The new Stockholmare

So there it began, the big city life. It has been more than two years since I lived in a big city, where personal space becomes so precious, ridiculously expensive and hard to find, and it all starts in the metro system.

Everyday I wake up at six o' clock in the morning, go out to get some cigarettes, coffee and fix a little breakfast with a morning newspaper. In no more than two hours I would be out waiting for the commute train, pendeltåg, to take me from the suburbs, where I live with a very kind Swedo-Egyptian family, to Stockholm Central, then I take the red line tube train to Karlaplan, and walk for a few minutes to Radiohuset, where I work.

In the tubes, people go out of their way not to look you in the eye, but since there are people everywhere, all trying not to look at each other, they end up looking at each other. It is kind of funny in a way, how silly us grown ups can be. Some people just duck their faces between newspaper pages, and those fortunate enough to sit by the window, look outside.

In the tube it is like there are unspoken rules: You should sit in the farthest point possible from the next person, and you never, ever, talk to strangers unless you really had an emergent question. (some of them turn out amusing, for example 'excuse me, can you show me the way to your heart', 'ah sorry, that train is occupied').