During the fresh days of the new year, my sister, J and I took a cruise to Stockholm. This is one of the cool things about living in Tallinn– the relative accessibility of so many other countries, all of which are quite different from Estonia. We can hop on a cruise ship in Tallinn, ride all night, and arrive in the morning in a large, clean, cosmopolitan Scandinavian city. We had a hotel booked for one night so that we’d have more time to enjoy the city, which I last visited when I was 13. (On a completely unrelated note, the first time I ever went to Estonia, my mother and I took a boat from Stockholm to get there, which means my first real-life view of Tallinn’s medieval skyline was from the sea in the early morning light. It was truly breathtaking.)

This was not much of a fooding trip, since we wanted to save money and stick to the cheapest possible food options. We mostly ate kebab from shops on street corners and drank coffee. We did have a lovely buffet breakfast at our hotel, the Scandic Sergel Plaza, which included breads, crackers, so many different kinds of cheese and sliced meats, herring, yogurt with different cereals and toppings, hot breakfast foods… man we ate a lot that morning. No pictures though.

What I actually wanted to write about is drinks. To save money, we naturally bought provisions from the duty-free shop on the ship.

Meet Hartwall Original Gin, the classic Scandinavian beverage (actually, I’m not even sure if that’s true, but J insisted we get the Hartwall brand because it’s the best, or something ). Gin is a very misleading name (it’s a “gin long drink” to be precise), since it doesn’t taste anything like gin. At all. It tastes like a carbonated grapefruit beverage, pretty sweet but with that slight bitter grapefruity edge at the same time. Not bad to drink every once in a while. (I actually just visited the link myself and read the history of the drink. My description of it as a classic isn’t far off).

One spot in Stockholm we knew we had to visit was the Absolut Icebar. It’s a bar in the Nordic Sea Hotel, open year-round, and almost entirely made of ice. My sister visited it a few years ago and said it was touristy but totally worth it. I’d have to agree. Admission is 180 SEK, about 22 USD, but it also includes one cocktail. They require you to wear these silvery blue ponchos with hoods. “Do we have to?” we asked. “It’s colder outside than it is in there.” (It was nearly -10 C that night). “Yes, because they make you look cool,” the employee said, pulling a poncho over my sister’s head. He was right, the effect of the silvery poncho in the icy room lit with blue lights is pretty striking. And the cocktails are strong, and, of course, cold.

They have special names for all their cocktails, but mine was basically vodka and lingonberry juice (the Scandinavian version of a vodka cranberry ). The vodka may have been flavored; I can’t remember. I must admit I found the giant cube-shaped ice glass a bit hard to grip with the gloves they gave us, but I managed to hang onto it. Drinking from ice was definitely pretty awesome.

It was a fun experience and we got a lot of great pictures. Not nearly as hard-core as going to one of those hotels made entirely of ice, but it gives you an idea of what it might be like, plus you get a tasty drink out of the deal. See J? Maybe Sweden isn’t so bad after all.