Saturday, September 22, 2007

Your Cell Phone is Ringing in Stockholm! Answer it Quick!

I hate cell phones. With a passion. That being said, I own one. I held off for quite a while but now I have one. It is always on vibrate. Always. I think it is incredibly rude when cell phones are constantly ringing. Swedes don’t seem to mind. They are everywhere. Swedes can’t seem to live without their cell phones. And they are fancy.

Everyone wants to have the fanciest camera phone, the fanciest mp3 phone and they want to make sure to use it so everyone can see how fancy their phone really is. Maybe it’s because here in the Nordic countries there are some pretty big cell phone companies, Ericsson here in Sweden and then Nokia over in Finland. Maybe Swedes are just supporting the local economy by always buying the fanciest phones, or maybe they are just gadget happy and need something to play with in the dark winter months. I don’t know but the phones have it all here.

What really bothers me is the mp3 stuff. People hang out on the subway and trains playing their music on their phone out loud so that everyone is subject to awful Swedish pop music or whatever songs the owner chooses to torture us with.

If you ever find yourself waiting in Stockholm for a train or subway take a look down the platform. What you’ll see is at least half of the people waiting are on their phone. If they aren’t on their phone they are getting it out of their pocket to check the time, check their text messages, or getting ready to type a text message. It’s absolutely incredible.

Phones are always ringing, and loudly. I think Swedes as a general rule must have hearing problems because I can’t figure out any other reason why the rings have to be so very loud. And when that phone rings I swear it’s like a druggie getting their fix. Faces light up, excitement overtakes them, you can see the endorphins running through their bodies, they even shake a little bit as they reach for their phone. Now everyone knows how important they are.

This is the first time I’ve ever lived in a bigger city so maybe this isn’t unique to Stockholm, maybe all big cities are like this. I hope not. It seems like such a rude and disconnected way to live your life.

7 comments:

  1. I so agree with you! I was Stockholm for only a couple days and EVERYONE was on the phone and listening to cheesy music.

    And yep, people freak out when the trains are two minutes late. :)

    Thank god, I will be visiting Stockholm in a week !!! I miss my Swedes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Swedes are a special breed for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, really? In what way? Listen, that punctuality-thing is just a myth. Why would I freak out if the bus is two minutes late? The bus I usually take is usually like 4-5 minutes late, I would be incredibly glad if it came only two minutes late. Please, Americans, stop spreading out those fucking stereotypes. Well, except that one about all the girls being extremely good-looking, which btw is not a myth :P

    ReplyDelete
  4. In San Francisco, we have the ipod
    addicts, but ever since the iphone
    arrived it pretty much associates with your descriptions of the stockholm scene.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @ anonymous - somehow I missed commenting on this. so much anger from the usual pacifist swede (see what I did there? just another stereotype). And I stand by my statement that people start get antsy and freaking out if the bus or subway is 2 minutes late. I even find myself doing it now.

    @anonymous - maybe the good people of San Francisco are a bit more technologically advanced. And your comment almost read like poetry the way it was broken up. I like it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "awful Swedish pop music" :P Yeah right, all of the kids in Sweden listen to awful AMERICAN pop music. :)

    But I do agree that the Swedish pop music is just as bad as the American kind.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Im pretty sure all pop music is pretty awful

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.