Ever since Sweden, we’ve introduced Fika breaks when we ski. Today I dug a little deeper in my pockets and found Swedish money and chocolates!
Mid season goggle tan selfie in the bathroom.
chocolate
We made it
We didn’t fly together cause that’s overrated, but all the flights and luggage and tourists made it all the way from Los Angeles to Stockholm.
We got a rental car and started our drive up north. Stopped for late dinner just outside Gävle, probably one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had, so delicious!
We had quite a long drive ahead of us so we went to the grocery store to stock up on snacks, how can you go wrong with a store named City Gross?
Introduced Asher to the world of Swedish chocolates.
A few hours later after driving in pitch black on shitty icy roads while listening to Swedish radio and solving world problems, we came across these fellas.
I am quite an excellent co-driver and I’ve been around reindeers on shitty icy roads before so I saw them way ahead. I missed to communicate that to the driver though so we almost bumped into them. Reindeers are also kind of stupid and they won’t move even if a car get’s right up behind them. We got some nice photos and it felt like whatever happen the rest of the weeks in Sweden, it wouldn’t matter, we got to see reindeers!
Made it up to Funäsdalen shortly after 2am.
Glögg
Prepping for X-mas with this years edition of the glögg and marzipan.
Sockerbit
Turns out, you just not only ski for free on your birthday, you also get a bunch of other fun deals. I got a free glass of sparkly wine for up to 10 of my friends at the Bottlerock, the wine bar in Culver City. Smashing!
My friends gave me a box of candy!
Kex Choklad
Twix is my default between run snack when I ski and last weekend we talked about the best candy bars around. Someone mentioned Kit Kat so I had to go to the Swedish store and pick up a Kex Choklad for next weekend. Kex Choklad is way better than Kit Kat.
Wolfed down one of these while I was at it.
Olson’s
Sometimes I have to treat myself to a little bit of Sweden!
Polly
My co-worker just came back from a short trip to Sweden and brought be back my favorite chocolates! It’s the best breakfast ever!
Sockerbit Los Angeles
I have a severe sweet tooth. I have somewhat managed to curb it while in US, because frankly the sweets here sucks. It either tastes like petroleum or has a unnatural sweetness to it. Same goes with baked goods, not so hot in the US of A. They put cream cheese in the Danish Pastries for example. “Cheese Danish”? Please people, it’s supposed to be grandma couch, not cheese!
I got a text from a friend that they’ve open a Swedish candy store by the Grove. We had to set up a candy date!
I got flashbacks to when I was a kid. We had two candy stores in the town where I grew up. One overpriced chain store called Jam Jam. Is this store still around? No one in my generation seemed to like the candy in this store. We much more preferred Ebbas with the old lady behind the counter that gave you free samples. Ebba retired though, and no one wanted to take over the store so it closed down. So sad.
I like that it is a bit of a hassle for me to get to Sockerbit, if it was walkable, I would probably be there every other weekend.
Washington D.C
I got into Washington DC at 8am and it felt like I walked about 100 miles throughout the day. I started off with the Capitol Building.
These two R’n’B singers win! They were recording a music video. I don’t think I need to do anymore sightseeing today, nothing will top this!
I heard you might be able to go inside, but I could not be bothered researching that, I felt there was so much to do anyway. Off to the Washington Monument I went.
“Off course the have to renovate it now, when I’m here” I thought as I saw it had turned into a construction site. I later learned it was damaged from the 5.8 earthquake in 2011. So, fair enough…
A glimpse of the White House, but I’ll get back to that later.
The Lincoln Memorial was crowded! A few busloads of school kids must just have arrived.
They had drained the Reflecting Pool, but I could still see some reflection!
I’ve always found the Lincoln Memorial a little creepy. Why does he have to be so huge like? Sitting on his throne looking out over the people.
After the creepy Lincoln, I headed over to Georgetown. The old part of town. I had made my research before hand and learned that Baked & Wired was the best place to find delicious baked goods. There were a huge line out the door when I arrived, and I got a little stressed and disappointed. All I could see was cupcakes. I’ve never been a big fan of cupcakes. I wanted a cream pie, not a stupid cupcake. I couldn’t find anything on the menu that really looked appealing to me, so I just grabbed a gluten free chocolate cupcake, that surprisingly was really good. Coffee was pretty good as well. As I had my coffee and cupcake I finally saw where they were hiding their pies – under the counter! What the hell!
I liked Georgetown a lot, super cute old buildings.
Washington DC has this awesome bike share system, you pay $7 for 24h and you get to use a bike as much as you want. There’s hubs all over the city where you can park your bike and pick up a new one. Brilliant system, I want Los Angeles to adapt this as well!
By 4pm I was already exhausted from all the walking, but I made it to the real reason I came to Washington DC. I had an appointment with Sweden.
After being laugh at by the Swedish ambassador due to my Justin Bieber haircut on the 5 year old documents, I made it out of there. The first beer of the day was way overdue!
I was gonna meet my friend at 7pm in Chinatown, 2.5 miles away from where I was. I was tired, but had plenty of time, so I kept walking.
I walked by the White House, the light from the sunset was really nice.
The White House seem a lot smaller than I was expecting. We have bigger houses than that in Los Angeles, haha!
I walked by the Capitol City Brewing Company. I had to stop in for a beer.
Back to Chinatown!
Big Bear Weekend
You ski and board for free at Snow Summit on your birthday so a bunch of us headed up to the mountain for the weekend to celebrate. Happy birthday to me!
We lost a few at lunch, beer tend to do that to people, but I had so much fun so I skipped the lunch beer.
Gourmet dinner in our luxury cabin!
Chocolate cake while watching the winter olympics after a day on the mountain. That’s how all birthdays should be celebrated!
