Stockholm

Stockholm is hands down the coolest city I've ever visited. My veins coursed with both contentedness and excitement the entire four days we were there, which I spent with my mouth hanging open and my eyes agog. We ate and drank like queens, walked approximately one gazillion miles, and saw some amazing sights.

Spread out over 14 islands on the Baltic Sea, Stockholm is both Sweden's capital and most populous city. It's about 350 miles and on the opposite coast from Helsingborg, so we took advantage of the cheap airfares available within Europe and let Norwegian Airlines take us there. We stayed at a lovely boutique hotel called Nobis in a neighborhood filled with fancy stores like Prada and Tiffany but which was within a 20-or-so-minute walk from anywhere we actually wanted to go. The hotel had two restaurants and a lounge in the lobby, inside of which I had the first cocktail of my entire time in Sweden: a Bulleit bourbon and coke. Ahhhhhhh..... 

King Carl XVI Gustav and Queen Silvia live in the Royal Palace in Gamla Stan ("Old Town"), which is the oldest part of Stockholm that dates back to the 13th century. A beer and an afternoon snack in this neighborhood was our first stop after checking into the hotel. 

The Old Town is a touristy area that comprises the Nobel Museum, cobblestone streets, narrow alleyways surrounded by medieval buildings, and about a million restaurants and tourist shops. It's also home to a gay bar called Torget, where we were served wine by a bitchy bartender with heavily glittered eyelids while Whitney Houston played overhead, making us feel right at home. The neatest thing about Old Town is the many and varied alleyways, which have little foot traffic but the seemingly most interesting bars, restaurants, and shops in the neighborhood.

Our second day in Stockholm was one of those uncomfortable Scandinavian days where the wind makes you wince and the rain moves in and out like waves on the shore, but only after the taste of a beautiful, crisp morning. We took in as much as we could on foot, including the lovely grounds of the library and two parks that required hiking up some pretty steep hills, eventually making our way through several indoor and underground malls to escape the weather, enjoy fika, and ogle the stylish, beautiful people. Below are a few of the pictures I took that day; imagine a narrator saying "I love it here!" over and over again, because that's exactly what Erin and I took turns doing. 

That day, we walked past a small lunch spot boasting an all-American menu with a BLT that had curry on it.

We had dinner that night at Jamie Oliver's Italian, consisting of bruschetta, three types of cannelloni, and calamari for the seafood eater. Holy crap, that place was amazing! After dinner, we walked along the water and caught an amazing sunset.

We started out the next day with a 4.3 km (about 2.7 mi) walk to Tantolunden, a large park on the island of Södermalm. One very cool thing about this park is that it is home to nearly 100 allotment gardens, consisting of brightly colored cottages that are surrounded by flowers, vegetables, and other greenery in plots that are carefully maintained by each individual owner. These gardens can be found all over Sweden (our balcony overlooks one in Helsingborg), and the Tanto allotment garden began in 1915. After one of the best fikas (Swedish readers: is it OK to pluralize "fika"?) we've ever had, we spent the rest of the day walking around different neighborhoods near the hotel, discovering various market halls, shops, and cafes. We estimate that we walked 10 miles that day. 

One of our last stops was at the Vasa Museet, a museum dedicated to a ship that sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628, spent over 300 years on the bottom of Stockholm Harbor, and was brought to the surface in 1961. The ship managed to stay in pretty good shape, which I read had something to do with the level of salt in the water, and they were able to restore it with 98% of its original materials.

While we were in the museum, it began pouring, and the rain did not stop until long after we were at the airport waiting for our flight home. Lesson learned: if the front desk clerk at your hotel offers you an umbrella when the sky looks crazy, take it. Waterproof hoods are not always enough; we got drenched!

We're already planning our next trip to Stockholm, which will absolutely include a trip to the archipelago. I hope everyone out there gets a chance to visit this amazing city!