Ice Bar!

As cold as it was in Stockholm, I was ready for the frigid weather, so I must say I stayed fairly warm during the day. To give you an example of just how much it snows, the second day of our trip there was a 10% chance of snow, and of course, it snowed. But we were prepared for cold weather. We also found ways to get inside for periods of time throughout the day, one of way being a tour of City Hall. It was constructed using eight million bricks, one million of which make up the anterior and are hand made!

Megan in the courtyard of City Hall

We were first taken to the Blue Hall, named so because the architect was going to paint it blue so it was known as the Blue Hall for so long that once he decided not to it simply kept it’s name. This is the venue for the Nobel Prize ceremony.

The Blue Hall from the stairs where important people descend into the room

People come through this door and make their way across the balcony before coming down the stairs which were built specifically for women wearing heels and floor length dresses.

We also saw a room used for weddings every Sunday. Many are performed in the room taking either 1 or 3 minutes if I am remembering the time correctly. It may have been 3 or 5 minutes, but I know they all take fewer than 5 minutes. The walls are covered in tapestries depicting a traditional wedding. It may be the case that we were not allowed to take pictures in that room, as you can see the picture of the camera with a slash through it, but many of us did take pictures so maybe not allowed to use flash? Regardless, I took pictures…

Going to City Hall, and we're- gonna get ma-a-arried...

The other room worth mentioning (well they all were but I don’t want to go on too long) is the Golden Room. The walls are completely covered in a mosaic made of real gold. The artist got a bit of a hard time for the mistakes and semi strange portrayals of figures, explained by the amount he was rushed on the job.

Walls made of gold!

And of course I found an owl, hiding

Our tour guide also mentioned that we were actually visiting the city on Semla Day! A semla is a very tasty sweet roll, which has had the top cut off and it’s insides scooped out. It is then filled with scrumptious almond paste. (I thought of you, Nicole and Christine!) It is topped of with a large amount of whipped cream, which has some characteristics of frosting. We had in fact tried semlas the day before but being in Stockholm on Semla Day, we had to eat them again. Such a bummer!! We found them in a little café where we also got delicious hot chocolate served in a large bowl with a spoon. It was like chocolate soup. 

There it is, the delicious semla

On our third and final day we went to see the changing of the guard at the palace. This happens every day at 11:00

The Palace

The guards leaving after having changed

And one of the most exciting things we did was go to the Ice Bar! It is the oldest Ice Bar in the world, kept at 27˚F all year long. We slipped into the provided parkas, being told to wear the gloves because the glasses, also made of ice, can be very slippery, and walked into a room made of 60 tons of ice! Our reservations came with one free drink, any drinks after that would have cost 95 kronor, or £9.5 or about $14.5 so we decided one drink was enough.

Our delicious drinks in ice cups!

I personally really liked the ice thrown even though I was a bit cold sitting in it.

Megan and me

Liz and me in front of the bar

Liz me and Megan in our parkas with the hoods!

After the ice bar we had to go back to our hostel to pack and go to bed early in preparation for our 3 am wake up time. All in all our travels were fairly painless, other than the extremely early mornings. We were lucky that things ran smoothly and that we did not run into any problems for the entire duration of the trip! 

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Hej då! ~Laura