easy journey

It happened outside Gatwick; I had returned from yet another potentially career-defining trip. The EasyBus to London was almost ready to depart. Three potential customers were standing on the sidewalk next to the orange van, unsure about how to proceed. Wagging the glowing screens of cell phones at each other, the hoped to resolved the situation. In vain. They had flown in on Virgin and booked in expectation of the usual delay but arrived on time. Now they were early, all of a sudden.

The driver, with his raspy laugh and bushy grey hair, jovially told them he was probably too full to take them though only a handful of seats were taken. He offered the hop over to the South Terminal but warned that he might have to leave them there. "Make it easy on yourself", he said, taking his seat behind the wheel. "I have to go. Sorry." And with another laugh he put the foot down.

EasyBus drivers are usually in their early thirties, hail from less fortunate parts of the world, have an air of perpetual bafflement about them, and pilot the orange Mercedes as if it were a cruise missile locked on target, with scant regard for the machine and none at all for speed limits. There are between two and three journeys an hour to Gatwick and four to Stansted, in all weather and traffic conditions, and the vans always arrive safely. That they don't regularly explode in fatal crashes is a total mystery to me.

Tonight's driver was different, an elderly gentleman with a faint American accent. Instead of the regular drivers' high-visibility vests he wore a white shirt with a logo as discreet as an orange logo can be. I almost didn't notice him as a driver. When I sat down it occurred to me that he might be a manager in disguise, so removed was he from the usual ragtag bunch. Maybe he was the CEO doing reconnaissance at the front lines, inspecting the troops to see how the new corporate strategy plays out in the real world. He certainly looked disheveled enough to be in disguise but appeared overall too comfortable with the job for it to be assumed for the night only.

The wild Rastafarian on the way out yesterday morning certainly didn't pretend anything. He took his place behind the wheel and bellowed a stern "No eating or drinking on the bus, please" by way of greeting - more than I normally get but still not exactly welcoming - and proceeded to pound the poor van as if he considered punishing the vehicle one of the perks of the job. We made it to the North Terminal in 58 minutes, a new record for me.

My trip was on Air Berlin, with that airline for the first time in half a dozen years. As before, I regretted that it didn't fly to more destinations on my radar. Air Berlin is a curious hybrid, conceived as a budget airline with the mission to blow Lufthansa out of the comfortable water of a near-monopoly. Maybe the task was too easy, because the newcomer never tried too hard to be budget. The snacks aboard were always free, the seats selectable in advance, and checking luggage never cost. And with everyone cutting costs to survive the recession, they've gone the opposite way. This time, everyone got a chocolate heart upon disembarking and there were more free newspapers than at Lufthansa, stacks piled higher than at your newsagent. There were also magazines. When was the last time you got a free Economist on board?

Why you would want to read an Economist in these volatile times is a different question. The Greek basket case is fraying so badly that no one realizes the 30% discount on stocks are a good deal. (Have you noticed that investors get purchasing urges mostly when things are expensive?) I opened the magazine from the back, avoiding the trauma of economic and current affairs news. A book review caught my eye, David Bellos ruminating on the art of translation and some of the oddities of languages, certainly something I'd like to read.

The review alone made some curious connections, mentioning for example the fact that the French language has two words for the word word, if you get what I'm saying. In my understanding, mot is grammatical while parole is more metaphorical. You can give someone the parole, for example, but not the mot. Hungarian was also mentioned, a language that does one better than German where you have compound words that can stretch to two dozen letters. (Everyone should have a Haftpflichtversicherung, for example.) But German compounds are always words in meaning. Hungarian compounds can be more complex.

I was reminded of a chapter in the book I'm currently reading, On the Road to Babadag, where the Polish author visits a place in Hungary called Sátoraljaújhely, which apparently literally means "a tent pitched in a new place". I wouldn't know, I don't speak any Hungarian, but I do remember the flashy új! on products (not tents but novelties) in Hungarian supermarkets, which is consistent with the translation.

As the EasyBus navigated the airport roads, I fell into a deep reverie about traveling the forgotten east of Europe, a region of obscure languages, cultures and customs, a region to take pictures and collect stories, a region I have yet to see. I've never made it beyond Romania in any direction. Maybe next year will give me the chance at least.

In less than five minutes we got to the South Terminal. More travelers were waiting than were already on the bus and it took a while to check and sell tickets. Luggage needed to be stowed and passengers sorted out, but none of this took much time and soon we were on our way. Four seats remained unoccupied.