I decided to go for a little ride to Uetliberg this evening. Some people from church told me it is very beautiful there. It’s only a short ride from here – the same train line as I use to get from Zurich to here.
The next stop after I got on, a family of Arabs took a long time getting on the train. They held the doors open so long that the driver started blowing his whistle! They sat in my carriage and eventually “found” me. Turns out they had been trying to buy tickets but having problems with the machine. The father wanted to know how he could pay for the three tickets he had not managed to buy. Simple answer is as long as there is no inspector on the train, you will be able to buy your tickets at the destination. If you do get caught, you will have to pay 80 francs fine. That’s the system. The man could not or would not understand me. I think he had been drinking.
We reached Uetliberg and I helped him with the ticket machine. At one point he lost 20 francs. I noticed that the machine had a light on saying “no banknotes”. Maybe his had got jammed. Anyway they didn’t seem too worried, not without the odd bob or two, I’d guess. The wife was still trying to stuff notes in and I calmly and politely yelled “No!” and insisted that they continue using some of the coins they had got as change from the other 20 franc notes they had put in.
Anyway the next crisis was that they did not remember where they had got on the train. Their Indian taxi driver was waiting there for them! So next thing I know, the man hands me his mobile and tells me to ask the taxi driver where he is. Now I don’t normally have trouble with Indian accents, but this was a stonker and I could not make it out.
Eventually I left them to their own devices. I wanted to go climb to the top of the hill and see the view. It was fantastic. Didn’t take photos because the light was fading and I am not sure they would do justice to the view anyway.