The assignment: VisitSweden and Stockholm Gay and Lesbian Network organized a trip for gay press to promote the country as a vacation destination for the LGBT visitor. The itinerary included stops in Stockholm, the capital city; also, a visit to IceHotel on the outskirts of Kiruna, a city located 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
My friends thought I was crazy for going on this trip, scheduled for the still-freezing beginning of March. A group of gay journalists roughing it in sub-zero temperatures was a recipe for drama—especially for me—as I have lived in Miami for years and I don’t even own a winter coat. Luckily Marc Jacobs makes cashmere socks; I bought six pairs to keep warm.
IceHotel: I said brr, its cold in here
After flying overnight on Scandinavian Airlines we arrived at Kiruna Airport, where we were greeted by several dogsled teams ready to bring us to our first stop. Visitors to IceHotel can drive or take a van; but our guides thought we should arrive in style.
Dog sledding is a serene experience, bundled up on the sleds and whooshing along while listening to the sounds of the crunching snow and the panting dogs. Those dogs love to run, they just look ahead and go, go, go with their tongues lolling out to the side. If their driver needs to stop mid-trail, they raise a howling ruckus and impatiently pull on their chains. Unfortunately, they are so devoted to the job if they need to poop they let it go in mid-stride. That meant some of it got kicked into the air in our direction. I suppose it’s all a part of living harmoniously with nature.
After taking a quick break along the trail for sandwiches and warm lingonberry juice—lingonberries are Sweden’s equivalent to blackberries—we pulled up to the IceHotel, which is the fanciest igloo ever built: 84 rooms made entirely of ice and snow.
Ceiling, walls, chairs, even the chandelier crystals are ice, everything except the memory-foam mattresses on the beds, which are covered in reindeer skins. Larger “Ice Suite” hotel rooms are decorated with avant garde snow sculptures and statues. There is also an IceBar on the property; and next door is the IceChapel, built from crystalline blocks of ice that glow with the light of the Arctic sun. IceChapel hosts hundreds of weddings each year, including gay weddings, as gay marriage is fully legal in Sweden.
Not everything is made of ice—the property has several permanent structures, including changing rooms with lockers for storing your luggage, as well as the hotel bathrooms. This was good news, as I had feared finding out we were expected to use some sort of outhouse made of ice. But no, the toilets are real, and warm.
Also warm are the hotel’s restaurants, serving modern Scandinavian fare that is locally-sourced. Our first night we sampled reindeer (too gamey), arctic char topped with caviar (delicious), and the big surprise of the night: a filet-of-moose served cold that tasted like a very pleasant rare beef, no trace of a gamey aftertaste. Watch out Bullwinkle, I had no idea moose steaks are so delicious.
Our bellies full, we put on our snowsuits again and had some cocktails at the IceBar before turning in for the night. Now that I’ve lived through this experience, allow me to explain how to sleep in an IceHotel room.
Step 1: Go to the changing room and change into your pajamas. Also wear your boots. Try really hard to pee one last time, so you don’t have to go again all night. Step 2: Go to the front desk and get a sub-zero-grade sleeping bag. The temperature in your room hovers at 22 degrees Fahrenheit, or -5 Celsius, but the sleeping bag will keep you very warm. Step 3: Scamper outside and enter the IceHotel and find your room. Step 4: Put your bag on your bed, take off your boots, and zip yourself into the bag until only your nose is exposed.
Stockholm, here we come
We spent a second day in the Arctic, riding snowmobiles (fun!) and racing reindeer while kneeling on tiny sleds (terrifying!), and slept in IceHotel’s lovely collection of cottages. Then at the crack of dawn we boarded a plane headed back south to Stockholm.
The largest city in Scandinavia, Stockholm spans a series of 14 islands with bridges reaching over the rivers in every direction. The city is like a giant, living snow globe. The medieval and Baroque architecture has been marvelously preserved, with towering steeples looming over quaint little cobblestone streets lined with multi-colored shops.
Because this was a press trip, as soon as we arrived we visited museums, museums and more museums. Hallwyl Museum (HallwylSkamuseet.se) is the historical mansion of Countess von Hallwyl, an odd obsessive-compulsive collector of anything and everything; Vasa Museum (VasaMuseet.se) is a Viking war ship that was salvaged after 333 years on the ocean floor; Millesgården (Millesgarden.se) celebrates the sculptures of Carl Milles, the artist who created renowned nude statues found throughout the city, many of which are highly sexualized and blatantly homoerotic.
But enough with the culture! Nightlife in Europe is notoriously rowdier than in the U.S., and on weekends Stockholm is lots of fun. Saturday night we bounced from place to place, starting with dinner at Brassiere Le Rouge (LeRouge.se), where we sat beneath red velvet drapes and I drank so much wine I don’t remember what I ate but I remember it was really tasty.
We then went to Zipper (ZipperSthlm.com), a multi-room gay nightclub playing American hip-hop as well as “Schlager,” a.k.a. Swedish pop music, which is the happiest catchiest music you will ever hear. This is the country that created ABBA, remember. The dance floor was refreshingly mixed with both men and women, everyone was beautiful, and most locals were happy to chat in English—perhaps to tell you smug stories of their upcoming wedding plans.
Shop ‘til you drop
Swedish culture possesses a devotion to beautiful design that is rivaled only by the Japanese. Everything about Stockholm is beautiful—the clothes, the furniture, the faucets in the restaurant bathrooms—the people appreciate good design and insist on surrounding themselves with it.
I reasoned that a shopping excursion was a great way to see the city on foot. Stockholm is divided into sections by its islands: the Gamla Stan is the historic medieval city center; Södermalm to the south includes the artsy-Bohemian “SoFo” neighborhood, and to the north lays extravagant furniture design district of Östermalm. There is plenty of shopping ground to cover, but thanks to a splendid subway system (and directions from kind-hearted locals) the city is easy to navigate.
Although the Swedish kronor is a little high against the U.S. dollar, I still found some fantastic new buys: a streamline glass votive candle holder from Design House Stockholm (DesignHouseStockholm.com), multiple pairs of sunglasses from H&M and an array of clever kitchen tools from DesignTorget (DesignTorget.se) that might inspire me to cook someday. I almost bought a set of Nobel flatware—replicas of the flatware used at the official Nobel Prize dinner—so I could feel like I was changing the world while I ate my morning eggs.
