Posted 23 April 2010 - 08:42 AM
Well, trains ARE hellishly expensive in Germany at least, and I guess further west as well. Here 2nd class trains are quite cheap, and quite tidy all things considered. My sis went to Milan the other week, went on some italian regional train and said ours are world class in comparison - she and her friend seriously contemplated standing through the whole trip in a mostly empty train, cos the seats were that dirty and sticky. And that's NORTH Italy, the part that's supposedly richer? I shudder at the thought of, say Campania, Calabria or Sicily.
So, from this perspective, flights are really effing expensive to me. Even cheap flight options like a flight from Berlin to Amsterdam Lufthansa offers, that's 360 PLN (that's something like 95 EUR). Consider now, while the minimum wage in Belgium is 1387, 1321 in France and 1462 in Ireland... in Poland it's 281. 306 in Czech Rep. Bulgaria - 123. Consider that along with the fact that international flights, hardware, software, all electronics, cars, well, often even real estate - they cost the same amount here as for you. This is a country where taking a loan for a buying a flat or house is often a 30 year contract.
So, you understand, people saying "nevurr with them peasants on a plane, RAWR" kinda makes my blood boil.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.