have passed by, but only one did, and the passengers of the two previous trains crammed into one. And this happened at all the stations, so you can imagine the state of the carriages after just two stops, SRO all the way. I then made the decision the get off at the one station I truly dislike, Oriente, and grabbed a cab to the office. At least I was already well within the city limits and it would not cost me an arm and a leg like last night.

I may have questionable luck with trains in Portugal, but the Universe had my back and gave me another highly entertaining taxi driver. This fellow was homegrown Lisboan, rotund and loud, blunt and curious, absolutely no English, claimed he spoke Portuñol but the truth of the matter was that he spoke Portuguese and I replied in Portuñol. The most hilarious conversation followed, with me learning the word for thief in Portuguese: Ladrão. I effectively had my first political discussion in Portugal, as we discussed the ethics of Lisboan policemen, the scandalous prices of cooking gas, and the corruption of the government and politicians.

Part of the conversation went like this:
Driver: Ladrões! Todos os ladrões! (thieves! all thieves)!
Me: Sim, pero ladrões muito elegantes (yes, but very elegant thieves).
Driver: Chamamos-lhes ladrões de colarinho branco (we call them white collared thieves).
Me: Que posso dizer? Venho de um país com el maior ladrão e ele senta-se en el governo. (What can I say? I come from a country with the greatest thief and he sits in government).

I was half afraid I wasn’t going to make it to the office in once piece, considering how the car kept swerving on the road because the driver kept laughing his head off and looking at me in the rear view mirror.