Mattie Valk experienced an embarrassing moment during his train journey from London. A Eurostar flight attendant knocked him out of his seat during that ride. “I just had to move.”
It is a well-known saying: a cheeky person has half the world. And the Dutch celebrities are brutal. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out very well for Mattie Valk. “I was in London a while ago and I went by train. Nice anyway, because then you go under the water, don’t you?”, says the radio DJ in his program op Qmusic.
Just say hello
Mattie was satisfied with his seat on the outward journey (‘such a very nice seat that I sat alone at the window’), but: “On the way back I entered that compartment and saw that I was in a two-seater sat. A man was sitting at the window to my left, so I was sitting to his right. And then I thought: ah, okay, less fun than sitting by the window on your own.”
He decided to make the best of it. “I sit next to him, so I say: ‘Hello!’ It was an Englishman, so: ‘Hello.’ I put down my laptop that I had brought with me, I get a cup of coffee from that woman on the train and in the meantime his one earbud falls on the floor and I pick it up for him.”
Suitable guy
If you are used to the luxury of a Tesla, sitting in a cabin on the train takes some getting used to. “You also know: I will sit next to this man for 3.5 hours, we are travel buddies without you wanting it. He was a very suitable guy in himself, because you will always just have someone who either smells a little or snores a little. This was a very suitable pear.”
Still, Mattie was still gnawing at the fact that he didn’t have a private seat. “So that train is leaving and a seat on the right side of me was left open. That was one of those window seats I had on the way there, so then I thought: am I going to leave it and in what way and how do you explain it? Do I move a meter and a half?”
‘Nothing personal’
Mattie decided to move. “I think: I will gather my courage and I will just say it. Van: it’s still possible, because we’re only ten minutes away. The mini break up. I say: ‘Listen, it’s nothing personal, but I prefer to sit at the window, so I’m gonna sit in that chair over there.’ ‘No problem, buddy, no problem, buddy.‘
According to him, a whole ‘population migration’ followed. “I sit in the chair by the window, the door flies open and a woman comes in with all kinds of bags.”
Sent away
That woman was looking for the chair that Mattie had sat on. “I see her searching through the compartment and I hear the assistant of that train say: ‘It should be here, I think. I think it’s seat 17.’ And I was in seat 17 for just one minute.”
Celebrities or not: Mattie was sent back to his actual seat. “Then you have to move. I had to go back and I sat next to that man again. I said: ‘Here I am again.‘”
What a story…