Purchasing a 24-Hour Transit Ticket in Stockholm to ride the Tunnelbana and the Buss

Last week, I was in Stockholm for a grand total of 3.5 days for my class reunion. Sara had suggested I stay my first night at the Radisson Blu, which she said was right where I'd get off the ArlandaExpress terminal in the central Stockholm train station (T-Centralen) and therefore super convenient. 

But when I got off the ArlandaExpress train, which was high speed, quiet and clean -- everything New York trains can't seem to manage in their wildest dreams -- when I got off the train and looked at Google Maps, the Radisson Blu seemed kind of distant. Seemed like I need to walk down the main drag and then go around the bottom of the station or something. I set off. 

And fifteen minutes later, had walked in a giant circle ending up about 20 feet from where I was before, right out front the Radisson Blu. I'm going to blame it on jet lag. The Radisson Blu was basically in T-Centralen.  

I went up to my room, dropped off my suitcase and headed back down to T-Centralen for a cup of coffee. Afterwards, when I got back up to my room, I decided I was hungry and went back down to the station.  Then I went back up to my room. While there, I realized I had forgotten my power converter. So I went back down to T-Centralen and bought one and then came back up to my room to go to the bathroom. 

This continued for several hours, during which time I managed to have fika with Thomas and his girlfriend (by the bus side of the train station) and coffee and then later lunch with Eva (right in the main concourse of the train station.) The guy at the front desk of the Radisson Blue thought I had some sort of mental disorder I'm sure. I probably walked back and forth 900 times in 4 hours.

But then I got serious. It occurred to me that I needed to purchase a subway ticket and the last time I rode the subway in Stockholm it was pretty much the dark ages. It was way back when the tickets cost different amounts depending on where you were headed. Like if you were going somewhere only two stops away, the tickets were cheaper than if you were going to the end of the line.

I recall this scenario very well because it had a super traumatizing consequence. Just after I got back to NYC in the early 90s after living in Stockholm for 18 months, I marched up to a ticket booth woman in Penn Station. I announced, "I'm going to Brooklyn!!" 

And the woman stared at me and then said all laconic like, "Good for you, honey." She slid my token under the window and went back to staring at her bedazzled fingernails. In NYC, a token cost what a token cost.  You didn't have to tell anyone where you were headed.

Given the horror of this experience, I felt I needed to really prepare to purchase a tunnelbana (subway) ticket in Stockholm. Early on, I decided not to use one of the ticket machines, because there was a big decision to be made. Did I buy the single trip tickets, or, did I buy a 24-hour ticket. There were many factors at play, for example, there's a one-time fee when you buy the single-trip card (the so-called "Reskassa.") 

Lots of new words to learn in order to not make a heinous subway-related error but also because the conversation, of course, should transpire in Swedish. I kind of regarded the whole affair as a grand adventure and it would totally be cheating if I didn't embrace the challenge at its fullest.

So I go back down to T-Centralen and marched up to one of the info booths in the middle of the station. I began in my finest Swedish to explain that I could not decide between the reskassa or the 24-hour ticket, and mentioned how many trips I'd be taking and where, etc.

The info booth guy stared at me speechless for what seemed like an eternity. Long enough that I had this post-traumatic flashback of the NYC subway lady. 

Then he said, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Swedish. Can you speak English?"

WTF.

Anyway, I got the 24-hour ticket.