I live in Stockholm, Sweden. We have a subway system. Not only that, but transport went by bus and train, too. Oh, did I mix my grammatical tenses? I did. Why? Am I lazy? Is it because of the spell-checker in my web-browser?
Or could it be the fucking cold has killed parts of my brain? Most definitely.
This Saturday, X, The Pirate Cats and myself were celebrate Criz's birthday and moving in with her boyfriend at their place, which is located on the same subway-line that X and I live on. But wait up, I'm moving too fast.
In the morning of said Saturday, I met up with Jesper, his girlfriend Malin, Stephan, Peter and Tenne. We all collated to help Malin move in with Jesper, so I went by subway to Slussen, changed to the red line for Hornstull. No problems there, everything went as it should. Put some more intensified feeling of distress, frustration and hate into those italics, will you, please? We did our thing, ending me up in Huddinge. As I was to go home by Huddinge train station, the signs said everything was delayed. At the time I reached the station, the trains were delayed by 45 minutes already. Add 45 minutes of waiting to that. Then triple the time it usually takes for the train to reach its destination. I then walked from Södra station to Medborgarplatsen, heard three different announcements over the speakers and waited for 45 minutes for the subway train to come. The train travelled two stations before their system broke down, and I had to wait 30 minutes in the open, blistering cold at Gullmarsplan for a replacement bus and was lucky enough to see it go the entire distance. It took 30 minutes before I got home.
Back to the future; X and I were underway towards Slussen, on our subway line. While sitting down a guy, maybe 15 years old, sat down in a seat two jumps in front of mine, one eye very swollen, face filled with wounds and gushing blood. People jumped as they saw his face. Breathing heavily, he looked back and forth in the aisle in the middle of the subway cart, and stopped a lad smaller than himself, maybe 12-13 years old, who carried a plastic bag.
- Give me your bag. - What? Why should I? - Because I tell you to. Give it to me now.
And the boy gave the robber his plastic bag and walked away. A few seconds passed, and the latter went in the opposite direction of his victim. Nobody tried to stop the robber. I won't make excuses; I was afraid of him. I thought he'd might bleed on me and give me HIV; I'm telling you what went through my mind at the time. But I could have said something. Fuck.
We went on by subway towards Slussen, a station where we were to meet the Pirates. Or, rather, we crept forward. Crept. We met them, jumped on another subway which stopped at Alvik which is where our real problems began.
SL, Stockholms Lokaltrafik (which means Stockholm Public Transport), had "ordered buses" to replace the train for the remainder of our trip. As we stood in a sea of aggravated fellow travellers, we witnessed ONE bus come and go during our 40-minute stay there. We called Criz, told her we weren't coming to celebrate her and Daniel, and tried to get on the train back. Only, that train wasn't moving anywhere. And there was no train to begin with.
So we're stranded in the middle of Alvik, late evening at -8 degrees Celsius, with nowhere to go, and a seemingly ironic, non-aiding Stockholm Public Transport system to "back us up"?
T called for a taxi, waited 10 minutes in line to speak to an operator and soon thereafter, we were sitting in a warm car, almost got hit by a bus but were well on our way to the Pirates, where we de-frosted, warmed up, cuddled with their cats and drank the wines and spirits that we had brought along on our journey. Needless to say, we had to take a taxi home afterwards. But it was well worth it; and SL will pay for both of our fares.
I cannot state enough, through my decrepit body, how much I deplore and loathe the Stockholmian transport system at winter. I understand that this winter is exceptionally cold and long, but as I today sit sick, throat rattling more than that of Shane MacGowan and Tom Waits combined, I see a queue of people from my living-room. This queue is probably around 100 meters long, and they're all queuing up to go to work - by replacement bus.
The Stockholm Transport System's web site is down at the moment, either because 1) it's build by the people who run the Stockholm Transport System and it's just a synergy effect or 2) everybody in Stockholm wants to know if they're more likely to die on the way to work than actually get there. But the mobile site works, and the part in regards to delayed traffic on the subway says "all traffic above earth is cancelled" when it comes to the green line where I connect to traffic; how much of a bad joke is that?
So, without any respect and most due, I say: fuck you, SL. Get your shit together now.