When Lightning Strikes
Today I went to Antwerp Zoo with some of my friends who live in Belgium. I was the only one coming from The Netherlands and therefor the only one coming from that direction.
I got the 8.41 AM train towards Antwerp and intended to arrive 15 minutes before our 10 AM meeting time. Unfortunately things didn’t go as planned. Just a few minutes after arriving at Herentals station there was an announcement; Lighting hit and we couldn’t move away from the station. Everybody was looking around and wondered what they meant – hit by lightning? Sure there was rain and maybe one flash but no thunder and nothing else that indicated a thunderstorm was close by.
A little while after the first announcement we were told they didn’t know how long it would last before we could move again, only to be followed by yet another announcement; we had to leave the train to wait in the train station for busses to arrive. – Busses? Damn that meant we weren’t going to Antwerp by train anymore and it would certainly mean missing the 10 AM meeting time.
Thank God for cellphones, I called some of my friends to let them know about what happened and promised to call back when I knew more about my new arrival time. The train service was good, within only 10 to 15 minutes after leaving the train two busses arrived to bring us to Lier station to get on the next train to Antwerp there. I figured Lier was the next station up but it turned out to be an hour away by bus (and skipping for stations or so). I’m so happy I was able to get a decent seat for the trip (although I offered it to a man in a wheelchair who ended up taking someone else’s seat). I don’t think I could handle standing for an hour and walking around in the Zoo all day; I would have to pay for it in the next few days health-wise.
At Lier station things were a little hectic; the monitors in Lier said the train to Antwerp would leave on platform one, and after getting there we heard a train station attendant say it was platform two. Everyone rushed to station two and as soon as my backside hit the seat (which I found thanks to a decent guy who told me to take the seat across from him and told someone else to remove the luggage from that seat) we left for Antwerp.
Things didn’t turn out as bad as I thought it would. I visioned getting their past noon and ruining everyone’s day at the Zoo. Luckily from Lier station it was only 15 minutes to Antwerp so I ended up arriving an hour and fifteen minutes late. My friends waited for me at the station and we ended up going to the Zoo together after all.
The detour was good for something though; the rain had stopped and we a cloudy but dry (and not too cold) day at the Zoo. So as you can see all there’s always a good thing to something bad. Or as they say here; the glass is half full…
Plugged: 2 Comments on "When Lightning Strikes"
That is a long way to go to get to a Zoo. I have a pretty nice Zoo that is free within 20 minutes of where I live. A lot of my pictures on my site (which I just updated and re-did) are from there.
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I am happy you made it – better late than never – is that the saying? I hope the trip to the Zoo was great – that is one of my favourite places to take pictures.