Marty and I have been taking a bus from Aalsmeer to Amsterdam each day to get to the conference. As part of the route the bus goes through the flower auction in Aalsmeer. But today, for whatever reason, the gates at the flower auction didn’t open to allow the bus to get through. The driver tried to get in touch with someone to get the gates opened but had no success at all. After about 10 minutes another bus approached that was coming out of the auction and the gate opened for it. Our driver quickly put the bus in reverse, changed lanes, and tried to drive the bus through the gap before the gates closed. He just wasn’t quick enough. When he realised that the bus wouldn’t go through the gap he jumped out and tried to use his body to stop the gate. This didn’t work either – he didn’t get crushed but he also couldn’t keep the gate open. Eventually another bus approached that was leaving the auction. This time we did get through the gates because we drove through before the other bus could.

On the way back to Aalsmeer on Monday night I got to find out how scary it is when a bus gets lost and drives down a road towards the oncomining traffic. To say nothing of what happens when a bus driver tries to reverse a large double length bus in a confined space.

I was going to write some stuff about the actual conference but I have another bus to catch.