Petrol stop

It usually happens when you're in a hurry and can least afford the time:  the auto rickshaw driver stops for petrol.
And though I don't ever see passengers in the other autos lined up, I assume I'm not the only one this happens to, right?

In this instance, the driver said it was needed, and this line was just too short to pass up.

One bonus to the time in line there was seeing this auto decked out in pink and hearts.

It is the law that for safety's sake everyone has to step out of the vehicle while it is being filled with the CNG.  It does strike me, though, that if we are all standing within 5 feet of an auto that is going to explode, it is not going to make a bit of difference whether we were inside it or not.

The travel factor

Yes, my tickets to the Commonwealth games events include passes on the metro. But is it worth it?
Is it worth--

• the squish,
• the arms upraised in your face,
• the violation of personal space?

I had this idea, silly me, that the shuttle ride from the metro station to the stadium would be, well, a shuttle.
Wrong.
It was the average India bus experience.
We queued for the arrival of the bus in men's and women's lines, but when the bus pulled up it did not line up with our queues and people made a mad rush to get on.
I'm not an aggressive person.
In about forty seconds, the 743 (you know, estimate) of us waiting to get on the bus were on the bus.
Except me.
I was still standing there.
The CWG helpful-guy-in-uniform said to me, "I'm sorry, you can catch the next shuttle."
After I'd already been waiting there fifteen minutes and just missed the last one--I was at the front of the line, even! "My Aunt and Uncle are on that bus," I replied, referring to my travel companions.
The helpful guy turned to the man with his leg sticking out of the bus door that could not close. "Move over, she has to get on the bus," he said.
And they moved.
There's always room for one more.
Last passenger on and off we went.
But where was the a/c for the hundreds of us crammed in there? Not turned on.

One awesome thing I discovered: there are cars on the metro trains reserved for women only.
Wow is that a breath of fresh air. Literally.

Art is happening

There is art happening in my house.
How cool is that?

Eight young friends came over today, we chatted about Mondrian (famous for his reductionist works) and the elements of design--namely line. And then everyone created their own masterpiece.
All very unique.

I must say, though, the lesson seemed a lot like "how to make a mess".
:)
But that just means creativeness is happening, right?

Introvert meltdown

I had to stand in line a long time today at immigration in Bali. Something like two hours. I say "something like" because I didn't look at my watch when I first arrived and stood in the mob that evened out into lines eventually.
Everyone else had to stand and and wait a long time also. One of those someone's was a little boy in a stroller. At first he just quietly sat there, but after an hour or so, he had what I would call an introvert melt down.

Out of nowhere he started shouting. "I don't like it here! I don't like it here!"
His mom calmed him down, but in another five minutes or so he started up again:
"I don't like it here! I don't like people looking! Pleeease don't LOOOOOO0000k!" his sad little voice trailed off into a wail.
His mom calmed him down again, despite the people who were still--can you imagine their audacity?--looking at the poor kid.

Five minutes later: "It's too loud! It won't get out of my ears!"
Oh kid, I know how you feel.

Five minutes after that:
"It's so long!"
Don't I know it? Seriously, how inefficient was this immigration system? To make several hundred people stand in this room waiting for hours while more planes with more people to make more lines continued to arrive? This is really the best system they could come up with?
It was painful.
It was inefficient.
It was crisis causing for the introvert.