One hell of a wekend!
Or a weekend from hell? At least the end of it...
Went down to Stockholm on friday night. Came down pretty late so Jenny-Jen came to meet me since I cant run very fast these days, incase someone would attac me....
I was a bit scared I wouldn't sleep at night, since last time I pretty much spent the whole night having maternity sweats. But I actually did sleep some this time so after sitting down pretty much the whole saturday during lecture, I said screw you to my back pain and went with JJ to her sis's to have an awesome dinner and watch Eurovision Song Contest.... or so I thought. Apparently it was just one of those pre-contests. How are you supposed to know when the "real" contest is these days? Im utterly confused...
Since me and JJ are old ladies nowadays, we picked a ride home with her beau around 9.30pm.
On sunday morning it was time for the second day of lectures. I got up at 6.30am, got dressed, took my cabin luggage and dragged it through Narnia (that's how it looks like down there with all the snow...) to the subway. When I finally got to the subway the lady at the desk told me that all trains were canceled. At the same time I saw a trin coming in to the station: "but I see a train coming in right now" I said, and so she shrugged her shoulders and let me buy a ticket. But as soon as the train has stopped all passengers got off the train and I heard the driver say that the station was the last one and everyone had to get off and take a bus instead.
So, we all went like lemmings to what we thought were the bus station from where we were gonna take the bus. We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.... Finally a busdriver told os that we had to go to the bus station on the other side of the road to get to where we were going. So, about 30 people the crossed the road to reach the right stop, or so we thought. And so we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited....
I finally called JJ to update her about my misery. She then called traffic information to see what was going on.
Apparently almost all subway lines were at a stand still, and we all were standing at the wrong bus station!!! The right one were way further on down the road, thanks SL... Fortunately they have something called "travelers warranty" that was active that morning, so I got to take a cab to my class. Very nice since it was -20 degrees outside and I was way tired of waiting....
So, I got to my class, and during the first break I hear a girl talking about how all the national trains coming/going through Stockholm also were at a stand still. I called Jesper and asked him to check online, the website was down... I tried calling SJ, their phone service didn't work....
After class I got an automated phone call from SJ where they informed me about the stand still and thanked all their passenegers for their understanding.
When I got to the central station it was CROWDED. Allmost all trains had been canceled druing the day so all passengers were standing/sitting/sleeping, waiting for their train.
My train was supposed to leave at 6.30pm. Up until 6.30pm the borad in the passengers hall didnt show any delays whatsoever for my train, so I was foolish enough to think that was going to be the case... After spending and hour going back and forth between platforms I gave up. I then bumped in to a colleague of mine, so we took turns sitting/looking at the board for updates.
I was just about to give up completely and spend another night in Stockholm when we finally got to get on our train, about 2h later than scheduled. I had booked an X2000, which is the faster train, since my back start hurting if I sit down for too long. Of course the train they finally put us on was and old one... When I asked the ticket lady how much longer the trip was gonna take she told me: "Oh it wont be that much differenc, maybe about 10 minutes longer". Ok, I thought to myself, that's not that bad.
When we were about 15 minutes away from Gävle the train stopped. Another train, going in the opposite direction, was on the same track as us so we had to wait for it to move. So we waited for about 15 minutes. When the train had just left Gävle station it stopped again. They then told us another train had skipped the tracks further on, so we now had to wait for about 20 minutes for an oncoming train to reach Gävle so we could use their tracks, we started moving after about 35 minutes.... Ok, finally we were on our way home. But noooo, we never accelerated as expected. We then were told that there was some sort of signal and gear malfunction because of the cold so the train couldnt go faster than about 5 miles/h, nice....
Eventually the train speeded up. I got to Söderhamn right after 12am instead of 8.30pm. Need I say I was tired?
A hint for Sl and SJ: Maybe you should remember this for next winter: Winter in Sweden = snow and cold weather. If you start working now maybe you have time to come up with a solution in time before next winter. But then again you'll probably be busy for the rest of the year with probmles caused by warmer weather and melting snow (called spring), flowers in bloom and trees covered with green leafes (summer), rain and leafes falling down (fall) and before you know it were back to whats normally called WINTER, poor you....
