Lost in the Concrete Jungle
Went to that bookstore I mentioned on my own yesterday… I spent about 30 minutes looking around there, though it’s certainly not a large place and I didn’t find anything particularly interesting anyway. But the problem was getting there and back, as a few things that happened along the way made me feel awfully crappy. Yes, this concrete jungle gets me just about every time.
The first problem was caused by me taking some more newspapers from the pile in the kitchen to recycle and the nearest paper bin being, of course, full. The last time that happened I kept going along my way and dumped them a pretty long way off, where I found another bin that wasn’t quite as full, but doing the same didn’t seem likely yesterday since the next such bin I knew of along my route was a long way off and I didn’t need added complications when I wasn’t really sure I knew how to reach my destination anyway. So I just left them on the bin, which meant that I kept worrying that the wind carried them all over the place, possibly right on somebody’s windshield as they were driving past. Should have left them on the ground or at the very least placed the one magazine that was among them on top, since it was less likely to be carried away by wind, but got all confused and panicked because there were people around and just knew that I had to get the fuck out of there…
Then there was the usual confusion with a three-way stoplight that I can never remember is three-way despite passing it whenever I go in that general direction, so I see the cars stopping, wonder why does the pedestrian light stay red, usually see others rushing forward and follow suit, only to be caught right in the middle of the road by the light for the cars coming from the other way and turning going green. The fact that there are about ten seconds between one light going red and the other going green certainly doesn’t help, since I see cars stopped in all directions and assume something’s wrong with the stoplight. Really barely dodged a car there once, and yesterday wasn’t much better. As soon as the cars stopped, two girls that were also waiting to cross rushed forward, so me and two men who were also there sort of glanced at the light, the girls and each other, then shrugged and went forward as well, only to of course find ourselves sort of deer in headlights as the other light went green and the traffic swerved our way while we were in the middle of the road. First came a scooter and, since my brain was still trying to figure out what the fuck was happening, I’m not even sure whether I stopped to let it pass in front of me or it went around behind me, but the car coming right after it appeared to make a point of trying to run right into me, slamming on the brakes and honking loudly. Since by then I was pretty much jumping forward, I’m not even sure it could have hit me without ending up in the bushes from the area that separates the two ways, but the driver obviously wanted to make a point. (Then again, he certainly would have hit the other two men, who were slower than me.) Really wonder how many get hit there, because I’m not sure there was ever a time when that stoplight didn’t confuse me like this…
And then there was the way back, when I decided to take the subway, not wanting to go through it again, and ended up taking the wrong one. I assumed I was at another station for some reason and thought it didn’t really matter which way I went since I had to switch anyway and this line crosses the other in two points, but preferred one direction and took it… Only to check the map once inside the train and see that I was at the first such crossing point and got it all wrong… If you care for the details, you can see what the problem was on the map: I was at Piata Unirii and thought for some reason that I was at Universitate, though it was obvious I wasn’t, since there were multiple lines and at Universitate there’s just one. So instead of taking M1 or M3 and going left, as shown on that map, I ended up taking M2 to Piata Victoriei, then switching there to take M1 to my stop. All I can say is that at least I didn’t take M2 the other way, which would have resulted in me needing to get out and go back as soon as I could.
