Traintalk

Returned under the grey skies of the Netherlands.
Dropped there by Finnair.
The excellent airline of Finland.

A miserable 10 degrees, no sunshine and rain to come.
How can a person be happy in such conditions?

It is no coincidence that Jesus walked the earth in a sunny and warm country.
Where he could see his followers baptize in a river without anyone catching a cold.

The same goes for the Prophet Mohammed.
He also preferred to introduce the Koran in a country where it was sunny and warm.

To truly proof the point, the only enlightened one of the three, Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. in the famous gardens of Lumbini in Nepal.

We simply must accept that any reasonable person, if having a choice, would not live in a country like the Netherlands.
Besides Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha never visiting that place, the current population, if possible, runs away from it.
Once they have made enough money they go and settle in the South of Europe, the Caribbean or the Far East.
Anywhere as long as they can see the sun, feel the warmth and can get a tan.

Although Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha avoided the Netherlands and its own population runs away, it is nevertheless always a nice experience to be in that meteorological disastrous country.
Not especially because they have trains, a good sewage system, schools, hospitals and even television.
That all works efficiently and effectively.
The exciting thing about visiting the Netherlands is the friends.
To see them and spend time with them.
To speak the Dutch language again.
To follow their peculiar traditions and ways of doing.

Like travelling by train.
Dutch people don’t interact when using public transportation.
If they don’t know each other, they won’t chat.
This phenomenon can be witnessed in more countries but what makes it so bizarre in the Netherlands is that the people use their mobile phones inside the trains and speak with such loud voices than anybody within an area of 10 meters (32 feet) can hear word by word what is being said.
Often these loud phone conversations are very personal.
Once it was heard how a girl talking on her mobile in a train dumped her boyfriend and made him an ex.
The fact that about 50 people were hearing her doing that made no difference to the girl.
She simply didn’t care.

It is unknown if loyal and fervent blog readers also prefer not to hear all that social chitchat of unknown persons in a public transportation situation.
But a wild guess is that also they prefer not to be forced into the private life of unknown people while peacefully travelling by train.

We do understand that finishing a relationship these days is not executed anymore by writing a long letter that is delivered by a courier on a fast horse.
But to finish off Danny-boy by mobile phone in a crowded train makes one think if everything has been going so well since we were still using the Pony Express.

It feels like pollution has come in between people in Holland when in public places.
Or noise, dust and scrap.

But when meeting the friends in the Netherlands, while outside the sky is grey and drizzle adds to the misery, in their homes in between us is blue sky and sunshine.
Butterflies and flowers.
Love and affection.
A place where Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha would have liked to be also.