After a few months settling into life in Sweden, I was ready for a study abroad milestone: hosting a visitor! My roommate from college back home is also studying abroad this semester, and we made it a mission to visit each other during our time in Europe. So, at the beginning of April, I hosted my first visitor to Stockholm!
Emma visited for the weekend, and we made the most of it! After braving flight delays and a layover in Oslo, she made it to Stockholm late Thursday night. We reunited at her Airbnb and prepared for the weekend ahead!
During DIS course registration, I had masterminded my schedule into not having Friday classes, so Emma’s first whole day here was free for plenty of activities, and we certainly made the most of it! We fueled up for our day with brunch (blueberry and vanilla pancakes) before catching the tram to the Abba Museum.
ABBA: The Museum is obviously a must-see for DIS Stockholm students, and I had been saving my trip for our visit. Upon entering the building, we got to learn more about the origins of the band and all their successes. Their songs played throughout the exhibits, which included a room full of their performance outfits and models of their studio.
The best part of the Abba museum is how interactive it is, making it perfect to do with visiting friends or family. Emma and I exercised our trivia skills, embraced our theater kid tendencies singing karaoke, and even tried our hands directing an orchestra! (This, I quickly learned, is NOT something I should be pursuing as my future career). After making our way through the museum, we stopped at the restaurant inside for fika (another Stockholm tradition perfect to share with visitors)!
After returning to my housing to rest (and charge our phones – Google Maps drains my battery like none other!), we headed back out, this time to dinner at the Stockholm City Food Hall. It’s located in the city center (T-Centralen), so it’s super convenient to get to, and it holds a whole host of options, from pho to burgers! We settled on tacos and quesadillas. Afterwards, we headed to the Stockholm ice bar.
Even though Emma visited in April, it was in fact snowing that weekend – a true welcome to Stockholm! As the world’s first permanent ice bar, ICEBAR perfectly fit this weather. Every year, it is demolished and rebuilt with a new theme, reflected in the ice sculptures inside.
Upon entering the building, we were presented with parkas and gloves to keep us warm. Inside the room, we marveled at the ice sculptures, benches, and tables, – even the drinks were served in glasses made solely of ice! I had never seen anything like it before, and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience before the cold got to be too much for our toes and we had to head back for the night.
Emma and I in the ICEBAR!!
We started off Sunday at Espresso House, a must when visiting Scandinavia! We sampled the traditional Swedish cinnamon roll (kannelbulle). Since the Espresso House chai latte and fika with kannelbullar both make up some of the little things I love about Stockholm, this was definitely an essential stop during Emma’s visit! Afterwards, we journeyed to the water for a boat tour of the archipelago.
We had a table facing the front window of the boat, where we enjoyed lunch and our live-guided tour. Stockholm is a city of islands, and getting to venture out on the water to see them was such a fun experience. We contemplated what life would be like on some of the littlest islands, and while we thought it would be a peaceful life, we decided we wouldn’t want to have to take a boat to get groceries! It was fun to hear more about the history of Stockholm and to see the beautiful nature from a new view.
Exploring the archipelago with our specially reserved table!
Later, we had dinner in Gamla Stan (Old Town), which boasts a surprising number of Italian restaurants! We stopped at one and had some delicious pasta and tiramisu.
Gamla Stan too is a must-see tourist spot, so we returned the next day, Emma’s last full day in Stockholm! We had brunch in a cafe, then wandered the streets, window-shopping and picking up a few fun souvenirs. After our walk, we headed out to see my visiting host family!
It wouldn’t be one of my blogs without a mention of how cool I think the visiting host family program is, so of course it was so special to share this experience with Emma. My visiting host dad’s sister is also a visiting host for one of my classmates, so our families had a joint Sunday dinner. We had some great conversation and some amazing food! For dessert, we had Marängsviss, a Swedish dessert made of meringues, whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce. This was a dessert that I had never heard of but thought was so fun – apparently it’s popular at kids’ birthday parties, which made perfect sense to me! As always, it was wonderful to see my visiting host family, and it was made even better by getting to meet more of the family and to introduce everyone!
On Mondays, I have classes in the morning, so Emma explored the Vasa Museum while I was at DIS. We reunited in the city center, had burgers at a restaurant nearby, then walked through Stockholm until it was time to head to the Arlanda Express. Sunday, fortunately, was lovely – gone was the snow from the rest of the weekend, and I could finally take my coat off (even in short sleeves!) – so it was a great chance to get to wander around the city. Afterward, Emma and I said our goodbyes. (These were a little dramatic considering we would be seeing each other in less than a week for my spring break!)
Moving to a new place is a wild ride in and of itself, but I think it’s definitely a mark of success when you can host people visiting you! One of my favorite things about moving away for college was having a place that felt totally mine – I loved knowing the tips, tricks, and shortcuts and getting to share those with family that visited me. Being able to have a visitor to Stockholm gave me some of those same feelings all over again! Of course, it’s okay if people can’t visit during a semester abroad – there are so many people I can’t wait to see when I get back to the US! But, if they do happen to have the opportunity, it’s definitely something I would recommend.
Hopefully this gave you some ideas for where to take visitors to Stockholm, some inspiration for places to go yourself, or even just a better feel for what the city has to offer! I find it easy to get caught up in routine and not spend as much time exploring as I should, so this was a great chance to visit some of the must-see places in Stockholm. I have less than three weeks left in my program, but I’m still feeling inspired to see everything I can before I go. And it was beyond lovely to get to share some of it with Emma!
Elise Abroad 
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