What is Stockholm’s ICEBAR like? Well, as you’d expect, it’s like walking into a giant freezer. A freezer with a bar, that is. A freezer full of animals elaborately carved into huge blocks of glistening ice. A freezer where people …
Five Reasons Why Stockholm is Best Experienced on Foot
As a participant of TBEX Stockholm I was very kindly given a 72-hour transport pass that works on trains, buses, and some boats across the city. This was perfect for enabling quick transport to the conference, as well as an …
Aurora Borealis: 7 Things To Know Before You Go
Experiencing the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is on many people’s bucket list and, when seen, they offer a tantalising display of nature at her most beautiful. But, seeking the notoriously elusive aurora can be a frustrating experience, which for many …
Why You Should Visit Stockholm in Winter
Visiting Stockholm between October and May is a thought that sends shivers down the spines of many, but in my opinion it is the nicest time to visit. Although the city comes alive in the summer (read my post about …
So Long, Sweden! I’m Going To Miss You.
Four years ago I moved to Sweden; a country often associated with long, cold, snowy winters. But, little did I know that after the harsh winter Swedes are rewarded with beautiful summers where the sun shines all day long. In …
7 Great Ways To Spend Summer in Stockholm
Stockholm is a summer city; its leafy parks, rocky beaches, and swathes of Baltic water that swirl around the city’s 14 islands all seem to have been designed for long summer days where the sky barely darkens.
Emerging from a …
Stockholm Winter Blues. Or, What Happens When the Snow Doesn’t Come.
Stockholm is a truly stunning city; that much has been established by pretty much any traveller to set foot on the cobbled stones of the Old Town. In the short summer months, boats chug across sparkling inlets that separate each …
The Highs and Lows of Searching for the Northern Lights
[mks_boxquote align=”right” width=”150″ arrow=”0″]”An obsession consumed me, and the more I saw, the more I wanted”[/mks_boxquote]Relentless blasts of icy wind grasped at the exposed skin of my cheeks, the only flesh not covered in layers of wool and …
Dogsledding in Lapland with Arctic Husky Adventures
A memorable journey is often more about the people you meet than the things you see, and when I went dogsledding with Arctic Husky Adventures in Jokkmokk, Swedish Lapland, last week I met quite possibly the most welcoming people I …
What a Year! 2011 in Pictures
It’s the end of another year and with New Year’s Eve just around the corner it’s the time to reflect on the year that has gone before. 2011 was a good year. Living in Sweden rather than Vietnam meant …
Valborg – Sweden Welcomes the Spring
In Britain, Bonfire Night conjures up childhood memories of sheltering from the driving November rain, eating jacket potatoes while effigies, or ‘guys’, burn on a huge bonfire. Overhead, fireworks crackle with the acrid smell of sulphur – all to commemorate …
Spring Fever
It has been a long and cold winter in Sweden. After a very short Autumn, it started snowing in October and powdered snow lay on the ground until March. The temperature remained below zero for almost five months, sometimes …
The Arctic Journals #3 Cross-Country Skiing
There are two things that I have always disliked: sport and being cold. For this reason I have never understood why people want to go skiing. Skiing holidays baffle me, why would anybody pay a lot of money to go …
The Arctic Journals #2 Northern Lights Apartments
We were met on the road by Patricia Cowern, owner of the Northern Lights Apartments and Arctic-Color gallery in Porjus, who greeted us warmly and led the way to our cabin. The complex comprises of 4 wooden cabins aptly named: …
Snow Days
Anybody who has attended or worked in a school in the UK will know how exciting it is when the winter brings the first snow, not so much because we love snow but because of the prospect of a Snow …
Visiting Friends
This weekend Rhoda—my very good friend from college—came to visit me in Sweden. It is always great to see a familiar face from home when you are living in a foreign country; over the 4 ½ years that I have …
Hazy Shade of Winter
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Apologies for my second seasonal post following so quickly after Autumn Daze but little did I know last week when I was walking through piles …
Autumn Daze
As I walked home from school the other day, the trees shedding their leaves like confetti around me, I looked down to see something that I haven’t seen for over three years. Lying at my feet was a small but …