Lately I decided to do something for my teeth. I had already bought an expensive toothpaste, but I was still brushing with the hardest toothbrush there is – the most ordinary Tesco one. Combined with the Paradontax paste, my teeth and gums hardly bled anymore, but it still wasn’t right, because it also hurt. After talking it over with others, I decided to buy an expensive but effective and “painless” toothbrush, and that it would be the Curaprox cs3960 Super Soft Sensitive.
So I went to catch the train at 14:45, planning to be in Cesky Tesin at 16:00 and hopefully get it within an hour. Online I had also found a map showing where the medical supply shops are in Tesin – it never even occurred to me that a pharmacy might have it, since 80% of the pharmacies had no syringes at all back when I was looking for them. I had no time to print the map, so I just took a photo of it with my camera (unfortunately the lens was somehow fogged up, so the quality wasn’t great, but it was good enough). I got to the station at 15:25 and waited until about 15:45.
The display case had information about the track closure that is, or soon will be, in effect on both lines crossing Ropice. There was also information about which trains will run and which won’t. In short, all local trains will run in both directions, although in the direction from Tesin with a 21-minute delay. Some express trains will run and others won’t – they will be replaced by local trains and replacement bus service. Trains from Cadca were supposed to run normally, but mine somehow didn’t come, and above all it wasn’t listed in the closure timetable. It is listed online, though, and no closure is mentioned there:
And that wasn’t all.
When I got there, a van pulled up next to the electrical cabinets marked with a “T” (what it means I don’t know; the only thing that comes to mind is Trail, or rather Train, but the real meaning is surely something completely different). I don’t know what voltage is in those cabinets. It looked something like this (I really apologize for the photo quality; I only polished the lens afterwards, so this shot is still foggy):
The guy in white, though, was a real slacker; I have no idea why he was there. He didn’t say a word, the guy in blue did everything, including the swearing, probably when moving the wires around and switching off the breakers wasn’t going well. In the end they just closed and locked the cabinets and left. I was afraid that the electricity would get the guy in overalls and what would happen then – whether it would also get the guy in the hoodie if he tried to save him, and so on. I can’t imagine myself rescuing someone in a situation like that, for example restoring his breathing (say, with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation) or giving him any other first aid.
First, I have no idea what to do in such a situation, second, I had nothing with me for it, and third, given how slow and scatterbrained I am, I surely wouldn’t have saved him anyway. So at times I wanted to leave, train or no train, and at times I prayed that it would turn out fine. Back to the train: as I wrote, at 15:45 I headed home, because the next train was only due at about 16:35, and that would be pointless since everything closes at 17:00. Under the railway bridge in Ropice I ran into my mom and dad, who were speeding off to Karvina.
They dropped me off in Tesin and I followed the map to the first medical supply shop, which was supposed to be opposite the Tesin Paper Mills. But it wasn’t there, only a drugstore, and I didn’t go in. So I walked across half the town to Komensky Park. But I didn’t find the shop from the map there either. So I took a few photos and headed to Tesco. There, too, I had no luck with Curaprox. As for crap like Colgate, Signal, or brands I had never heard of in my life and hope I never will again, because the design alone was awful, there was more than enough of that.
Of the expensive and better ones there were only 2 Sensodyne, one discounted to 75 CZK, and the Parodontox that I ended up buying. The other Sensodyne cost 95 CZK and my Parodontox 90 CZK. I still couldn’t make up my mind what to buy, or whether to buy anything at all, so in the end I decided that since I already have the Parodontox toothpaste, I’ll buy the toothbrush too – after all, the price is the “golden mean“. I also had a look at the toothpastes and found that Parodontox is clearly the most expensive.
I paid with the last 100 CZK note I had in my wallet and went back to Billa. There I had to wait 30 minutes for my parents to come back from Karvina, and then we drove home. 😀
And as always, some photos from the trip are here:
This URL stopped leading anywhere long ago – the GPS lost its signal for good.