Spring Break in Scandinavia

This trip was planned very last minute. I never thought I would make it to Scandinavia during this trip to Europe. A couple months ago I booked a flight to Greece by myself, and my mom wasn’t very pleased that I was going by myself. My friend Julia jokingly said “If you come to Scandinavia with me then I’ll come to Greece with you.” And just like that I was booking my flights to Scandinavia for spring break.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Our time spent in Copenhagen was perfect! Every decision we made worked out for the best! It was truly a happy city and now one of my favorite cities in Europe!

Day 1: We began our trip with a free walking tour around Copenhagen. Normally free walking tours get a little boring after a while, but our guide, PJ, made the three hours worth wild. He gave us a brief history lesson about the Vikings and about Denmark and he also showed us basically the entire city. After the tour it was time for lunch. We were relying on the Trip Advisor City Guides app (if you haven’t downloaded yet, I highly suggest it) for restaurant suggestions. After an hour of looking at different menus and prices we found the winner, Paludan’s Book Café. It was set up like an antique library and had delicious food at a reasonable price. Oh I forgot to mention that Scandinavia is the most expensive region in Europe, with a normal meal costing about $20. Later that night we went to Tivoli Gardens. It is Europe’s third largest amusement park and it is also the amusement park that Disney World is modeled after. We were even able to swing over the city at sunset! It was an awesome ending to a perfect day!

Day 2: Again, another perfect day (you’ll hear that about everyday of the trip). The morning started out with a hunt for bagels. We stumbled upon a little restaurant, which deserves the award for best customer service in Europe. Not only was our breakfast amazing, Deborah, the woman working behind the counter, became our best friend. She was so kind and helpful and even gave us the local discounts.  We took our bagels to the harbor and enjoyed a beautiful view. Along with a beautiful view, we also got to listen to an awesome street band called Pavement Orchestra. Not only did they play well, they were also very cute. We decided to leave them a tip on two American dollars. We write them a little note telling them to come to America and said our goodbyes.

 The day continues with a one-hour harbor tour. Not only was it the perfect amount of time, but we also saw the famous Little Mermaid statue and found our future glass apartments. The next help of our day was probably the most interesting experience in Copenhagen. We went to visit the infamous Christiania. Christiania is known as a “free town” in Denmark. They have their own flag, which you can see below. They claimed to have left the European Union and are regulated under a special law. It is unique hippie town with just over 800 residents. There is awesome graffiti everywhere and they even have a “green light” district where Denmark tolerates the selling and buying of marijuana. It was very interesting to see the different lifestyle and we also enjoyed some awesome falafel!

Overall, Copenhagen was the perfect start of our adventure. It was a beautiful city made up of beautiful locals!

Oslo, Norway

After an overnight bus from Copenhagen, we arrived in Oslo at 6:00AM on Sunday morning. We didn’t have high expectations for Oslo. I’m not exactly sure why, maybe it’s because I’ve never really heard about it. We also were there for Easter weekend, so we decided to go in with the attitude that this would be our relaxing city.

The hostels in Oslo were over $50 and none of them had good ratings, so we decided to try something new- Couch Surfing. Couch Surfing is a website that brings together travelers and allows locals to host travelers coming through their city. It is also a way to meet awesome people and experience a city through a local’s point-of-view, which is obviously the best way to see a city. Each host and traveler has a profile where they have to answer a bunch of questions about themselves and they also have references from other people they have hosted or have met traveling.  After sending about 30 requests to hosts we got accepted by a girl named Maria. She had a lot positive references and from reading her profile she seemed like someone Julia and I would get along with. We accepted the invitation and the journey began.

Day 1:

When we arrived at the bus station we decided to wait a couple hours before heading to Maria’s apartment because it was so early. There were some interesting characters waiting with us. The man sitting next to Julia spit on the floor inside the building right next to Julia’s foot. Maria’s place was only a 15 min walk from the bus station, but we got lost and ended up walking in a huge circle. After 45 mins of wandering around Oslo we finally found her apartment. She greeted us, let us shower, and introduced us to her Italian friend who moved to Oslo to juggle. From the start we knew this would be a good experience. Maria spoke perfect English because her mom is from America, but the people in Scandinavia in general all speak perfect English.

After refreshing up a bit Maria had to go to work, so she gave us some tips about the city and we began our adventure for the day. After eating at a cute café we made out way to the famous sculpture park. The walk was so nice…and so long. On our way we stumbled upon the Royal Palace and the Embassy section. It was interesting how you could walk 20 mins and be in a completely different part of the city. We walked through a gorgeous neighborhood and picked our future houses. After walking for about an hour we finally arrived at the park. Since it was Easter the park was filled with families, cute babies, and playful dogs. We wandered around the park and enjoyed looking at the 200+ funny sculptures of people. We then plopped down on a grassy hill and took a nice nap. The sun was shining, people were laughing, dogs were barking, and it was clear blue skies. It was perfect!

Delicious food can always make you love a city a little bit more. Thanks to our handy Trip Advisor app we were able to find an awesome tapas restaurant full of locals. Our waiter was beautiful and the entire menu was in Norwegian so he just decided out entire meal for us, included cava sangrias. Definitely one of the best meals I’ve eaten in Europe! 

