This part of my life is called "catching the train"

Some people call it the train, others called it the subway and others call it the underground. For the sake of familiarity to myself however, lets call it the train.

This part of my life is called "catching the train" and I bet you that it was tougher than most parts of Chris Gardner's life (if you don't get this, go watch Will Smith's Pursuit of Happyness, it'll do you a world of good)

Now this is, to many people, a rather normal step they take everyday to get to work or when coming back or whatever. But the train here, in Egypt, is a TOTALLY different experience.

I am one of the lucky people who got a car when they were 18. It was not the newest car, but it is a lovely car. So when I decided to take my lovely 14 years old car for serious service, I knew I will be stuck with the train for a while. "It's all right" I thought. "How bad can it be anyways?"

Well, back then I didn't know the answer to that question. But now I can safely say: Really really bad.

Mind you this is not my first time on the train. But I guess when driving has been your sole mode of transportation for 7 years you tend to forget what public transportation can be like. That, or the train has grown much much worse than I remember.

So to make a long story short, I went to the train station, I got myself a ticket and went through the checkpoint and was standing there waiting for the train. It was late. That is not a problem in itself, but as I wait, more and more people kept gathering waiting for the train. I was unlucky enough to be standing in the front with a mass of people behind me.

Finally the train came.

On the ground, there was a green arrow pointing towards the train. I knew by my amazing instinct that this meant this is the door I use to get ON the train. I smiled at myself for being smart enough not to stand on the red arrow pointing away from the train (which I deduced in my eternal smartness was where you got OFF the train)

So the train comes to a screeching halt and....all hell breaks lose.

You know when you were young and you played tug-of-war in school? It was a fun game. But I always thought that everyone enjoyed tug-of-war except the rope. It probably never enjoyed tug-of-war. That is me, always considerate of other things - even if they are inanimate.

When the door to the train opened, it was something similar to tug-of-war, except instead of PULLING, it was about PUSHING. And I was the rope.

There were tens of people trying to get off the train. At the same time, there are tens of people behind me trying to get on the train. I was sure I'm standing on the green arrow but...I guess that didn't matter much. Amidst the chaos, I saw that the same thing was happening at the exit of the train marked with the red arrow.

They couldn't even agree to allow each other to pass. Each group, the exiters and the enterers, as I will choose to call them today, kept pushing as hard as they could. I really wanted to get out of it at that point. I mean, I remember thinking I can just take the next train but that was not an option. I was the buffer being pushed in the middle. I'm glad I didn't fade out, but I do remember the air becoming extremely thin. I was doing incredible effort to breathe.

Finally the 2 groups were able to break through each other. Only one problem though. For every 1 person who got off the train, 4 got on. In a matter of seconds, I found my face stuck to a wall and I was lucky to have 2 feet on the ground. I sooo didn't want to be here, but I was pushed by an incredible mass of people.

The train started to move, there was very little air to breath but...it was moving...I was on my way home. I mean, it's only 13 stations to go right? Only problem is 2 stations away was the most popular station on the whole line...

At this point I would like to make an observation. When I was in school, I was told that gases are easily compressible, liquids are barely compressible and solids are incompressible. That piece of information is wrong. I can finally disprove it. Solids are actually compressible.

The train was completely utterly full. Now, when I say full it doesn't mean there are no seats or there are many people standing. I mean there is absolutely no air inside the train cuz people are crowded so close that I literally had my face stuck to the wall because there was no space to move a single inch.

When the train stopped at that station however, at least - at the very least - 15 people got on the train. How is that possible? That's easy. Humans are solids, by the old wrong rule, they are incompressible. Apparently, humans ARE compressible, I saw it, they were able to compress 15 people into a completely full train. Like any compression attempt this requires tremendous pressure. That came in the form of 2 people outside the train who were helping push the extra people into the train from outside. As the doors started to close they couldn't because people were still stuck there. So with some effort and alot of heaving, those 2 good people were able to compress the extra people in.

That didn't affect my breathing directly, I mean, there was no air to start with. But now, besides having my face stuck to the wall, I also had someone's elbow stuck to my chest and I lost ground. There was no place to put 2 feet down anymore, that was a luxury. I only had one foot on the ground. The other was in the air.

Did I mention it was an extremely hot day? Did I mention the temperture was 36 degrees Celsius? I probably forgot didn't I? Well, it was that hot. And people were sweating like crazy and...well...lets just say that at least 95% "forgot" to put on their deodorant in the morning.

11 stations later, I struggled to reach the door. This was my exit. This was finally my chance to get out! There were 2 other people getting off the train. I readied myself and as the door opened, I had to endure the reverse tug-of-war game again - but to a lesser degree since it is a less popular station.

As I walked out into the scourging heat - I absolutely loved it. It was hot, humid and stinky...but I absolutely loved it. Anything at all (maybe excluding Hell itself) would have been better than the train!

When I get my beautiful car back I will treat her better than my best friend!