This trip came about in what has become a prettyyyy typical way for my trips to materialize: in my morning Google Flights routine. Yes, first thing - coffee, second thing is finding cheap flights to anywhere in the world. Sometimes this consists of me just scrolling all over the map of the world; other times I just type in random cities and dates to see what will pop up.
On one such morning, I was scrolling around and rolled right over Stockholm, and thought, "Emma!" And since she is the absolute sweetest girl in the WORLD, she agreed to have me visit her THE NEXT WEEK after the shortest conversation ever:
I was quite thrilled to be flying Norwegian - last time I had flown with them, I got free wine and chocolate the whooole time. What could possibly go wrong with such a swell airline?! Let me tell you. Not only could I not check in online, but all but ONE kiosk were broken at the JFK airport - which meant 500+ people standing in line (I also waited in line for 30 minutes for a kiosk which ended up being broken).
After an hour of standing in three different lines, I was finally rushed to the front since my flight was boarding. Of course security was absurd, and after sweating my way through that, I rushed to my "boarding" flight to find yet ANOTHER line. Obviously I sat down because... Why do people wait in that line??? People actually stand for thirty minutes just to sit down in their ASSIGNED seat. I, on the other hand, chugged a quick G&T. Smart traveling at its finest.
Unfortunately things only got worse from here: had to pay for wine, food, blanket, WATER. OOOHHHH Yeah. Then I remembered. I had sat next to a pilot on that previous flight, and he had told them to give me the same treatment as him. Little bit different this time around. Norwegian is in fact NOT a luxury airline.
I arrived in Stockholm and at last, all was well with the world.
First stop? Swedish meatballs.
Stop two was obviously (after coffee) paddle boating down the river. And by down the river, I mean we were really bad and couldn't even figure out how to pull away from the dock. Suffice to say we definitely made all the dock-side lunchers' day. Eventually we started going in a direction, and right as I was about to start gloating, we got caught on rocks... for a good bit, but we brought the boat back in one piece sooo it was a success after all.
On to Emma's house. Do you want to know why I am hereby declaring that she is the best host? She not only had a bottle of gin and tonic (and lime AND cucumber) waiting for me, but also this:
After the most epic walk across various bridges (Stockholm consists of several islands) as the sun was setting, we arrived at our destination for the night: Slakthuset. Okay, I think that's the name of it. Swedish names are hard. It was a rooftop bar. It was amazing. The sun never actually set. Super cool. Then, bed :)
Day two began with us waiting in line at the wrong dock, but after a little run around Stockholm, we made it to our boat just in time and were off to explore the Archipelago!! (Essentially Stockholm and the surrounding area consists of 30,000+ islands - and yes, when they calculated this number, they included rocks jutting out of the water.)
Our destination was the lovely island, Vaxholm. When we looked at a map, it looked super easy to walk to the beach. And we thought "wow, how nice would it be to have a nice stroll along the water to the beach?!" This thing did not happen. We walked along the highway for about 45 minutes (an hour?) before we reached the beach. No such scenic route existed. Oops. But the beach itself? Super great.
After a lovely picnic, we headed back in a much smarter fashion: the bus. And wow, seven minutes later, we were back by the boats. Imagine that. After a lovely drink by the water, we headed back to Stockholm.
The evening we experienced was all thanks to my man Rick Steves. I BELIEVE the spot we went to was Malarpaviljongen... which is just a floating oasis of joy.
After perfecttt rose wine here we headed for a night out in Gamla Stan... which was completely dead, because it was a Sunday night... in Sweden, which is essentially the opposite of New York when it comes to drinking hours. We asked for rose at this random sports bar (mistake, MISTAKE). They gave us cold red wine.
We headed home for a movie which was much more enjoyable :)
Last day! Hit the road early and conquered Skansen, the first ever open-air museum. Highly recommend it - super cool.
After another meal outside (every single meal that we ate was outside which was actually phenomenal).
We then grabbed some bikes for a twirl around the island of Djurgarden which was one of my favorite things from the whole trip (no, I did not fall and lose a tooth, but yes it was indeed the one year anniversary of losing my front tooth).
Emma and I grabbed a couple more roses on the water and then boom, I was off. No injuries this time around, folks!!!
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