Ice Ice Baby

We were welcomed to Stockholm this past Wednesday with cold and rainy weather after a full day of travel, but luckily had two beautiful days thereafter to enjoy the city!

On Thursday we started out exploring on foot after a Swedish breakfast at the Chinese restaurant in our hotel (a little weird but still tasty). We spent most of the day walking around Stockholm, taking in the people and surroundings, and trying not to spend all of our money at the really cool stores (we are both suckers for the modern Swedish designs). Jonathan felt right at home after running into a restaurant and bar called the Texas Longhorn Smokehouse (don’t worry, we didn’t go in)!


After weighing some of the really cool museum options, we decided on the popular Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a massive Swedish war ship that set sail on her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628 – only to unfortunately sink after traveling just 1,500 meters from the harbor. In the 1960’s, after being submerged for more than 330 years, the ship was pulled out of the Baltic Sea, salvaged, and put on display in a really cool museum. About 95% of the original ship is on exhibit, including many of the personal articles found from the crew members on board. Unfortunately, it was really dark in the museum and most of the pictures didn’t turn out very well (below is a picture of Heather touching an original piece of the ship).


Thursday night we went to dinner at a really good restaurant in the more artsy, non-touristy part of the city, and then made a stop for a couple beers at Akkurat - voted the World’s 3rd Best Beer Bar in 2010 (RateBeer.com). As a side note, the Brick Store Pub, in Decatur, GA (the city we’ve lived in the past three years), was actually ranked 6th on the same list. Here is Jonathan enjoying a pint of a delicious Swedish micro-brew IPA.


Yesterday we stopped by the Nobel Prize Museum, but couldn’t visit because of some local events taking place. We did, however, get to see the City Hall, which is where the Nobel Prize Banquet is actually held (see picture below). We also saw the Royal Palace and caught some of the Changing of the Guard ceremony. It seemed much less organized than the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, with the soldiers somewhat haphazardly marching around.


After much debate, we decided that we couldn’t leave Stockholm without going to the “Ice Bar” (pictures at top and below). Nearly everything in the bar, including the glasses, was literally made of ice, and they even make you wear these Eskimo type coats inside because it is so darn cold. It was a bit touristy, but we had a lot of fun! We tried to look as “Swedish” as possible to stand out from all the tourists.


We left Stockholm this afternoon and just arrived in Copenhagen. The city looks really cool and we can’t wait to explore!

Beer List:
• Spendrups Lattol (pretty much the Miller Lite/Bud Light of Sweden)
• Jamtlands (a Swedish micro-brew IPA)
• Bedero Bitter (a Swedish micro-brew pale ale)
• Chimay (Heather keeps warming up for our Belgium visit)
• Brauerei Wagner Weisse (Heather also keeps warming up for our Germany visit)