I stepped into the Geneva train station and stood in front of the departures board.
My train hadn't appeared on the board yet, prompting me to double-check my ticket. I opened up my phone, went to the Eurail app, made sure my travel pass was showing in the app, and… the ticket wasn’t loading.
“It’s fine,” I think to myself. “I must have poor service in this spot.”
I moved to another part of the station. All my other apps were working fine, confirming I had internet connection. I tried the app again. Still nothing. Annoyance started to set in. I closed and opened the app probably 20 times, trying and trying, but every time, nothing changed. This meant I'd need to purchase a new ticket, despite having already paid for one. Glancing up at the board, I noticed my train was set to depart in 20 minutes. “No problem, I have plenty of time,” I assured myself.
But, as it turns out, I did not have plenty of time. It took about 5 minutes to find the ticket kiosk machine, 10 minutes to purchase the ticket (thank you to the very kind French couple who helped me decipher the confusing ticketing options), and then another 2-3 minutes to get to the platform. By the time I got to the train, the doors were nearly closing.
I sat down on the train, relieved to have made it but frustrated that I had to purchase an extra ticket. I opened the Eurail app once again to see if it was working, and… the ticket appeared, no problems whatsoever. A punch to the gut; salt in the wound.
I spent a few moments staring at my phone, muttering curses at the uncooperative app. At this point, the only viable option was to distract myself from getting too worked up about it. I pulled my Kindle out of my bag and turned to the first page of Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, a tragic but hilarious memoir about his experience living in extreme poverty and destitution.
I sat on the train laughing to myself, not only because of the humorous episodes that Orwell experiences, but also because of the perfect irony of me starting this book only moments after I had complained about wasting money to purchase an unnecessary train ticket. In the memoir, an Italian compositor forges a room key and steals all of Orwell's meager savings, leaving him with barely anything. He allows himself 6 francs per day to survive on. At one point, he goes two and a half days without eating anything. All of a sudden, the $34.39 I had to spend on the extra train ticket didn’t bother me as much.
I love moments like this—when you complain or get upset about something and then life whips you right back into shape with a reminder that things can always be much worse.
Orwell says in the book, “It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs—and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.”
As the train pulled into Lyon Part Dieu station and I hobbled off with my luggage, I realized that no one had even come around to check tickets.
But I have not yet gone to the dogs, and I am nowhere near going to the dogs. Things aren’t so bad after all. In fact, they couldn’t be better.
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I stepped into the Geneva train station and stood in front of the departures board.
My train hadn't appeared on the board yet, prompting me to double-check my ticket. I opened up my phone, went to the Eurail app, made sure my travel pass was showing in the app, and… the ticket wasn’t loading.
“It’s fine,” I think to myself. “I must have poor service in this spot.”
I moved to another part of the station. All my other apps were working fine, confirming I had internet connection. I tried the app again. Still nothing. Annoyance started to set in. I closed and opened the app probably 20 times, trying and trying, but every time, nothing changed. This meant I'd need to purchase a new ticket, despite having already paid for one. Glancing up at the board, I noticed my train was set to depart in 20 minutes. “No problem, I have plenty of time,” I assured myself.
But, as it turns out, I did not have plenty of time. It took about 5 minutes to find the ticket kiosk machine, 10 minutes to purchase the ticket (thank you to the very kind French couple who helped me decipher the confusing ticketing options), and then another 2-3 minutes to get to the platform. By the time I got to the train, the doors were nearly closing.
I sat down on the train, relieved to have made it but frustrated that I had to purchase an extra ticket. I opened the Eurail app once again to see if it was working, and… the ticket appeared, no problems whatsoever. A punch to the gut; salt in the wound.
I spent a few moments staring at my phone, muttering curses at the uncooperative app. At this point, the only viable option was to distract myself from getting too worked up about it. I pulled my Kindle out of my bag and turned to the first page of Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, a tragic but hilarious memoir about his experience living in extreme poverty and destitution.
I sat on the train laughing to myself, not only because of the humorous episodes that Orwell experiences, but also because of the perfect irony of me starting this book only moments after I had complained about wasting money to purchase an unnecessary train ticket. In the memoir, an Italian compositor forges a room key and steals all of Orwell's meager savings, leaving him with barely anything. He allows himself 6 francs per day to survive on. At one point, he goes two and a half days without eating anything. All of a sudden, the $34.39 I had to spend on the extra train ticket didn’t bother me as much.
I love moments like this—when you complain or get upset about something and then life whips you right back into shape with a reminder that things can always be much worse.
Orwell says in the book, “It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs—and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.”
As the train pulled into Lyon Part Dieu station and I hobbled off with my luggage, I realized that no one had even come around to check tickets.
But I have not yet gone to the dogs, and I am nowhere near going to the dogs. Things aren’t so bad after all. In fact, they couldn’t be better.
