I went to Sweden for my birthday
Featuring Freezer, she brought me to Stockholm for 5 days to celebrate my birthday and do cool Swedish things!
2026-02-01
Day 1
We spent the previous night at a hotel in London, near the airport in Gatwick. We took a Terminal 2 flight to the Arlanda airport in Stockholm, and the flight took us roughly 2 hours and 10 minutes. We got there 10 minutes early!When we first got there, I awkwardly worked my way through the border control and made the fingerprint machine not work because of my sweaty hands. That was both funny and a very painful 5 minutes while Freezer stood behind me, probably laughing at me. After that, we tried to go to the baggage reclaim and then blindly walked into the connecting flights section, and then after backtracking a bit, ended up at the exit.
From here we could choose from a taxi or an Uber, and after asking a Taxi man about the prices and him dropping a casual equivalent to £70 on us, we decided on an Uber for half the price. Seriously... what the hell.
After a bit of a wait in a car with a stranger, we arrived at our hotel; Bob W in Norrmalm, Stockholm. The hotel is seriously cool; check in is entirely online, hotel rooms work with PIN codes instead of physical key cards and the general vibe is very homey with warm colours instead of the blinding whites that hotels love to use otherwise. There are also signs around the building like "Hey man, sorry if this place is a little bit broken" or something like that, pretty cool.
After we settled down for a bit, we headed out to a place called Bird City - a fried chicken place - for food. I ordered the Korean Fried Chicken Sando with some parmesan fries, and Freezer got a Nashville Hot Chicken Sando with some Daikon Kimchi. They were very generous with my Parmesan. I'd also like to mention that their website uses a font similar to this one, shoutout to it, check it out here.
After that, we walked around taking pictures of red and green things, then came back to the flat and went to bed because at this point it was almost 8pm and we were tired as balls.
Sweden itself was very snowy and I really enjoy the whole vibe. It was weird seeing snow everywhere and not seeing everyone absolutely freaking out over it, much unlike England. It was very cold owie, but I still love the vibe!
Day 2
Our first full day started a bit late because I'm an idiot and slept in a bit. I feel bad for it, but I'm hoping that Freezer doesn't hate me and that I won't make the same mistake again. This was an issue during a previous holiday that I hope not to replicate... but then again, I didn't care much for that location...Anyway, we left the place at roughly 12 and went to a Fika place called Cafe Schweizer. The workers let us write on the wall with a red marker, so of course I wrote fridg3.org on a door frame. Me and Freezer had a salami and brie sandwich, it was beautifully oily.
After that, we aimed to walk to an independent shopping district. We took a subway to somewhere, walked for about a decent amount of time through rural areas and a foresty park bit until we realized that where we were trying to go was where we actually started walking. Oops. It was still pleasant walking through the rural areas though; the place was a lot more full of life than back home was.
We saw some very cool and shiny shops, and we walked into a locally owned audio hardware shop because it's awesome and I personally very much enjoyed that. Then of course, us being the white tyrants we are, we walked into a McDonalds and compared their menu to ours. They have it better guys. Let the town folk know.
My butt was feeling numb after a bit, so we headed back to the hotel and tonight we're going somewhere for a drink.
Today I took some pictures on my own camera (see this journal post), so those will be featured here alongside Freezer's. Good day, though I'm quite tired now...
Okay, so we've been out for a drink and we desired a bit more, so we looked for vodka. And, turns out... you can't buy alcohol past a certain time and anything over 3.5 VOL is only sold by a specific brand... that closes at 10pm. Keep that in mind, no one tells you that :P
At around 9pm, the fire alarm went off in the hotel and firemen very quickly arrived to deal with the issue. A presumably German man told us that the whole issue was "someone" (probably him) was cooking bacon and set it off with a small grease fire, and after a somewhat slow half an hour, the fire people confirmed it for us. Funny stuff.