Went down to Stockholm on friday night. Came down pretty late so Jenny-Jen came to meet me since I cant run very fast these days, incase someone would attac me....
I was a bit scared I wouldn't sleep at night, since last time I pretty much spent the whole night having maternity sweats. But I actually did sleep some this time so after sitting down pretty much the whole saturday during lecture, I said screw you to my back pain and went with JJ to her sis's to have an awesome dinner and watch Eurovision Song Contest.... or so I thought. Apparently it was just one of those pre-contests. How are you supposed to know when the "real" contest is these days? Im utterly confused...
Since me and JJ are old ladies nowadays, we picked a ride home with her beau around 9.30pm.
On sunday morning it was time for the second day of lectures. I got up at 6.30am, got dressed, took my cabin luggage and dragged it through Narnia (that's how it looks like down there with all the snow...) to the subway. When I finally got to the subway the lady at the desk told me that all trains were canceled. At the same time I saw a trin coming in to the station: "but I see a train coming in right now" I said, and so she shrugged her shoulders and let me buy a ticket. But as soon as the train has stopped all passengers got off the train and I heard the driver say that the station was the last one and everyone had to get off and take a bus instead.
So, we all went like lemmings to what we thought were the bus station from where we were gonna take the bus. We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.... Finally a busdriver told os that we had to go to the bus station on the other side of the road to get to where we were going. So, about 30 people the crossed the road to reach the right stop, or so we thought. And so we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited....
I finally called JJ to update her about my misery. She then called traffic information to see what was going on.
Apparently almost all subway lines were at a stand still, and we all were standing at the wrong bus station!!! The right one were way further on down the road, thanks SL... Fortunately they have something called "travelers warranty" that was active that morning, so I got to take a cab to my class. Very nice since it was -20 degrees outside and I was way tired of waiting....
So, I got to my class, and during the first break I hear a girl talking about how all the national trains coming/going through Stockholm also were at a stand still. I called Jesper and asked him to check online, the website was down... I tried calling SJ, their phone service didn't work....
After class I got an automated phone call from SJ where they informed me about the stand still and thanked all their passenegers for their understanding.
When I got to the central station it was CROWDED. Allmost all trains had been canceled druing the day so all passengers were standing/sitting/sleeping, waiting for their train.
My train was supposed to leave at 6.30pm. Up until 6.30pm the borad in the passengers hall didnt show any delays whatsoever for my train, so I was foolish enough to think that was going to be the case... After spending and hour going back and forth between platforms I gave up. I then bumped in to a colleague of mine, so we took turns sitting/looking at the board for updates.
I was just about to give up completely and spend another night in Stockholm when we finally got to get on our train, about 2h later than scheduled. I had booked an X2000, which is the faster train, since my back start hurting if I sit down for too long. Of course the train they finally put us on was and old one... When I asked the ticket lady how much longer the trip was gonna take she told me: "Oh it wont be that much differenc, maybe about 10 minutes longer". Ok, I thought to myself, that's not that bad.
When we were about 15 minutes away from Gävle the train stopped. Another train, going in the opposite direction, was on the same track as us so we had to wait for it to move. So we waited for about 15 minutes. When the train had just left Gävle station it stopped again. They then told us another train had skipped the tracks further on, so we now had to wait for about 20 minutes for an oncoming train to reach Gävle so we could use their tracks, we started moving after about 35 minutes.... Ok, finally we were on our way home. But noooo, we never accelerated as expected. We then were told that there was some sort of signal and gear malfunction because of the cold so the train couldnt go faster than about 5 miles/h, nice....
Eventually the train speeded up. I got to Söderhamn right after 12am instead of 8.30pm. Need I say I was tired?
A hint for Sl and SJ: Maybe you should remember this for next winter: Winter in Sweden = snow and cold weather. If you start working now maybe you have time to come up with a solution in time before next winter. But then again you'll probably be busy for the rest of the year with probmles caused by warmer weather and melting snow (called spring), flowers in bloom and trees covered with green leafes (summer), rain and leafes falling down (fall) and before you know it were back to whats normally called WINTER, poor you....
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