My marvelous birthday

There is one curious phenomenon that is accompanying me practically all my life - I call it chain-disaster (although in Czech it has much more vulgar denotation). Basically, the issue deals with the problems happening to me during my life and has got one simple rule:

"Each problem and bad luck of my life does not occur isolated, but these create a chain-like sequence of following disasters in a 12-hour(or less) time period."

Maybe you also know it quite well - bad things love to build themselves up in the same manner as a giant snowball running down from a mountain, and then, big enough, they just smash you down to your knees....
I have got pretty used to it, so when such thing happens, it does not surprise me anymore. I just wrinkle my forehead and wait until the sun begins to shine again. So, why am I telling this? Well, let’s say that my yesterday was full of surprises.



The 22nd August was a day of moving to my new apartment which is situated on the other side of Utrecht. I had prepared a fine scheme how will be the day like and in the morning I started to fulfill this plan… I packed more than a half of my stuff into a large suitcase and decided to transport the thing by bike (although the thing was weighting about 45kgs, it had got wheels, so why not!). I locked the apartment, attached the suitcase to the back of the bike holder and set off for the new destination.
I was actually bit worried about the handling with the suitcase-trailer, but despite of it the bike was quite responsive. Sure, it feels like your weight is somewhere near to 120 kgs, but still…it’s not so bad. When I was about 7 km from the city border, two things happened. Firstly, it started to rain and secondly, one of the suitcase’s wheels went loose. Not good. Not good at all… you see, the trailer turned immediately into the plow. But what could I do? I was too far from the city to leave the bike apart and transport the suitcase in hands; and also far enough from the apartment to not even think of returning back. So, I did not have other choice than continue cycling. The rest of the way to the city borders was like medieval torture – covered with sweat, I was travelling at blazing speed 8 kph, the broken suitcase was emitting strikingly loud grinding noise, and naturally, don’t forget about the rain. When I finally reached the city borders, I decided to commence alternate plan: Lock the bike on the first bus stop and then get to my target destination with the help of public transport. Needless to say, I was well prepared…in the morning I had looked up the bus lines on the web and found out that the bus No.10 is going through my place. I was waiting almost half an hour for the damned bus and when it finally arrived, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet in the apartment. Fortunately, in backpack I found two Euros (thank god for my negligence  ) which was just enough to pay for the bus….but hey, the chain rule did not let me down - really kind bus driver told me that the line is not passing through my destination anymore – thank you, Googlemaps! – but he said he can bring me quite close to the place. “Quite close” in more exact words means 2 km away from the target street. Not good. So, I got out of the bus and carried on in the seemingly neverending struggle with the road-grinding suitcase (I am really surprised that it survived the whole journey). And of course, don’t forget the rain.
When I finally reached my apartment, it was…kind of relieving, but I still had in mind, that I must return back through whole Utrecht to get my bike, cycle those 15 km to Zeist, clean and pack the rest of my room and finally return the keys from the apartment to the office at Uithof campus. I was already late with the keys, but honestly…. In that situation I was unwilling to give a damn about it.
The way back was lengthy, but on the other hand nothing bad had happened. So I arrived to Zeist, packed the remaining stuff and fairly cleaned the room. The final act of the moving-tragedy was about to begin. I was on my way biking to Uithof when suddenly a massive downpour rain started. As I was equipped with lots of bags, I was unable to ride with an umbrella…So, I had got “a bit” wet. When I finally arrived with keys at James Boswell Institute, the secretary who saw me coming just whispered “….Oh my god….”. Indeed, I must had been looking completely miserable. She was nice though, and did not mind my delay, so I gave her the keys and stayed at the JBI cafeteria for almost an hour to get something to eat and also to dry myself a little. And then, finally, I went to my new home.

At last, completely exhausted I lied on my bed and thought that there was no birthday like that in my whole life.

After an hour of regaining psychical and physical strengths, I had repaired the apartment’s modem to get an internet connection and also found out that various light bulbs in the apartment are broken, but I was just resistant to these trivia.

And, to end the day (and also this post) with something positive, I must admit that the birthday evening with my Summerschool friends was just wonderful and I want to thank all of them for brightening that, in other means dark and unpleasant, day.