We’ve got the capes, now all we need now is a giant “S” on our chest. I think the capes we’re actually doing more to save lives than we were. Namely our lives, from hypothermia at the Absolut Icebar in Stockholm.
Included in your 180 kr entrance fee is a free Absolut drink of your choice served in a hollowed out block of ice.
While sipping on your syrup, you can check out the ice graffiti being “painted” (read: etched) into the giant walls of ice blocks …
…or just hang out by the ice sculptures.
But if you get tired of standing, you can kick back on an ice thrown…
There’s just gotta be something about living on an island that makes you think “Screw water conservation! I’ve got all the water I need! MUAHAH!” Seriously, in all of the showers that I’ve been in thus far in Stockholm (read: 2), the water pressure is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s like bathing at the bottom of Niagara Falls for goodness sake. It’s almost crippling the amount of water cascading down from their industrial strength shower heads. I feel like I need to be wearing a harness bolted to the wall just to withstand the pressure and keep my knees from buckling!
So fresh and so clean.
Sorry to disappoint you, but no photos of me showering will accompany this post.
For our last full day of activities in Stockholm we started off the morning at Gamla Stan (aka Old Town) to check out The Nobel Museum…
…which had an interesting exhibit called Design4Science which shows how designers cooperate with researchers to illustrate and create impressions of the invisible world of molecular biology.
Where else can you find wallpaper inspired by hemoglobin!?
Or insulin…
After being inspired by all the winners of the Nobel prizes, we needed some brain food, aka more ice cream!
Then it was off to Skansen which is a 75 acre open air museum…
…aquarium…
…and zoo…
After petting the moose…
…we figured there couldn’t possibly be anything to top that, so it was off to go meet up with Jay’s friend for a field trip to the Absolut Ice Bar.
Can you believe the accommodations these days in Swedish jails?!
Free WiFi access
Ability to use your laptop in your cell
Wear your own clothes
Flat screen TV’s in each cell
Nearby pubs
Heated towel racks
and keys so you can come and go as you please!
OK, so it’s not exactly an ACTIVE prison anymore, but it WAS a women’s prison back in 1724. After the last prisoner was released in 1972, it was converted into a hotel and museum.
Each of the former prison cells now function as the hotel rooms.
Yeah the rooms are small (about 8’x12′), but you pay for the experience. Complete with prison style bunk beds, bars on all the windows, and faux newspaper clippings on the walls to simulate how a former prisoner might have decorated their cell. Checking into your room even requires slinking past the old guard tower.
In a way, it’s sorta like The Bates Motel in that you can check in, but you can’t check out. Instead, you have to escape!
Similarly to the Galway Races and the Edinburgh International Festival in the last two counties, we stumbled into Stockholm just in time for the 2008 Kulturfestival. After a slow start this morning due to overindulging in Swedish spirits at F12 last night, we found some food to replenish our energy. After we digested the falafel & fries we followed the sounds of a low pitch bass guitar that was echoing through the city streets. The narrow streets opened up into a plaza where we found some random Swedish hip-hop band playing a free outdoor concert. The beats were funky and the lyrics, well… they were in Swedish, but the Sweeds in the crowd were bobbing their heads along to the flows so it must have been good. We later found out that the artists was Chords and during one song he brought a surprise guest on stage and the crowd went wild when they found out it was Timbuktu. They then performed together Det Löser sej and the crowd nearly lost it.
