A Walk on the A1

[oloriel]

While I was driving to university this morning - when I had just reached the highway - there was a huge traffic jam. There had been some accident apperently, though I don't know what exactly happened (I'll sure get to know tomorrow - if I get to read the newspaper). It was not the normal sort of traffic jam anyway, where you can inch forward at least a bit, but complete standstill. After a while, everyone shut down their engines (the really smart ones did so sooner than the others, but eventually everyone remembered how expensive gas is). After another while, most people got out of their cars - nothing was moving on the two lanes to Cologne - because it was getting too hot inside the cars. Soon most people had left their cars and tried to find out what had happened by glacing ahead. It's a weird feeling to walk on the highway, I can tell ya. Anyway, we didn't dare to go far, of course -it might go on after all. It didn't for quite some time. Someone distributed cigarettes among the waiting people; someone had some bottles of mineral waters; someone fave chewing gums and cookies to everyone. Almost a picnic, and that on the highway. People were talking about what might have happened, that hopefully it wasn't too bad, what a nice day it was, and so on. Everyone was really nice. Then we heard sirenes and went out of the way so the two ambulances could pass (they were driving back to where we others had been coming from). And soon after that, the queue began to move again and everyone sprinted back to their cars. Suddenly no one was nice anymore. Everyone began to push forward as fast as possible, and when the right lane was blocked because of whatever had happened - we only saw a lot of earth on the lane, some holes in the gras next to the highway, a police car, a crane - and all who had been driving had to get over on the left lane, those who were already there were quite reluctant to let them pull over. They did eventually, but not without honking and braking hard and bickering. Weird how the people who were so nice when we all waited turned so rude once they were driving again. ... and in the darkness bind them...

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Bin zu faul zum übersetzen. Vielleicht später.
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