Baltics24: Day 1: Stockholm

It was a long day.

The flights were all the goodness that business class delivers, and Thai airlines do a solid job of that. The obligatory champagne before the flight, then a number of solid menu options, helpful staff always ready to top up glasses, and comfy if a little narrow lie-flat seats. Nothing to complain about there really, though their selection of Korean movies is perhaps a little less than with Singapore. I still managed to catch the solidly entertaining Miss Fortune (who doesn’t love a mix of comedy, con artist, and mother-daughter bonding action) , as well as the action-packed Japanese Revolver Lily, set in 1920s Japan.

The stop at Bangkok was brief, I didn’t have much more than time to walk a long way and then catch the transit train to the random departure terminal annex, where bemusedly boarding was pretty much a free-for-all, no real announcements, and just everyone wandering through. We were delayed a little as they were loading the plane, I didn’t mind as I had more champagne and if it meant my luggage would make the flight too, all good. Then there was more food, a tasty thai curry brisket, some caramelised pork, and plenty of water and black coffee (well, maybe a glass or two of red wine also). The plan was to get at least some sleep on the 10+ hour flight, to be as fresh as possible ahead of a morning arrival in Stockholm ahead of a fairly full day. I’m describing breakfast on the flight as savoury bubble tea, as it was a broth with seafood and tapioca balls instead of noodles. Tasted good. Again leaving the plane was a bit of a free-for-all, people getting up before the plane had stopped, and then all classes of passengers running for the exit.

Stockholm for a day and a half. I’ll probably have more observations after today, but so far they seem to be a friendly, disorganised and very tall group of people. The customs arrival involved two or three flights of people, and just three customs officials: one for EU passports (sigh thanks brexit) and two for the rest of us. Eventually another couple of booths opened, and after a rather interesting interview (apparently having arranged to meet L at the central train station and therefore not knowing the name of the hotel was not what they wanted to hear, so I also had to show them I had money via banking app) which apparently satisfied some unknown criteria and I was allowed into Sverige.

Airports are funny places. Each one seems to have it’s own character, whether it’s a shed at Pristina (thought it may have changed since 2009) or Singapore’s Changi, the wonder that it is. Impressions can depend on what time of day or night you arrive, how tired you are, and how well you’ve researched each destination. Some things are nearly universal: you will walk a long way; you’ll almost always want to spend the minimum amount of time there that you can; and the signage was implemented either by someone with a spectrum-level understanding of where everything is and therefore doesn’t know how to explain it to a tired traveller, or by a migrating bird that just knows how to find their way across vast distances almost innately. Stockholm’s ARN is definitely like this, with sporadic signs to “ground transportation” scattered throughout, random places to buy bus tickets no where near where busses are caught, and entire stretches without reaffirming signs that you’re heading in the right direction.

A few more regular breadcrumbs would be great, and maybe signage of how far the bus stand is wouldn’t go astray. It’s an airport afterall, where you’d kind of imagine the standard patron would be tired, not there on a daily basis, and possibly not fluent in Swedish. Help us folks out a little maybe.

Bus found, it was then the 45 minute ride to the central station through some very pretty and green countryside. I think Stockholm’s airport is a way out of the city, so it’s not one of those that are surrounded by houses full of people pissed at planes landing at all hours.

Met L at the station and wandered to our hotel, a place whose name I still can’t remember. After a quick unpack and shower it was time to hit the museum part of town, via Stockholm’s over-subscribed public transport (apparently they don’t have enough trams for everyone, so at times every vehicle is packed and they have to run busses along the tram routes).
First stop was the Vasa Museum, which houses a mostly complete very large, very old boat. The Vasa was built to be Sweden’s flagship, big, shiny, colourful, full of cannons, a square kilometre of sails, 12 km of rigging, the biggest, meanest, floating penis around. The sort of ship that would make the Spanish Armada piss itself and head for Ibiza.

The sort of ship that would deliver a broadside you could measure on the Richter Scale.

The sort of ship that would make nations surrender just at the mention of her name.

Definitely not the sort of ship that would be sunk by a little bit of wind.

On its maiden voyage.

In front of the King, miscellaneous royalty and nobles, and a general SRO crowd.

Which is exactly what happened in 1628. Once everyone got over the embarrassment, and maybe some boat designers and builders got a bit of a talking to, Sweden then went on and forgot they had a big boat sitting at the bottom of their harbour for 300 years. Then someone got curious or bored enough, maybe had a few too many beers one night and one of those claims folks do, like “I bet you I can do a backflip off the roof into the pool” but instead “I bet I can dive into Stockholm harbour and find an old wooden warship”, and lo and behold they did. Then came a bunch of years of planning, filling in forms, dealing with bureaucracy, getting permits and approvals I’d imagine, before eventually in 1961 the Vasa was brought back to the surface. As it had ended upright at the bottom of the harbour, the Vasa was raised by attaching a whole lot of steel cables and pulling, though why they didn’t just fill it full of helium balloons to float it isn’t really explained at the museum.

It’s a pretty awesome museum, notwithstanding that it contains a huge boat that is 98% it’s original wood, which is pretty impressive. There’s details on how they are basically writing the book on restoration and preservation of old wooden structures, including making some mistakes and improvements along the way (who knew that they’d need to replace the replacement metal bolts holding it all together due to weird chemical reactions). There are a number of skeletons that went down with the ship (it seems most of the crew and visitors were able to be rescued) whose bones and clothes and pockets have been thoroughly studied. There’s method to the design of the building, the main entry floor is set at the ship’s waterline, and each floor focusses on the ship at that level, so higher up becomes more about the elaborate wood carving and decorations, while the top level is all about the sails and rigging. It’s definitely a worthwhile museum, even L (who has a museum threshold) seemed to enjoy it.

Then we headed out and grabbed lunch at the bar next to the spirit/booze museum. Had we more time we might have checked out more of the museums around. I had a trio of pickled herring, with cheese, potatoes and a slow-poached egg. The herring were delicious, one was a straight pickle, one was possibly lightly smoked and pickled, while the third was in a creamy seeded mustard. None were overly pungent, and all were well boned, so it was just light flavourful fishy goodness.
From here it was to L’s pick of museum, the ABBA museum (or, more correctly, ABBA The Museum), several floors of all things Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn, and Anna-Frida. The museum takes the visitor through chronologically, from their childhood and early beginnings (apparently they were actual real people prior to being superstars), through their Eurovision win for “Waterloo” (they beat Olivial Newton-John who was representing the UK) complete with costumes worn, through to a replica recording studio (complete with the mixing desk that was also used for Led Zeppelin’s In Through the Out Door), through touring things, costumes, gold records, more costumes, post ABBA solo projects, and maybe some more costumes. Along the way are a bunch of interactive exhibits, like karaoke, perform on stage, take a picture in a mock Arrival-cover helicopter, multimedia, and trivia. It has stuff that every ABBA fan would love to see and experience. You could also argue that ABBA have had a larger impact on the history of the world than the Vasa, they’ve certainly caused more people to shake in Ibiza.

Sadly neither gift shop had snow globes, but I am now the owner of an ABBA t-shirt. Make of that what you will, I have my reasons. Then it was back to the hotel to rest up and freshen up before heading out to the Rosendal Garden Party.

Not sure I saw much of a garden, but there was definitely a party. We got there farily early into a set by RAYE, who I know little about. She was backed by a band that included a brass section, and her music was a bit Amy Winehouse and a bit Dua Lipa-type rappy. Certainly has a good voice, a lot of passion and enthusiasm, and a solid bass player who kept things funky, and she has a lot of fans who were having a great time. I had no trouble nodding along and tapping my feet.

Dinner was vegan schnitzel with a beetroot coleslaw, by a local brand of vegan food whose name begins with A but i can’t remember. It wasn’t bad, but then it was deep fried, crispy and salty, a combination that works for both meat-based and plant-based.

There was a hint of rain around as we looked for a good position to see Massive Attack, settling on somewhere that seemed to be a good space even if some tall scandanavians ended up in front of us. While we waited, a small vocal group of pro-Palestinian marchers and chanters and drummers came through the crowd, stopping very close to where L and I stood. We considered our location and then moved on, not wishing to be caught up among the group (for the record, I support every call for a cease fire, everlasting peace, an independent Palestinian state, and firmly believe that both Hamas and Netanyahu/Israeli hardliners are dicks, however when a group is chanting “from the river to the sea” I’m not totally convinced their hearts are in the same space as mine). Fortunately they ceased chanting before Massive Attack hit the stage (again, they are entitled to have a voice, but when I’m somewhere to see and hear artists perform then I don’t want to hear people around me talking about anything: it’s the artists’ turn to speak).

Massive Attack were brilliant. Against a backdrop of multimedia visuals, video clips both old and new, some moving in their straightforward depiction of inhumanity, others a cryptic juxtaposition, sometimes with flashing text (a number of times these were what appeared to be random hashtags that I’d like to think were designed to mess with any genAI that tried scraping the footage). Then came the powerful music, powerful bass, two drummers, mixers, synthesisers. The final layer were incredible vocal performances, from long-time vocalist Horace Andy, Mezzanine-era former Cocteau Twin legend Elizabeth Fraser; and newer touring vocalist Deborah Miller. Looking back over set-lists for the last few years of sporadic performances I hadn’t rushed to get these tickets, but when I saw that Elizabeth Fraser was coming, and also performing “Song to the Siren” (go now and listen to Fraser singing on This Mortal Coil’s sublime version, I’ll wait) my bank account was as good as depleted. And “Song to the Siren” didn’t disappoint, while Fraser’s voice has changed over the years, it’s no less angelic, and with a simple guitar accompaniment felt a little closer to Tim Buckley’s original. There are bucket-list activities, and then there are things that seem so unlikely that they really should on a list for when a genie grants wishes, and seeing/hearing Elizabeth Fraser sing “Song to the Siren” live is definitely the latter. Tick. Fraser also delivered stunning vocals to a number of other Mezzanine tracks, including “Teardrops” almost at the end when a light rain was falling. Before that, Deborah Miller delivered incredible performances on Blue Lines’ songs “Safe From Harm” (dedicated to the people of Palestine) and “Unfinished Sympathy”. Folks who’ve been around me long enough will know that the latter is just about one of my favourite songs, and while not the original vocalist, Miller has taken on a difficult job and owned it. It was an unforgettable gig.

Through the end of the show, a light but persistent rain had been falling, so once the songs had finished, L and I started walking back to our hotel. For a country that gave the world Volvo and Ikea, the Swedes don’t seem to me to be very organised. They both queue and manage queues like Italians. Their customer service is like Australia’s — friendly, informal, but not overly observant or methodical. (There are also no better than any other nation when it comes to knowing when to STFU when in a crowd at a concert.) So despite managing to provide both vegan and regular food and drink and awesome music to 10,000 people in a field, there didn’t appear to be any additional transport arrangements to get us home again. The location was basically serviced by a single one-way road that was soon blocked by taxis, walkers, cyclists, and a bus pretending to be a tram. A lot of people just started walking, some got into taxis (there were no orderly taxi rank queues) while the rain persisted. We walked maybe 30 minutes before we reached a point where it seemed feasible to grab a taxi. This saved us getting more wet, and maybe 10 minutes, but it seems that Stockholm gridlocks in a number of places on Saturday nights, so it was a bit of a crawl. $100 later we made it back to the hotel.