Sub Par

The Stockholm subway system is in no way either sex, fricadelles or cointreau and should thusly have no place in the blog of a single girl trying, as it were, to cure her own ham.

Or to put it plainly: the Stockholm subway system is neither sex, drugs or rock n’roll and should thusly have no place in the blog of a single girl who is supposed to be writing on food but who is finding it hard to keep on topic, what with the current lack of arm-candy.

It is however, reminicent enough of a bad date to merit a posting: smelly, slow and newly ridiculous. Case in point: the station announcements. They are translated. Like this: “plinplinpling ODENPLAN” that is, a little jingle and then the name of the station, ODENPLAN, is translated to “next stop: ODENPLAN”.  Take a pause and think about the sheer idiocy.

And hopping on, off track: when got out of subway tonight, having payed a visit to my grandmother and mown her lawn, was bumped straight from the fumes of the compressed “humanity” riding the slow train to dullsville into the scent of my ex-ex-ex (jesus, it really has been a while) boyfriends mothers perfume.

Now, I do not miss the boyfriend. I certainly do not miss the mother. But I do miss the nights of sitting out in their greenhouse, vines overhead and tomatoes all around, eating shrimp and roquefort and listening to the swilling of the sea and the swooping of the bats.

I am not a sentimentalist. I take nostalgia as a sure sign, the way the cloggy green snot at end of cold is sign of healing. A sign it is time to get a hobby. Or for lack of stamina, a short term obsession.

So I shall learn how to mend a punctured tyre and then I shall take some days out of my vaccation and ride my bike from Skåne to next stop: ODENPLAN. It is about 700 kilometers. What to pack?