Theme song: La Niña de Puerta Oscura
I programmed a bit for the first time, in a very long while and thus stayed waay to late at the office. At quarter to ten, I left the building at Humlegårdsgatan and headed for Tunnelgatan. It closes at 2200 hours, so I still had time to walk through it. On my way through, I pass by a uniformed man with 200 keys strapped to his waist. He talked on his cellphone, looked at me for a short while and continue talking. When I reached the end of the tunnel, I realized that man I passed earlier, just locked the tunnel end. The big iron gates was sealed with two big locks. I quickly turned around and walked back, to the other entrance. I now noticed I was alone in the long tunnel.
The key-loving man almost closed the last gate when he saw me running towards him and I merely managed to not spend the night inside that scary tunnel. Man, I was relieved. Had to walk up the David Bagare hill. Later down at Sveavägen I felt the hunger. And oh what a hunger for food it was. Last meal I had was lunch! Damn. Had to get something to eat. So, I stopped by 7-Eleven and picked up a bulgur salad.
When I got out through the door of 7-Eleven and stopped a the road crossing, leading to the other side of the road where I must walk, I see a man waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. He obviously want to cross the road, just like myself, but in the opposite direction. But that didn’t catch my interest. What did catch my eyes what was he where holding in his hand – a hot dog! Look like the most delicious meal I’ve ever seen. The hot dog stand was right next to the man.
The lights turned green, we both crossed the road in opposite directions. And just as I was about to shout “a big delicious hot dog, please!” the man in the stand shut the door and closed. Right in front of me!
So, I continued my journey back home.
Nothing of interest happened for the next kilometer or so. But when I reached the darker parts of Tegnérlunden, a figure emerged towards me from the shadows, waving his hands like saying “hey, you, hold it right there”. Turned out he was a very humble Latvian guy, who was visiting Sweden. He told me he met the most wonderful girl and got her number. We stood there and talked for a while and I helped him get her on the line. He had no idea what telephone number prefix Sweden has.
We said goodbye, I wished him good luck and my pace was retained. Now heading down upplandsgatan. Began thinking about I should have had film in my camera and snapped a shot or two of the strange yet very pleasant latvian guy. My thought quickly turned to the Mamiya 6 120-system. I’m currently speculating in buying a 6x6 camera and the Mamiya 6 seems to be just what I need.
In the display window of Schönherrs Photography shop, something catches my eye. I pass it by very fast. Halt my steps and… Hey, wasn’t that a… no.. I took a few steps back and heck! A pristine Mamyia 6 with ALL THREE lenses. Haven’t seen it before and I’m passing by that store every day, so it must be new. Now, this is kinda strange, but even stranger was the price. Almost exactly the amount of which I earlier today sold my old PowerMac for. Couldn’t believe it. If I’d been a bit more superstitious, I would certainly have thought this was meant to happen. But the only thing I could do was to stand there and think. Think on and on about this very basic set of variables and facts. The store was of course closed, it’s late, so I continued walking home.
The Vasa park is a somewhat scary place at night time. Only a few lights in the outskirts and sometimes a few youngsters mocking around with each other without a destination. But this evening I literally walked into an old date. What was she doing there in the middle of the night?! Haven’t seen her since our date. Maybe half a year ago. Turned out she was meeting a friend nearby and was later this year going travel for a while. She had a thick book with letters reading “Philippines”.
We made an easy goodbye, wished each-other some luck. La Niña de Puerta Oscura just finished playing in my iPhone and Seu Jorge kicked in, following me all the way home. And now that I’ve written this down, it’s time for me to enjoy my dinner – a now very delicious salad from 7-Eleven.