A Weekend Trip To Sweden

Sure, it sounds a little crazy to take a weekend trip to Sweden, especially the weekend before we fly to Canada for Christmas, which is followed immediately by a New Year’s Eve trip to Paris, but we did it anyway! Why? Because there’s only a few weeks left in The Year Of Yes and we’ve got to make it as incredible as possible.

Nick and I took the 6pm flight from Newark on Thursday, which landed us in Stockholm at 8am Friday, Sweden time. We took the very speedy and enjoyable Arlanda Express train from the airport to Stockholm City and enjoyed a 20 minute ride with views of snow and snow-covered trees.

We immediately checked into our hotel which was walking distance from the train station, and after barely sleeping on the plane ride there, fell asleep for a couple hours. When we woke up around 2:00, we realized from the amazing view from our room that the sun had begun to set. Apparently the sun sets at about 2:45pm in the winter there! This was an interesting addition to our bodies’ confusion of what time it was.

We decided to venture out and find some lunch/dinner/breakfast/whatever meal it was supposed to be at this point, and found this great area full of shops.

Oh, Conor Oberst is big there too.

Even though I felt like I should be eating meatballs and lingonberries, we ended up eating fajitas. 500 dollar fajitas! Just kidding, it was 500 kronor. $1 USD = roughly 7 kronor. Which means these fajitas were still pretty expensive.

We left our meal and decided to explore the shops. Then it started snowing!

Big, fluffy, pretty snowflakes.

Found a mall with some great stores, including an awesome designy-type, full of fun trinkets.

Including the “i-Woody” wooden iPhone for kids. Made by “Donkey”.

Chocolate balls are huge there. Like giant donut holes, covered in crunchy, minty things. Yum!

I loved being able to shop at Vera Moda! As soon as I saw a giant photo of Alexa Chung outside the store, I knew it would be good.

We relaxed in our hotel room that night – our very Swedish, subtly well-designed hotel room.

And enjoyed being dressed in matching flannel.

Saturday’s outfit. I was so glad I packed my Tretorn boots. We got up fairly early to say goodbye to Stockholm and take the train to Linkoping.

The train stations and airports in Sweden are awesome. Very clean and modern, with great and subtle design. This room was designed to be an “oasis” to relax in while you were traveling. It played bird noises from speakers so it sounded like you were in a rainforest.

Maybe we could go to Uppsala instead to visit Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist?

Nope, we are going to Linkoping to see Nick’s band, Ghost!

They were debuting their new stage show with the new (but equally terrifying) priest outfit.

Hard to see, but the “white Papa” priest was saying goodbye to unveil the new “black Papa”. Their fans went bananas. It was interesting to experience a show in Sweden. Although a show full of metal heads, everyone was pretty respectful and well-behaved. Swedes are awesome. And also really good-looking.

Some backstage doodles in Ghost’s dressing room.

After the show, we went to the after party, but only after hanging around the venue after the show had ended for way longer than expected. We both knew we weren’t getting a decent sleep since we had to leave our hotel at 5:30am to head back to Stockholm for the airport. We just went with it and ended up talking Batman with the singer of Watain while he tried (unsuccessfully) to get me drunk on gin.

(Beer can-filled snowbank in front of the venue)

And just as quickly as we arrived in Sweden, we left it, landing back in New York around 1:00pm. Nick and I are both so grateful for the opportunity to visit, even in our overtired state. We would love to visit again someday!