Just some practice with the band.

[janestarz]

Utrecht, lovely heartless city. Meetup at the practicespace. Check.
Practice. Check. Went well. We jammed, I once again fell in love with that brand new marshall amp even though TC hated the old battered Peavey amp she was condemned to. *smirk*
Utrecht CS. Problems between Ede and Utrecht, no trains available.

"No, there will be buses (plural) at Driebergen-Zeist who will take you to Veenendaal- de Klomp. Just take a train to Driebergen. There will be people (plural) there just like me who'll tell you all about it." The nice man of NS said at Utrecht. He also said I was probably eighty years old and well-preserved.

Anyway, at Driebergen, there was no bus (or buses). There were no people (plural) but there was a man from the NS. Not that he knew anything about what's been going on. He was just as clueless as the other 200+ people stranded there.
Bus 1 came and was full within five minutes.
A quarter of an hour later, Bus 2 came. Full within two minutes. Some burger-king serving dude tried to push his way in and was pissed off for not fitting in.
Bus 3 and 4 arrived at the same time, some 15 minutes later. I gave up trying to squeeze my way in and played "Runaway Train" for some other stranded travellers on Billy, carefully because of my already sore fingers, with adapted lyrics "we're stranded on Drie-bergen Zeist / waiting for the god-damn bus to come!"

Bus 6, when most people had already elbowed their way in, seemed to be my lucky bus. A hitlerjugendhelga named Ida ushered us children in the bus and mentioned we'd better not scream at her, that's what the NS were for. She was just hired and had been up since six am. As soon as we were driving she stated the bus wouldn't stop at V-dK, but would go straight on to Ede.
In Ede I switched buses. A nice man who didn't have a clue where we'd be going drove me and some other stranded Veenendalers to the station.

Total delay: two hours. I want my money back damnit!
And I'll get it, tomorrow.

Comments

[coen.livejournal.com]

I remember the days before I had a company car. Public transport was great, as long as all went well. I liked sitting in the train, reading a book or doing some drawing. You can't do that in a car.
But when things started to go wrong, it all went very wrong. I remember that only too well.

[silverseabear.livejournal.com]

Since when does NS give money back to travelers that get screwed because of company ineptitude? More importantly, how does one facilitate the process?

[janestarz.livejournal.com]

If you have 30 minutes - 60 mins delay and your ticket was more expensive then 8 euro, you get a refund. Even if it's due to whether, except for nation-wide power outages (like the IIIrd world war and the likes).

If you have 60 mins or more delay and your ticket was more expensive then 4 euro, you can get a refund as well.

The process is painstakingly long though.

[troglodyteking.livejournal.com]

Even if it is due to 'whether'? Those homonymns (words that sound alike) can be annoying. You are looking for 'weather', whether or not you care. *smile*

[janestarz.livejournal.com]

gah! Typos. Weather. Oh, I know. But it was two in the morning when I replied to this.

[troglodyteking.livejournal.com]

I was just amused that I was able to make a pun about it. *smile*