It didn’t get dark until 9:30PM! It would be really cool to live here in the summer, but we were told that during the winter it gets light at 10:00AM and dark at 3:00PM, so if you have a regular job you never see sunlight…I don’t think I could handle that. Later that night we took Maria and her roommate out for a drink to thank them for having us. Some of their other friends joined us out who were also really fun people. There were some places we couldn’t even get into because the age to enter was 23 year old! Crazy stuff! We went to an outdoor bar/club, where it was the first time I’ve experienced the guys leaving the girls at the table to go dance. It was so fun and so different than America. It was definitely another happy day!

Day 2:

Our first night Couch Surfing meant legitimately sleeping on a couch and on a cot, but it also meant being able to sleep until noon. We decided today was going to be a very relaxing day, because it was technically still a holiday so everything was closed. Maria made us a yummy little breakfast and after chilling and talking with Maria and her roommate it was time to say our goodbyes. She let us keep our backpacks at her house until we needed to go to the airport later and gave us a key to leave in her mailbox when we left. Having our own key made us feel like locals.

On this sunny, warm day we thought it would be a good idea to relax on top of the famous opera house. The opera house is situated right along the harbor and has a slanted roof so hundreds of people just hangout there all the time. We lied on the roof for a couple hours listening to music and tanning. It officially felt like spring break! After relaxing on the opera house we made our way to the fortress also situated along the harbor, which again was beautiful and sunny. Dinnertime rolled around and we knew exactly what we wanted- juicy cheeseburgers! We walked to the restaurant that we knew had good cheeseburgers only to find the server telling us he ran out of food for Easter. We ended up eating at McDonalds, but that is okay because it was much cheaper.

After picking up our bags from Maria’s we went back to the opera house, sat on our backpacks, and enjoyed sunset. Since our flight was at 6:00AM and we would’ve had to arrive to the airport around 4:00AM we decided it was best to just sleep at the airport. We went to the bus station to catch our airport shuttle and somehow we missed the first one, but that was okay since we had many hours until our flight. If the worst thing to happen to us so far was missing a shuttle and having to wait another 30 mins for the next one, then I’d say our trip was going pretty well! We arrived at the airport, situated ourselves on the couches at the closed Starbucks, and entertained ourselves until our early flight.

 In the end we had a fantastic, happy, and relaxing time there. It might not be my favorite city, but it is still a beautiful, diverse, and sunny city. Oslo surprised me in a good way. We met people we never would have met otherwise and had a fabulous time Couch Surfing with Maria. I don’t think I will ever come back, but I am very pleased with my time spent there.

Stockholm, Sweden

The moment we arrived in our hostel in Stockholm, City Backpackers Hostel, we knew it was going to be a great experience. They let us check-in early, our roommates were Israelis, and they gave check-out chocolate to everyone who was leaving as we arrived. We spent 4 nights in Stockholm, so instead of going day-by-day, I’m going to highlight the best parts of our time there.

City Backpackers: Definitely the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at! Not only was it in the perfect location, it also had awesome staff, comfy beds, free pasta for anyone to cook, and a very social environment! Our experience would not have been the same if we stayed anywhere else. It felt like home and we were sad to leave.  One night we came home from the bar with some other people in the hostel and we walked into the kitchen where a guy from Slovakia was playing the cello, a guy from Argentina was playing the saxophone, and a girl from Israel was doing contemporary dance to go along with their music. It was incredible and only in a hostel will you experience such creativity and unity.

Getting cultured: After a couple days of relaxing in Oslo it was time to have some fun being active in Stockholm. Our hostel had a “Swedish meatball experience night” where we learned how to make Swedish meatballs and had a fabulous dinner! We also went on a 3-hour bike tour with our hostel around the city. During the tour we biked up to an overlook to stop for some coffee, which was the highlight of the tour. While Julia was having a Skype interview I went on a free walking tour of the Old Town with some people from the hostel. The Old Town was so cute and quaint and our guide had a really funny accent because he was from Arkansas. One night we participated in the hostel’s pub-crawl and went to different bars around the city…that was an interesting night. Since we had 4 full days in the city we also walked to a lot of parks around the city and sat by the water. Stockholm was filled with interesting and beautiful people, so people watching was also an experience in itself. 

 Proud to be an American: the game started in Copenhagen, but continued throughout our trip. Everyday we would count how many people were wearing New York Yankee hats or things with American flags on them. In 2 hours we counted over 45 people. We went to a voodoo shop and while we were talking with a woman she explained to us how there used to be a bit of an anti-American feeling in Scandinavia, but recently it has shifted to a more positive view.

New Friends: A Scottish guy called Julia and I the friendly Americans because we talked to everyone in the hostel. We met so many interesting and fun people that I even have a page in my journal with all of their names and a description about each other them.  The list is made up of 30 different people and the countries consist of Israel, Australia, Argentina, Spain, Switzerland, England, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and America. The Australian guys actually came to Dubrovnik after and I was able to show them all around the city! I love hostels for this exact reason; you never know whom you’ll meet and you never know when you’ll run into someone somewhere else around the world. 

Stockholm treated us so well! I can’t decide if I like Stockholm or Copenhagen better, so I’m just not going to choose. Scandinavia is officially my favorite part of Europe! It is definitely very expensive and if someone were traveling on a tight budget I would recommend Eastern Europe, but I think everyone should visit Scandinavia at some point in his or her life. It is a beautiful region, with friendly locals who all speak English, and offers much to see!