Day 3
Day 3 started with a somewhat early 9am wakeup. We made a plan for what we'd do today and tomorrow, and then headed to a brunch place for some grub....turns out you're supposed to book in advance for that kinda place because it's so busy, so we headed to the nearest other brunch place we could find. I had a ham, cheese and mustard toastie, and Freezer had a Caesar Salad. My body had a strange reaction to the mustard for some reason, but otherwise it was pretty good.
After that, we headed to the Swedish alcohol monopoly known as Systembolaget (which literally means "The System Company", referring to how its an organised company owned by the state) to buy some Soju for me and vodka for Freezer. We then drank alcohol during the day because when else do we get a chance?
Then we headed to the Abba museum, and that was honestly pretty fun despite the fact I don't actively listen to them! They make good music and I'd consider them a pioneer in the electronic genre. They had this game where you had to mix an Abba song as closely to the original as possible, and I got a pretty good score! Freezer did her best.
Freezer also lost her scarf during the museum at some point, but the people at the gift shop gave it back to us. I've noticed that Swedish people are far more friendly in terms of customer service, probably because their unions are actually maintained instead of an optional priviledge. Dunno, talked to ChatGPT about it.
Tonight, we are heading to some place for some food. Dunno, very drunk right now. ChEERS!
Hey all. I'm writing this and it's exactly (23:00) one hour until my Birthday. I'm very excited to see the presents I've received. Kumo said they got me a few things or something like that, and I'm so curious as to what that is! Other than that, I haven't asked for anything in particular so I have no idea what to expect until I get back. Expect an update when I'm at my flat!
I'm also very drunk. I have nothing else to tell you all. Goodnight, safe dreams, I'll see you all in the morning.
Day 4
It's my birthday! Yippee!!!!I started the day strong with a breakfast at a brunch place. We were told to join an online queue, but then a group came up to us and offered their place. Sick. I had porridge, and Freezer had pancakes & blueberries. Freezer also bought a cool yellow beanie with an egg on it for me, awesome.
After that, we aimed for the Museum of Technology. During the journey, I really had to pee, and my god, disaster almost struck. We found a barely secluded side of the road, where I found relief while a man watched me from behind me. Sorry to whoever's house I peed on. After that whole thing, we took the tram and ended up at our destination. The museum was super cool! A ton of old technology like phones and cameras, and some other ancient stuff. A highlight of the trip, despite the 5 year olds everywhere for some reason.
After that, we took some polaroid camera pictures in the snow with the polaroid and film provided by the hotel, and then headed back. For dinner, Freezer treated me to an Indian takeaway and herself to a pizza, simply because it's tradition for a Chicken Tikka Masala on my birthday.
We found our way to a pub for some drinks, despite its poor reviews, and found out that most of them were from people getting kicked out from the pub for stupid reasons, like trying to show up with a party of 15 people and being generally aggressive. We talked to a bartender working there, cool guy. Good craic.
Great birthday! 10/10
Day 5
It was our final full day in Stockholm, and we spent it... waiting for Freezer to try and secure Harry Styles tickets. The afternoon was, well... hm. Anyway, we then went out to a fancy expensive place for food and we both enjoyed a banging steak. Awesome.Not a very exciting day, but the steak was good at least :p
Heading back home
Our final day involved us packing everything up and heading out in the afternoon for a final lunch. We then went to a HiFi store because HiFi stores are awesome and I love HiFi sound technology, then to a gaming hardware store cus why not. The keyboards were cool.Then, we picked up our bags, and headed to the airport.
Then flew home.
And I left my passport and glasses on the plane. God damnit.
Didn't get them back and they had to prove I wasn't an immigrant pretending to be a UK citizen, and that was lengthy which almost made us miss the trains back home.
But we made it, urethra!
Then we had a McDonalds and drove back home blah blah blah all good stuff yep whatevs.
End
Great holiday go to Sweden 10/10 would do again cool place guys
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