On Friday evening we waited with a bunch of people for passengers to get off the train in Pontevedra so that we could all get on. Finally we all started to get on the train, everyone checking in which direction they needed to go to find their seats. It was at that moment that a small kerfuffle started. Two girls were trying to get their rucksacks, tent, rolled up sleeping bags and goodness knows what else from the luggage rack so they could get off the train. Why were they only just doing it at that point? Had they mot realised they were at their station? Had they fallen asleep? Or were they just stupid?
Being good English folk, we told those getting on behind us what was happening and asked them to try to hold the door open. Nobody took a blind bit of notice, the doors closed and the train set off. With a mixture of horror and resigned giggles, the girls settled down to wait for the next stop. Fortunately this was not the superfast train, which stops nowhere until it reaches Vigo. And so they were able to get off about five minutes later at Arcade, where presumably they changed platforms and caught the next train back to Pontevedra.
On Saturday we had another little train adventure. Vigo to Redondela was quiet and peaceful as usual and then we reached Redondela. Suddenly the train was invaded by hordes of young people. There seemed to be hundreds of them but perhaps I am exaggerating. Different groups of them had matching t-shirts, some clearly specially printed for the occasion with the names of their mates printed on the back. Many of them had had their t-shirts signed by just about the whole group, like school leavers with their school shirts at the end of year 11 in the UK.
They were clearly "peñas", teams of young people, on their to Pontevedra for the last day of the Semana Grande - bullfights, fireworks, running around drinking and spraying other "peñas"with watered-down wine. They were so numerous that they could not find seats and stood in the aisle, swaying and squealing with every movement of the train. The noise was phenomenal, some of them were already half-way drunk. A kind of mobile botellón!
I had been thinking of spending the afternoon in Pontevedra centre once again but, faced with the prospect of so many happily rampaging "peñas", I decided to accompany the chess players to the tournament where the heat in the sportshall where they are playing was astounding but I found a cool corner outside with a fresh breeze!
Later in the day, I overheard someone on the bus going down to the railway station - a bus that we almost missed as Phil's game went on and on and on - I overheard someone say that the "peñas" are more dangerous than the bulls!
On Sunday it was the automatic ticket machines that let us down. First at Vigo Urzáiz station in the morning we tried to use them to avoid the queue - not working so we had to queue anyway. Then on Sunday evening, going for the 22.21 train, we found the ticket off ice closed and the automatic machine only accepting card payments - but not ours, for some reason!
So much for all the public address system announcement telling passengers that they can buy their tickets from the automatic machines!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment