Viking Cinderella

A weekend in Stockholm, Sweden

By Rod Loboz

May 25^th, 2025

"Where are you from?", someone shouted from the audience. "It's not where I'm from, it's where I'm at, brother!" snapped back Christian Lembach, the Whores' vocalist and guitarist.

I had flown to Stockholm to catch them live. The plane landed after lunch and I took the Arlanda Express which connects the airport with Stockholm’s Central Station in the city center. The hotel was a short walk away, and after checking in I took a short nap.

Around 6:30 pm, I took the metro and got off at Globen station. Stockholm's metro system offers comprehensive coverage across the city and stretches into residential suburbs, with multilevel stations and a dynamic layout where trains weave in and out of tunnels, dipping underground and coming back up to cross bridges connecting the city's many islands. Stepping out onto the platform, I found myself amidst many ice hockey fans, many of them wearing Czechia’s national team jerseys. They streamed up the stairs and headed toward the Avicii Arena, where the Ice Hockey World Championship was underway. I turned right at the start of the flyover leading to the arena and made my way down to the street. From there, I walked toward Hus 7 — the venue was only a couple of minutes away, tucked into an industrial, warehouse-like area. I was getting hungry, so I looked around for something to eat. Not much to choose from. I ended up with a sad plate of chicken wings, bland fries, and three samosas that set me back 30 euros. Welcome to Stockholm. Fucking hell, this city’s expensive.

I got inside Hus 7 — an old industrial space made up of two warehouse-like rooms, each with its own stage and bar. The larger room hadn’t started yet; a band was still sound-checking. That stage would later host mostly death metal bands — terrible ones — the kind I only listened to for a few minutes during breaks between sets in the smaller room. When I first stepped into that smaller space, a local band was playing, fronted by a vocalist who looked like a fat Layne Staley in dark sunglasses. The room was tight, packed, with a grid of red fire suppression pipes snaking just below the ceiling.

Another American band played before Whores — Help, a noise-punk group from Portland. At times, their jagged guitars reminded me of Refused, while the vocalist’s half-spoken delivery called to mind mewithoutYou or, at times, Light the Fuse and Run. Just like Slomosa in Dublin, Whores did not disappoint. “This is a party, goddamn!” Christian Lembach shouted between songs. They played it fucking loud — but this time I came prepared, with a pair of earplugs custom-made for gigs.

I got started early the next day — before 8 a.m. — to explore the city. I made my way to a pier lined with tourist boats, just in front of and overlooking Stockholm City Hall. The boats were still empty at that hour, docked and idle, waiting for the day’s first passengers. Across the water, the spires of Gamla Stan rose from its compact island, connected to the mainland by a series of low bridges. Further off, across another stretch of water, was Södermalm, hillier and larger, catching the morning light. Stockholm is made up of several islands, where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea, and from where I stood, it felt like the whole city was suspended between land and water, gently waking up.

Along the waterfront, men and women were out running — lean, sinewy types — and more than once I saw people jogging with specialized baby strollers. I crossed over to Gamla Stan, the old town. At that hour, it was still quiet, with only a handful of tourists navigating its narrow streets — a welcome change from my hometown Lisbon, where tourists seem to spill out from every nook and corner. I ambled along the cobbled lanes, passing shuttered cafés and crooked shopfronts, winding my way past the Royal Palace and into the heart of the old city.

Around 10 a.m., I crossed a bridge to Södermalm and climbed up a hill. The streets grew quieter as I made my way up, the city falling away behind me. Near the Södra Teatern, the atmosphere was calm and unhurried, with views stretching out over the water and the slow movement of boats making their way through the channels below. In a small beer garden nearby, three girls were setting up a photoshoot. One held a camera, another angled a silver reflector to catch the light, and the third adjusted her outfit while they arranged the shot.

I made my way back to the waterfront and followed it to the Fotografiska museum. The first exhibition I stepped into was Toiletpaper — a chaotic, surreal collection that felt like stepping into a fever dream. The walls were painted in matching themes to the photographs: vivid, grotesque, and strangely funny. Nothing here was digitally rendered — no AI, no Photoshop — everything had been meticulously staged and shot. A black wall was covered in painted snakes, twisted and colorful, coiling around a couch printed with disembodied hands holding tubes of lipstick. Above it, a glowing neon sign read: "LOVE FAME TRAGEDY". In the next room, dim and bathed in magenta light, plastic tombstones stood on a patch of fake grass beneath another neon command: "TELL THE TRUTH AND RUN". In one photo, a close-up of two hands poised to clip the wings of a yellow canary with scissors. In another, the same bird emerged from a woman’s mouth, framed by perfect red lips and pearly teeth. A swimming pool filled entirely with plastic bananas played a looping soundtrack of sirens, jungle birds, thunder, a wedding march, and a chicken going coo-coo-roo-coo. I was still trying to process it all when I heard a loud fart behind me. I turned and saw a slit in one of the columns spit out a two-of-spades playing card. More twos-of-spades were scattered on the floor beneath it like some kind of absurd ritual.

The next exhibition was titled The Kings of Blomstermåla — a sort of intimate documentary series that the photographer created after returning to her hometown to capture the lives of those who had stayed behind. From what I gathered, Blomstermåla is a small, rural town, and the photographs reflect that quiet, sometimes claustrophobic provincial life. The series was shot entirely on analog film, using only natural light — no flash, not even indoors — which gave everything a kind of faded softness, like memory. There were images of people dancing in community halls, teenagers slouching on porches, fields and forests and peeling interiors.

Three or four photographs stayed with me. One showed a man in his thirties, long-haired and shirtless, sitting on a small balcony in leopard-print shorts and white trainers. He looked somewhere between hungover and existential. On the table in front of him were a few bottles — out of focus in the shallow depth of field — but I could just make out the red pattern of a Smirnoff vodka label and another bottle filled with cigarette butts, repurposed as an ashtray. Another photo showed a woman standing alone in a field, wearing a white wedding dress, with two black horses grazing in the background. Her expression was unreadable — not quite sadness, but something caught between stillness and resignation. It should’ve been the happiest day of her life, but the whole scene felt solemn, made heavier by the soundtrack playing in the gallery: Something on Your Mind by Karen Dalton.

Then there was a young man standing in a wintery forest, pulling up his shirt to reveal a set of tattoos on his torso — angels or demons flanking a script just below his navel that read "Family is everything". The light behind him was blinding, almost biblical. Another image, smaller and pinned to the side of a partition wall, showed a girl inside a car, mid-sip from a beer can, the lens catching just the glint of metal and her half-shadowed face. It was blurry, spontaneous, alive.

After the museum, I continued along the waterfront, passing a massive cruise ship moored at the quay — "Viking Cinderella" painted in huge letters across its hull. The path began to climb, gently at first, then more steeply as I made my way uphill in the direction of Vitabergsparken. Across the water, I could hear the screams of teenagers riding roller coasters at Gröna Lund, their voices carried over by the wind and mingling with the low rumble of boats and the sharp cries of seagulls circling overhead.

I passed Sofia Kyrka — a tall, copper-spired church built from rough stone and perched high above the streets of Södermalm — and wandered into an area of red wooden houses, traditional Swedish cottages preserved like open-air history. These homes aren't allowed the modern conveniences of sewage or running water; they've only been retrofitted with electricity. They felt suspended in time, tucked into quiet gardens beneath the soft green of newly leafed trees.

I drifted west through SoFo, Södermalm’s boutique-saturated hipster quarter. Vintage shops, independent bookstores, and outdoor cafés spilled onto the sidewalks, full of people in beanies and sunglasses drinking overpriced coffee. The neighborhood had a curated charm to it — self-aware but not without warmth. Eventually, I made my way up to Skinnarviksberget, a rocky hilltop that offered one of the best views in Stockholm. From there, the city unfolded in every direction — ochre buildings lining the waterfront, church spires piercing the sky, boats crisscrossing the steel-blue water, and behind it all, the unmistakable green patina of the City Hall tower catching the afternoon light.

The next morning, I wandered through the area around the Swedish Parliament. The buildings on this stretch of the peninsula, overlooking Riksdagshuset, have an almost Mediterranean feel — stucco façades in soft pastel tones, tall windows with wooden shutters, and a quiet kind of dignity. A little further on, I caught sight of the Royal Palace on Gamla Stan from a new angle. Built in the 18th century in a heavy Baroque style, it contrasts sharply with the Neoclassical lines of the Parliament building, which was completed in 1905. Nearby stands the Royal Opera House, inaugurated in 1898 and inspired by the grandeur of the Paris Opera. Continuing along the waterfront, I passed the Grand Hôtel Stockholm, opened in 1874, with its mansard roofs and French Neo-Renaissance façades — the kind of place that once hosted Nobel laureates and lavish state dinners.

Various bridges connect this part of the city to the islands beyond. The piers in front of the Grand Hôtel were already busy, full of ferries shuttling passengers across the archipelago. One iron bridge — among the oldest in Sweden, built in 1861 — links the mainland to Skeppsholmen. I paused midway across it to take in the views: Gamla Stan to one side, the hills of Södermalm in the distance. The air was filled with layered sounds: the caw of seagulls, the low thrum of boats in motion, the hum of construction generators on Södermalm, distant church bells, the soft murmur of Swedish conversations drifting past. And no car horns. Just peace.

I walked around Skeppsholmen, passing by the af Chapman, a three-masted sailboat that once served as a training ship for the Swedish Navy. Before it was acquired by the military, it made numerous transatlantic voyages to North and South America, as well as journeys to Australia, West Africa, and India. Between 1915 and 1923, it sailed the equivalent of ten times around the globe. Later, it was converted into a youth hostel — a final chapter of utility before being permanently moored here as a historical artifact, now owned by the city. What a strange sadness, to think of all the storms weathered, the wild stories lived aboard it — and now only stillness, the faint lapping of water against its hull.

Barnacle geese grazed on the grass nearby, and across the water I could see the Gröna Lund — “Green Grove” — amusement park, still silent at this hour, its roller coasters resting before the day's first screams. It was so peaceful out here, barely anyone walking around. Just the sound of birds and the faint ripple of the tide. A pocket of calm tucked away from the busier parts of the city.

In front of the Moderna Museet — Stockholm’s modern art museum — stood a series of colorful, wildly shaped sculptures from Le Paradis Fantastique (1966) by Niki de Saint Phalle. Bright, joyful, and vaguely monstrous, they seem to pulse with energy even when still. Inside, the first exhibition was titled Subterranean Sky, spread across rooms filled with surrealist works. The first space held a large glass tank filled with a viscous, lava-like substance that bubbled unpredictably — irregular bursts of motion and sound that echoed through the room. Each gurgle felt like it came from beneath the floorboards of reality.

The painting that most held my attention was Tête de Paysan Catalan (Head of a Catalan Peasant), a 1925 work by Joan Miró. A dreamlike composition, it floats inside a blue, nearly weightless frame. In another room, I stood before Tropisk Växtlighet (Tropical Growth) by Wifredo Lam, the Cuban artist. A dense, organic vision of vegetation — sugarcane stalks and vines twist across the canvas, dotted with bursts of color that seem to reveal the inner sap, the plant's lifeblood. It reminded me of something out of a psychedelic trip, where the internal workings of nature become suddenly visible and charged with meaning.

Between those rooms was a dimly lit space laid out with folding cinema chairs and a small projection screen playing a loop of early experimental films. One of them was Ghost Before Breakfast by Hans Richter — a film from 1928. On screen, hats flew through the air, an hose coiled around itself, and objects jerked into motion on their own — brought to life through stop-motion, as if the world had slipped free from logic and acquired a mind of its own. It was playful, absurd, and just slightly unnerving. Then came Un Chien Andalou, the 1929 film by Luis Buñuel. Its surreal imagery was still jarring: ants spilling out of a hole in the palm of a hand, a woman’s eye seemingly sliced by a razor. The accompanying music — Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde — gave it all an operatic weight, as if romantic tragedy were inseparable from madness and decay. These were artists discovering the new medium of Cinema. Sitting there, watching those strange films flicker across the screen, I was hit by something else — a memory. The soft glow of the projection, combined with the strains of Wagner, brought me back to childhood: watching television with my parents in the quiet of the living room. For a moment, memory played its usual trick — making it all seem simpler, softer, better. But it wasn’t. Life back then wasn’t easier. The people in those old films, like the people in my own memories, were dealing with the same tangled mess of human emotions — love, anxiety, jealousy, fear.

Then, in another room, I discovered an artist the way I like best — by simply walking toward something that catches my eye, without reading titles or names. This time it was a wall of photographs by Graciela Iturbide. The image that drew me in first was Carnaval, Tlaxcala, Mexico, 1974. At a glance, I thought the distant volcano might be Mount Fuji, but the foreground quickly grounded the scene in Mexico: a figure standing in a barren field, dressed in festive, almost surreal attire — celebrating Carnaval. The contrast was striking, almost theatrical — feathers, patterns, a mask-like face framed by the wide brim of a sombrero — all of it captured in crisp black and white.

Next was Guardián de los Caminos, taken in Guerrero in 1995. An older man sits in the center of a dirt road, surrounded by hills. He wears loose white clothes — linen or cotton, maybe — and what looks like a pair of Converse All Stars. His chair is massive, ornate, carved with animal heads like something ceremonial or regal, and his face is weathered, browned by countless suns. He looks directly at the camera. There’s no posing — just presence.

But the one that stayed with me the longest was Mujer Ángel, shot in Sonora in 1979. A woman in traditional dress — full white skirt, dark shirt — walks down a rocky hillside, away from the camera, her long black hair cascading down her back. In her right hand she carries a large boombox. Below her stretches the desert plain, with scattered scrub and distant hills disappearing into haze. The whole scene is black and white, quiet, arresting. There was something about the photo that made me think of At the Drive-In — the post-hardcore band out of El Paso, just across the border. It felt like a still from one of their songs, One Armed Scissor — all motion and isolation, transmission and silence — a woman descending into static, carrying sound across the dust of the desert.

After the museum, I walked up the pedestrian street Drottninggatan — packed with people, flanked by shops and cafés. I grabbed a cappuccino to go from Espresso House and kept moving, eventually stopping for lunch at Five Guys in Sergels Torg. Salted caramel shake, cheeseburger, fries. I wandered down toward Stureplan, stepped into a few malls and galleries. Polished, quiet, forgettable. It felt like anywhere. Not long ago, a street like this might have been strung with family-run shops — the kind with dusty windows, faded signage, someone’s name on the door. Places that could be terrible or brilliant, indifferent or unforgettable. That unpredictability used to feel like part of a city’s texture. Now it’s mostly been flattened out. Everything’s clean. Branded. Reliable.

That afternoon, as I made my way back through the city — past the storefronts and bridges and glinting water — I kept thinking about the name painted across that massive white hull: Viking Cinderella. It stuck with me. A clash of images — war axe and glass slipper — somehow just right for Stockholm. Not the “Venice of the North,” as it’s sometimes called. It felt firmer underfoot than that. There was more concrete than I’d expected — viaducts, overpasses, broad arterial roads — modernity laid bare, without apology. Yet at the same time, the city carried itself with a kind of northern grace. Not baroque excess, but restraint — deliberate, learned, quietly assured.

If it reminded me of anywhere, it was Florence. Not in the skyline, but in its posture — a Baltic capital of the arts, once a center of culture and science, still holding onto that poise. Not looking to impress. Just standing still, and letting you come to it.