Bright side

'17.03 Avanti West Coast service to Birmingham New Street will be leaving from platform 4'. Due to the trains being delayed earlier yesterday there was a lot of people waiting at the concourse at Euston trains station who were constantly looking at the electronic boards on the top. It was like a marathon had started when that announcement happened. Everyone started walking really fast towards the platform and some eager ones started running just in case there was a prize for someone who gets on the train first. Being the 23rd of December I didn't think it would be this busy but turns out they're all going to the Midlands for Christmas. And they were all in some sort of rush. When someone brushed past me while running towards the train I almost felt like saying (in ferdi's voice) , " you can't see meee!!! Why you running fast, the train will still be there for the next 10 - 12 minutes, don't go anywhere". Having this thought in my head made me smile instead of getting angry. But that man just needed to relax.

'Hi Nduka'.. I greeted my taxi driver yesterday evening. I'm 100 percent sure that I must've pronounced it wrong but he said hi back. How would you even pronounce that? He was driving with some soft African music playing in the car and was singing along too (quietly but I could hear it). He was treating the car so gently that it really made me think how much patience did he have. When changing gears he was being very gentle and with a real soft touch. I've heard about working hard but that was the first time I'd seen someone working soft. It felt like he was trying to ensure he doesn't hurt his car. He was driving in 4th gear when I would be driving in 2nd. 'Good evening my broda', he said when he stopped at my address. I said good evening too but stopped myself from saying my broda because it could have sounded like I was copying him.

This morning, I can proudly say that I have done my exercise which contained a 300 meter sprint. Although that was because my taxi driver didn't want to go over 20 miles per hour and that made me almost miss my train. So the best thing I could think off was to run. But if I look on the bright side that made me run in the morning which counts as an exercise and when I managed to get on the train that left in 10 - 12 seconds after, it felt like an achievement. Then I walked straight to the shop on the train, got my coffee and a pain au chocolat which was warmed up for me. On top of that then to find the whole train being empty I felt like a king (like borat would say, "King in the castle") because I could sit in any seat I wanted. I almost had the whole carriage to myself and this doesn't happen very often.

In my yesterday's train back to Birmingham it was a complete opposite picture. There were no empty seats and people had lots of luggage too. There was a group of 4 Chinese youths - 2 girls and 2 boys sitting on my left and they were constantly talking in mandarin language (I'm sure it was that). I could not avoid listening to them as they were really close and were talking quite loud. I couldn't understand a word they were saying but they had a lot to discuss. The only word I could make out was 'cowentry' and I guessed they were travelling to Coventry. This was proven correct when the ticket checker came and scanned the ticket on one of the girl's phone. He then showed her the screen on his tablet and said the ticket was for a different train and he said that he had announced four times that tickets for other trains were not valid on this train. The girl didn't even protest at all and said, 'so we have to buy new tickets', the man said, 'yes I'm sorry (I'm sure he wasn't because he looked like he was enjoying that). She took her card out like it's nothing and paid for 4 new tickets to Coventry (which isn't cheap) like she didn't really care. I then realised they were all wearing designer clothes too so I'm sure they didn't care about having to pay for the tickets twice. It looked that any way.. I think they must've looked on the bright side of that and thought atleast they're not paying for the tickets, it's their rich dads in China who are funding their education in England, the designer clothes and their train tickets..lol (I thought that looking at the way it appeared).

I like this quote, "Stop being afraid of what could go wrong. Focus on what could go right. Look for the positives and always make the best of a situation" (Anonymous). We can sometimes miss the opportunities to laugh at little things because we're worried about what could go wrong in the future. I'll leave this thought with you.

Enjoy your holidays whoevers got them. I'm not traveling this Friday so there will be no blog but you can read my previous ones but clicking on the top of this page 'on my train journeys' which will take you to the other blogs. I know this may be disappointing for the regular readers but, "I'm sorry you feel that way".

Adeel