Where the World's Tales Unfold

First time we went to the Book Fair was just a few months after we arrived, as Sweden was the Guest of Honour in 2014. It was really exciting, we met famous authors, joined a cook-a-long and did a lot of fun things in the Swedish booth.

The following year we returned again, because there was a huge celebration for Pippi Långstrump in 2015, on her 70th anniversary. And do we like Princess Cake.., oh yes!!

So it had been quite a few years since I was last at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, but this year I really wanted to go. For this the 33rd edition, the whole fair was centered around the theme of tales. Also they had chosen Kalila wa Dimna as the "Book of the World", the one book each year that has influenced the literary and cultural process around the world, and whose influence has spread across cultures and time.

I took my friend Michaela, and we went to have a wonder for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon.

It was huge, lots to look at! Like a giant tree made up out of books, and a portrait of Sheikh Zayed made with falcon feathers:

The Louvre Abu Dhabi booth was beautiful!

I found out they were premiering a new publication called Pearls of Wisdom, a book I have been waiting for a long time. It is a book made up out of the quotes that you find on the windows all over the museum. So many of our visitors gets moved by them, and this is really the perfect souvenir from a visit at the museum.

We also found the Swedish publisher, with lots of titles we knew:

Love love love books!

This years spring... shift?

Usually this time of the year, I go through a bit of a metamorphosis process. I wrote about how this usually pans out last year.
I have to say, this year I'm not experiencing quite the same urge, as my focus is all together on Linnea at the moment. She is in the middle of her final IB exams (she has done 6 out of 13 exams so far) and it is - and has been for a while - a very stressful time for her, obviously. And for all of us.
The time I usually have trouble to fill as work slows down, is spent at home supporting her in all and every way possible during this time. Mostly by just being here, but that is important enough.

I have actually moved my trusty old best Covid-friend the treadmill into the guest room for a while and started doing some indoor walks. I never really got into to going to the gym here. It being placed in the basement with no windows give it such a "dungey" feeling. I like it better with the view of the sea!

We have also done some spring cleaning around the house. I guess its the old platitude, when the mind is messy - you clean!
We finally got around to clearing out the downstairs bathroom a bit. It had basically just become a dumping room, and was full of all sorts of things that didn't have a place anywhere else. Even though technically we don't need to be able to use it (as there are three other bathrooms in the apartment) we thought it could be nice when we have several sets of visitors at once, which has happened a few times already.
Here's Nathan about half way through the process... ha ha, just when steam tends to run out.

Well, we managed. Now there are still some things in there in one corner, but someone could still use it as a bathroom (as it is huge!), so mission accomplished. What's next..?

I Fablernas Värld

The Cartier exhibition which ran from November to March, proved a fantastic success when it came to visitors numbers. It had well over 250,000 visitors, a record-breaking figure for temporary exhibition visitation since museum opening.

I don't think though that this next exhibition will pull just as many visitors, nor that I will be delivering many tours in it. It is an exhibition which actually surprised me a lot in that I personally wasn't aware of the many different origins of our well-known fables, I have (again) learned so many new things, and I love that! Although it has proven popular to book for schools, otherwise I will probably not tour it much unfortunately.

The other day I delivered a tour in Swedish though, for my trusty SwedishLadies-group who always books a visit in each new exhibition.

All of them were old enough to remember this old children's tv show featuring anthropomorphic felt animal puppets, where each episode was based upon famous fables. It was made in the Netherlands, but was very popular in Sweden, where it was called 'In Fablernas Värld'.

We had a nice morning together, in the world of fabels!

Celebration at the Residence

After the visit of the delegation from the Swedish Embassy at the museum in March, I received a beautiful invitation to the Ambassadors residence and an evening to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Swedish Business Council here in the UAE.
We were a little bit worried this evening would be postponed due to the previous storms, but we were lucky and it was just a little bit windy, no rain.

I was in the company of Linda and her colleague Yoana:

The residence is a beautiful venue for a gathering, and this particular evening they had set up everything on the lawn. We had some Swedish themed nibbles, mingled and there was a few token speeches of course.

Since this year it's been 50 years since 'Waterloo' won the Eurovision Song Contest, we got entertained by an ABBA medley. These ladies always perform during SBC events, and they are great.

To end the evening and the celebration, Swedish Princess Cake! Served individually in plastic cups, such a great idea!

 Thank you for a lovely night and Happy Anniversary SBC!

Zzzzz

We furnished our first house all in one go when we arrived in Abu Dhabi those 10+ year ago. We had made a mood board in advance, discussed different options and made a shopping list for IKEA. Our first day here, we spent 7 hours in IKEA, and a few days later when everything turn up - it was like a pop-up house!
We got big 180x200 IKEA beds for everywhere, both in the guest room and in our room. (And in the kids' rooms, although we updated both their beds throughout our time in Haya Compound, as they grew out of their initial set-up).

Nathan had been complaining for quite a while that he didn't sleep well in our bed anymore. Our mattresses had probably done their job, and it was time to look for something else.
He refused an IKEA bed this time, so we spread our search a bit further. We went to Dalma Mall, where we had found there was a lot of different bed/mattress shops. Although buying a bed is really difficult! How are you going to know if a bed will be comfortable by just trying it for a few minutes..?!

Anyway, we ended up ordering a new bed in an even bigger size than the previous, 200x200. As Nathan was going on an overnight when it was going to be delivered, we decided to dismount the old frame and sleep on the mattresses to make sure the new one could be placed right away. Quite cosy actually, a bit like camping!

Ha ha, we ended up "camping" for over a week, as the bed delivery got delayed because of the storms. Finally though, it arrived! Behold our new blue dream!

I have to admit, I have not immediately started to sleep like a princess, it seems like my body needs to adjust to the new mattress? Or maybe I new new pillows too? Ah well, at least it's bigger..!

The old bed frame will be taken over by friends, but we decided to keep the mattresses as they will be useful for when having visitors. In the meantime, to store them, we made them into a daybed in one corner of the upstairs landing (the laundry/training space). So a bit of change both here and there in the house!