,
Schlepping is what I do best, so why should our detour in
Gent-Dampoort not include some heavy weight lifting of the luggage inspired
kind? After all, there’s nothing quite as
challenging as battling it out with cumbersome suitcases in a blood, sweat and tears
wrestling match in which there can only be one outcome – and, that is not to not get taken out by baggage gone bad. Slugging it out on the pavement until the
bitter end and claiming victory was my ultimate goal, as well as hopefully
emerging relatively unscathed and bruise free.
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| Yikes! Wrong station! Should have exited at Gent-St.Pieters! Now what? |
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| Ready to jump! |
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| All packed up and ready to go! Too bad we got off one stop early! |
After nearly 35 years of hauling, lugging trunks and sashaying
satchels across the pond, one would think that I’d have the routine perfected,
able to hold my own and exit the train in one seamless hop, skip and jump to
freedom. But alas, such is not the case,
as those dratted pesky steps – three, to be exact – stood in my way, on a
mission to trip me up, and catapult my bags and I to quite the un-elegant
sidewalk sprawl.
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| Luggage and stairs...the standoff commences. Let the games begin! |
Designed specifically for the annoyance of a certain
pink-sneakered gal, the steps exiting the coach seemed innocuous enough, yet for a globe-trotting
shopaholic loaded down with an excess of carrier bags, back-packs and packages
galore, they posed quite the angst ridden dilemma. One misstep and I’m a goner, flattened like a
pancake, pinned down by truckloads of cascading suitcases, all tumbling
haphazardly upon me. Buried under layers
of socks and frocks, I risk being a spectacle of sorts, a middle-aged ol’
Auntie, now the unfortunate subject of curious stares and laugh out loud
chuckles. You get the picture.
And let’s not even get into the issue of the very real
possibility of being trampled by hordes of disembarking passengers, on a
harried sprint to catch the next caboose, oblivious to the plight (or was that
sight?) of a bizarrely splayed foreigner, limbs flailing, torso contorted into
the most unflattering of pretzel shapes, yet still victoriously clutching (or was
that hanging on to?) her over-burdened shopping bags and then some. Some would say priorities whilst others would veer towards utilizing not a noun,
but an adjective with quite another connotation. Daft? Delusional? Whatever.
You decide.
And so, Dear Reader, you must be perplexed as to why I continually
return to the topic of schlepping and lugging, tripping and falling and
dragging and hauling? You would think
that I have an almost borderline compulsive disorder, obsessed with being
tripped up by obstacles of the dreaded stair climbing kind, immobilized by the
mere prospect of having to endure yet another labourious tug and lug up and
down never-ending flights of steps.
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| Those dratted stairs!! |
Well, wouldn’t you, if you mistakenly dismounted at the
wrong station, having already performed a marathon jaunt of lug and tote all
around its parameters for hours on end, only to come to the startling
realization that your heaving was all in vain, for you’ve got to pack it all up
and start from square one again?
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| Baggage lined up, ready to jump. Take two!! |
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| Back on track...just one stop till Gent-St.Pieters! (We hope!) |
Here we go again.
Will I EVER get out of Gent-Dampoort? The railway station, that is.
The journey, or should I say, schlepping, continues.
Stay tuned for the continuation of the fabulous
mis-adventures of cuckoo ol’ Auntie Nora in Belgium and the Netherlands!!
Next post - In three weeks!!
Wednesday, October 28th!!
Stay tuned!!
Come lug and schlepp your way around Europe,
as you cram your trunks with treasures and trinkets galore (and then some
more), which then, of course, necessitates the acquisition of additional
baggage, thus quadrupling your load, which then, of course, weighs you down and
breaks your back and flattens you smack!!
You get the drill...so, carry on and shop and drag and cart till you
drop!! Just make sure that you exit at
the correct railway station!! Otherwise….as
Miss Pink Sneakers would say “Yikes!!”
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