Marek When you take night buses (in some places it’s better to rent a car), sometimes it happens that you arrive at the place long before dawn. Bus stations are often located far from the center. Often in areas that may seem suspicious. Especially at night. This is how our arrival in the largest city in the world looks like (the number of agglomerations is close to the number of Polish inhabitants).
5 a.m. Dark, outside the bus station we are surrounded by emptiness. It is not known where and how far the city center is. Certainly, it is very far away. As befits real athletes, we decide to go to the hotel by metro. Theoretically, you could take a taxi or an Uber, but it will be fun to do it old-school. Just like most of the city’s residents.
You have to get to the nearest metro station somehow. Google Maps guides us through increasingly suspicious neighborhoods. Perhaps it is very dangerous here late in the evening. In the morning, fortunately, the area is asleep. You can only hear the footsteps of a couple of tourists from Polish and the crowing of a rooster in the distance. The bird apparently knows something about the approaching dawn.
Finally, it is. Metro. On a high flyover, in this area, the metro runs above ground. We get to the station, where the crowd is already waiting. These are Mexicans who go to work at this time. Everyone seems to sleep standing up and, surprisingly, no one pays attention to us. They stand staring blankly in front of them, completely unresponsive to their surroundings.
Finally, a train arrives at the station, completely empty. The zombies standing on the platform do not seem to see it until the doors in the carriages open. Then the crowd moves. And we together with him. It is like a river, and we have no way to stand or move against the current. We go inside together with the crowd. I don’t know how it happened, but everyone fits. As if the walls of the carriage were made of rubber.
I make the mistake of keeping my hand in my pocket. Now there is no chance for me to pull it out. I feel as if whole tones are pressing against me. The passengers’ eyes close again. In such a crowd, it is easy to sleep standing up, without the risk of falling over. Even in the event of sudden braking. The waiting time for the departure of the first train of the day is half an hour. Fortunately, I can breathe. Probably only because I am clearly taller than the other passengers. Fortunately, the station where we get off is only 100 meters from our hotel. But will we be able to get off at this station?
