Stockholm, Sweden!!!

WARNING: Ridiculously long post but worth the read :)
To view all Stockholm Pictures before facebook: Joanna's Stockholm Pictures!

All I can say is: WOW.  My weekend in Stockholm was more than I was ever expecting.  To start, the forecast for the weekend was torrential downpours every second. I brought my raincoat, umbrella, scarf, sweater, etc. Spoiler Alert! It was sunny, hot, and GORGEOUS the whole weekend. Thank you very much weather.com, not.

Let me back up - Thursday night there was a CBS party at a club near the school. When it was raining really hard the whole evening, a bunch of people bailed....not me! I met up with Sarah and the (what seemed like) entire Valby dorm. We went to my dorm's common room to pregame and within an hour there were between 50 and 70 people there. It's not THAT big of a room! It was soo fun to have so many people, and I was able to convince Danna to join us by telling her how much fun just the pregame was! The party was REALLY fun even though the dance floor was super hot due to mass amounts of people. We had a great time and tried to come back early-ish (2:30am?) because we had a 9:20am flight to catch!

Needless to say, we had a little trouble 3 hours later when we woke up and made our way to the airport. First we walked an extra 10 minutes to a metro that couldn't be easier to get to. Then, unlike in NYC where motion detectors open the doors of the subway when someone goes in between them, the doors of the metro literally shut on Morgan (she made it in after a terrifying struggle between Danna, Me, Morgan and the door, and a bunch of confused onlookers). After these mishaps, the rest of the weekend went QUITE smoothly. In fact, Morgan and I raved about how great the flight was for basically the whole weekend. It was a much needed 1 hour nap, very quick and easy landing, and right on time! We took a really fast train to the city center and started walking down the street to our hostel - Drottninggatan, it means Queens Street in Swedish.

Arrived!

On the way, we bumped right into part of the group we planned to stay at the hostel with.  4 people from CBS (Alex, Olgert - Italian, Marianne - Mexican, Ryan - American) and 1 girl who was friends with Alex and met him in Sweden for the weekend - Claudia, Italian.  We dropped off our stuff and literally "met them at the castle." Sounds like a really vague and inefficient way to meet up with people but miraculously we found them right away in the crowd of hundreds waiting for the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace. Claudia was a lifesaver! She lived in Sweden for 5.5 months last year and comes back once every two months to visit friends. She was like a private tour guide who told us all the important places to go without looking at a tour book! We saw a little man sculpture called the "Moon Man" or "Iron Man" that is good luck if you rub his head (when I say little I mean about the size of 2 fists).

The Moon Man

We then went to the water and walked around there, there were some really cool sculptures and BEAUTIFUL views of the water and boats. I got ice cream (obviously) and we explored a little more. After lunch we went up to this tower that was free to climb up and look at the city. It was an absolutely beautiful view and was only the start to a weekend of stunning views of Stockholm/Sweden.

After the tower we took the subway to something called the Ericcson Globe. We got tickets to do that at 7:30pm. More on that later... While we were near a mall, Danna, Morgan and I decided to shop (why not) and continued our shopping back on Drottninggatan Street which is the street of our hostel and also happened to be a HUGE shopping street! LUCKY girls we are. We then went back to the hostel to meet up with the group (FYI this was only 9 out of the 17 people we were staying with from CBS! Such a great experience). The hostel, by the way, was really nice and we were all in rooms with friends. My room was me, Danna, Morgan, Kelly, Anna and Kenza - Kenza is from Morocco and studies in Paris! The rest of us are uninteresting Americans...JK but really.

We joked this weekend that this might as well be a food blog because I take pictures of all my food and restaurants and basically all I talk about is food....but seriously... On the way to the Ericcson Globe, Morgan and I shared 2 different sandwiches (PS we had sandwiches for ALMOST every single meal). They were SO delicious and even though we ate them while walking and had some trouble, they were one of our best meals there.

The Globe is the largest dome in THE WORLD! It is mainly for hockey and concerts, but on the outside of the dome is a machine that brings two spherical structures up and down to see an unbelievable view of Stockholm. After a really exciting and "pump up" video about the globe, we went into the ball and were lifted into the air. It was beautiful. This was our second chance at seeing just how stunning the city is. I had not realized before I came that it was such a pretty place - one of the prettiest places I have ever seen.

Holding the Sun

After the globe, everyone (besides Me, Danna and Morgan because we'd already eaten) ate a nice, authentic Swedish meal at McDonald's. When we got back to the hostel, we got dressed, saw everyone else we were staying with, and started pregaming for the night! It was so fun to pregame in the hostel together because we hung out in the lobby, played cards and music, and apparently made so much noise that the hostel's owner got more than one complaint...Once we were finally ready to go out we headed towards a club that Claudia was taking us to. Side note: as soon as we got outside it started downpouring (the only rain of the weekend) so Morgan and I ran back in to get our raincoats - only to find that the owner had left the roof (?) open and it was RAINING INSIDE. It was really funny/confusing/odd. It stopped raining basically as soon as we got back outside.

The first club was decent, but got really crowded and hot really quickly. We left after a little bit and some of us continued on to this other really awesome bar/club. There was a nice outdoor section that seemed fancy and then inside people were dancing up a storm. We had a really great time and I have no idea what time we left but I think it was after 3!

Saturday morning we woke up at 9:30 and somehow, with a group of around 15, were not ready to go until 12! We had a really good breakfast in the meantime (sandwiches of course) and then headed to the island with the Vasa Museum, an amusement park and a zoo. It was a really pretty walk but once we got there, Morgan, Danna, Ryan, Jim, Greg and I all decided we would rather not do that for the day. We walked back to the water from the first day and took a boat to an adorable island called Vaxholm. It was a 1.5 hour boat ride in the hot, beautiful sun and we, once more, were able to see the most beautiful sites. The boat took us all through Sweden's Archipelago (took me a while to learn how to properly say it, thanks Danna, winner of her childhood geography bee). There are 24,000 islands and Stockholm's archipelago is the biggest in Sweden!

Changing of the guards again

 

When we got to Vaxholm we immediately found somewhere to eat delicious tomato, mozzerella and pesto paninis with a side of some coconut chocolate cake :). Then we walked around the boutiques and looked at the expensive clothes that we didn't want to buy. The area was a really cute beach town but there wasn't really a beach because Sweden isn't generally warm like the weather we were lucky to have! After walking around we got some souvenir chocolate and decided to explore. We found a pretty park and saw in the distance some boys flying through the air on a rope tied to a tree. Naturally, we walked up to the 12 year old Swedish boys and asked if we could play also! (Hey, I'm still a teenager for now...) They awkwardly said yes and we took turns jumping on the rope like little kids. Then we found a playground (yep) and hung out there for a little. It was such a fun day. We went back to the dock of the boat and sat by the water talking until we almost missed the boat back.

 

When we got back to Stockholm we went to a cafe for dinner and had (wait for it...) salads! They were delicious. Then we went back to the hostel, met up with everyone, and got ready to go out again. We went to a club called Collage that started off slow but ended up being so much fun. There was a nice outdoor terrace area and then a dance area. We bumped into Taryn and Nicole who were staying somewhere else, and them two, Morgan, Kenza and I danced all night!

Olgert and his ladies

Today (Sunday) we woke up early again to get our shopping on. After one more nice breakfast, we shopped hardcore. Serious shopping. No messing around. I got a really great dress that I'll break out on my birthday with my new high heels - rage. We then made it to our flight home and had another wonderful flight back to Copenhagen, my temporary home. I LOVE IT HERE.

xo,

JOJ