
Stockholm & Jukkasjarvi
If there is a place on this earth where actual perfection exists, it is in Stockholm. I have never seen a city so perfect in my life! No broken windows, cracks in buildings, no off colored paint, literally, everything was perfect. And while these SoCal boys did their best to not become ice cubes in their “warm” winter, we found a really good Italian restaurant called DaPeppe. The waitress here was hilarious and told us not to freeze our asses off when we got to the Ice Hotel, which was on the other side of Sweden in the Artic Circle…oye vey. After dinner we carried on back to the hotel, where all but Chris and I retired for the evening. In fact, we instead went to ….surprise!...the hotel bar, and learned from a lovely California Asian couple that we were just mere blocks from a legit ice bar! Curiosity piqued, we headed off into the night! I could have walked around Stockholm in that night for an eternity! The city had taken me, the company was perfect, and the bars we found were so unique (ice bar was too busy) I hope I see places like this again! Great people, great bars, phenomenal city, and I will definitely be back for a Mid-Sommer party…more on that later.
We really made the best of our one night in Stockholm before packing into our Volvo XC90 (the only way to get around Sweden is in a Volvo) and heading for the airport. Everyone noticed how crazy perfect this country was, even just driving around you didn’t see old cars, you didn’t seen broken anything, and the one homeless person we saw was on a queen mattress with a space heater and a full wardrobe (not joking) as though he was doing it by choice. A short 2 hour flight later and….
THE FRIGGIN ICE HOTEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This place has been on my bucket list and in my dreams for over a decade. I am truly thankful for my friends and Chris for making this dream a reality. I felt like I had been transported to another world!! You get off the bus, the driver of which gave a really cool background story on the mining operations and space/medicine projects that go on up here….oddly knowledgeable actually. Anyways, another world. Literally. This big blue glowing wall of ice is the first thing your eye is drawn to. You just want to run towards it like a bug to a zapper. It was more perfection (you go Sweden *the Glenn coco of countries). We had to check in in the “warm” room, and they provided us with arctic gear! I was literally sweating the majority of the time!!! When we finished checking-in it was a dead sprint to the hotel, I couldn’t wait to lay eyes on the inside! Each year they have a different theme and artists sculpt special rooms and pieces throughout the hotel, they were all stunning. I have hundreds of pictures of the 60 or so rooms in this place, all of them completely unique, all of them taking your breath away…I know this for a fact…I couldn’t see it anymore lol The nicest part was they let you tour all the rooms, and tour them we did! Oh my gosh this place cannot be put into words. Ice Hotel...I suppose that works.
There was a really cool ice bar there as well, within a huge dome that had a 2nd floor to it above the bar, a place our group would later turn into the nest of shenanigans. The drinks are served in glasses made of ice and they were very good! We had just 1 drink before heading out to see the rest of this place, many hidden gems lay throughout the hotel from sculptures, ice thrones, phrases etched into the middle of the ice, and hand prints galore! The chapel was a little underwhelming compared to pictures from prior years, but since we would be spending 0 time there, it served its purpose perfectly.


Some things to note about this hotel. You have warm rooms. You have cold rooms. We stayed in each one just one night, that’s all you need. There isn’t much to the surrounding area in terms of a night life. 2 restaurants, one on site, the other 900km down the road make up your food options (sort of). You absolutely need to plan activities with the front desk, or you may go stir crazy throughout the day. Our first night we planned a traditional Swedish spa experience, dinner at the on-site restaurant, and then time for us to get some rest. Lets get on to that spa, it sounds so nice doesn’t it….but lets assess what the first word of this really means…traditional. Now to me, a traditional Swedish massage is hot stone, relaxing, and fairly low key. For the Sumi, the native inhabitants to this part of Sweden, relax in a more interesting way and I soon found myself wondering why in the hell we signed up. Firstly, we are given our own cabin and “guide”, Staffan, the coolest dude in Sweden. He explained the ritual like this “We will have drink of wine, we are to bathe in shower with euh tar soap and some body scrub. Then you are to go into the sauna, with much merry making and sing to the deity. Splash water on the center rock and sing oeyeyyyye ohahhyyyyyeeee ahhhuhaaaahhhhh, let your body sweat.

I would absolutely eat that again, every day, a very tasty deer like meat. We were exhausted at this point and headed off to our respective rooms…I was very happy to be in the warm room that night J The next day got even crazier. Chris and I went exploring after breakfast (sorry to Sweden for eating all of your bacon) and we had a blast! We walked all across the lake, found the little historic Sumi hut/village down the way from our hotel, and then stumbled into a tour of a very very old church. Unfortunately for us, this tour was for the deaf…we didn’t know this as we snuck in with them, we just assumed they were all quiet and we were being sneaky about it….until the signing began. We exited quite quickly and went to check out the Sumi hut.


