Holidays are over

The winter holidays are over and it's showing. As I reported earlier, I was surprised at the timeliness of our public transport and I thought it was accidental. It turns out I was right. Last friday (still during holidays), my train was 12 minutes late and I had to get on another one. And change in Berchem. No big deal though.

Today timeliness has gone down the drain permanently. It took the seats with it as well.
This morning my train was a reasonable 4 minutes late. It was, however, stuffed. I had to stand from Lier to Antwerp Central, even though a lot of people got off at Berchem. This is of course the chosen moment for the conductor to conduct his business and wriggle through the masses from one end of the train to the other.

When I arrived at metro station Diamant, the tram arrived, surprisingly, almost immediately (at that time of the day there is a tram every 10 minutes or so, so no surprises there). Unfortunately, that ends the good news. The bad news is that all fifty-odd of us were getting on that tram, joining the two hundred or so that were already on it. I now have a reasonable idea of how tinned sardines must feel.
One advantage though: there was no need to hold on tight whenever the tin accelerated or stopped; I could lean against the other sardines.