The saddest farewell

Today at work it was the last work day for two of our colleagues in our Education team, Richa and Ann. It was time to get together and say farewell to them, with cake of course! 

It was a bit of a sad day, as we will really really miss Ann, above all. Richa worked in a different place in Education but Ann was our Team Leader, and our work days will be looking very different without her. She was the true rock of the team, and the one everyone leaned on. 

Richa is continuing her journey at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and Ann is moving to a manager position in the newly opened Natural History Museum. I wish them both good luck!

Closing the book on the 2024-2025 season

I came back from Sweden to work, work, work for a few weeks; and now it's time to go back again for the rest of the summer.

Work these weeks was fairly quiet, as it usually is during the summer months. Not many school visits, not many tourists, not much else to do. Gives us time to study and research though, which is always needed!

Kathleen came back from Belgium only this week, giving us just four days together at work. But we made the most of them! A little birthday celebration of her and Vivien in the museum café:

And an end-of-the season lush lunch at Fouquets with my Dream Team, before Termy and I now set off on our summer travels:

As you know, I enjoy my stats. Here are the ones from this 2024-2025 season:

I worked 117 days and I did 166 deliverables at the museum. 
Out of those, it was 98 general tours, 1 Architecture Tour, 32 school tours or school engagements, 15 External Tours, 17 tours of the Post-Impressionism and 3 tours of the Kings & Queens exhibition. 
As per usual, add to that special events, Mediations and the Tour Guide Training Programme with all that holds, it's been another busy year!
And - I still love what I do! 

But for now, its todaloo! Time for a bit of a break!

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

On our last day Nikki took us for lunch at a place called The Potting Shed.

Such a fabulous place! Full of hanging plants and lots of lush greenery, colourful flowers, nice furnishings and of course, delicious food.

It certainly seemed like a popular place, it was almost full. Good thing we had booked a table.

There was even a parrot!

Unfortunately it started raining as we were having our lunch. Nikki wanted to show us the rest of The Grounds, which you were allowed to visit if you had dined on the premises. They decorate according to different themes and currently it was Disney's Snow White.

We still did a very quick walk-through, but as the rain came on more and more, we had to give up.

Mirror, mirror on the wall... you can see Nathan having enough in this photo, and pushing me to move out of the rain! :)

I kind of enjoyed the rain though! We certainly don't get enough of it in the sandpit, so I didn't mind a couple of days of grey weather.

Goodbye to the summer, and thank you

Lucas and Nathan returned to Copenhagen, and Linnea and I returned to the cabin after our party weekend. We had to close it up, pick up the last of the fall fruit and clean everything after our time there.
Instead of cooking on our last night, Linnea suggested we go to Pinchos to end our West Coast-adventure. So be it!

Pinchos is always a hit, this time especially. Linnea ordered a cocktail and was ecstatic she got to show her ID for the very first time!

We then returned to Skara for a few days, but didn't take any photos those last days. The end of the summer.
Finally it was time to train down to Malmö:

The very last stop of this summer, a couple of days in Bunkeflo:

It was a strange feeling to stay for this long. I don't think I have been in Scandinavia in September for maybe 20 years, so I enjoyed the fall feelings creeping on. But we were also ready to go home by now. So even though we only got Economy seats on our return flight, we decided to go as planned. It was time.
Thank you summer of 2024!

Musselbaren

On our last evening as a trio in the summer house, we decided to go out for dinner as the weather was absolutely fantastic and we wanted to make the most of it.

We had been recommended to try the Musselbaren in Ljungskile, and it was spot on - really good wholesome food (all mussel based).

We managed to get a table on the terrace so we could enjoy the view and the sun in all its glory.

What a great evening, such a beautiful place!

The best way to end our west coast adventure together.

Linnea's Grad Walk

This morning it was time for Linnea to do a rehearsal of the Graduation ceremony at school. Since this year group missed their Spirit Week (their last week physically in school) because of the storms that shut the whole country down back in April; this day was planned to be rather special for them.

They got to perform the very first Grad Walk at their school! Here's a sped up version:

The Grade 12s were walking all over school, and the rest of the students were lining their walk, in the school yard, the gymnasium and the corridors; clapping, cheering on and handing out high-fives! It was a roaring success, and school has decided that from now on this will always be a part of the Graduation traditions at school.
So much fun!

The last of the last

Today was a celebratory day, as it was the day of the last IB exam for Linnea. For the past three weeks, she has sat 15 exams, covering everything she has learned during her two years of the Diploma Program. Fifteen exams!

Now all there is left is Graduation, and everything that has to do with that! (And waiting for the grades of course... but we'll think about that later...!)

We got her a little present to celebrate finishing the exams, a building set of a 'Book Nook'. It's these little miniature worlds that are in the size of a book, to be placed in between all other books in your book shelf.
I thought it would test her patience a bit with all the fiddly bits, but Linnea got right into it. It took a fair few hours, and it turned out so pretty!

Trinity 100

Yesterday was the last day for the Cartier, Islamic arts and Modern Design exhibition that we have had at the museum since November. It has been an extremely popular exhibition, I guess the interest for jewellery is very universal. We have delivered many, many, many tours of this particular exhibition. Personally I count over 40 tours, which is very unusual for a temporary exhibition and I have really enjoyed all of these tours. It has indeed been a rather lovely exhibition to present with interesting stories and beautiful pieces.

Since I just had a big birthday, I decided to get myself a "souvenir" and something to remind me of all of these tours. I set my sights on a classic Cartier Trinity ring. This year it has been 100 years since it was first designed in 1924; so I thought it was a suited gift to myself, considering we both are celebrating!

Happy Birthday to me!

Bye bye Brunch

It's been a really busy weekend with lots of celebrations!

On Saturday I went into the city to join a farewell brunch for one of our SwedishLadies, Viktoria. She's moving back to Sweden after three years here in the sandpit. She's been heavily involved in the SwedishLadies committee, so there was 20 of us coming to say our goodbyes.

She had chosen St Regis on the Corniche, one of the golden oldies of Abu Dhabi, a really lush brunch. 

 

We had so much lovely food!

She got flowers and this lovely souvenir from Abu Dhabi, a personalised 'Queen Camel' painting made by a fellow SwedishLady Madeleine.

Our very last International Day

On the weekend it was time for the highlight of the school year in my book - Global Village, or International Day! Our very last International Day...
I admit, I was actually a bit emotional.
For one, it is an absolutely AMAZING event that I have always loved to be part of, and secondly, it's another chapter closed for good. No more International Day celebrations.

I was actually not part of the preparations this year, as some of the other parents took it upon themselves to organise, and change things up a bit! They decided to pair up with Denmark and Norway and created a Scandinavian corner with a whole Viking boat and everything! So awesome!

The set up was absolutely fabulous! The ladies were dressed up as Vikings, all the decorations had Viking themes and they had been baking lots of treats - which also had Viking names!

 

There was huge printouts with lots of cool information about the Vikings:

Susanne and Laura, two Danish Vikings, and Linda:

There was Viking face paint, and Viking games to play:

As per usual, here are some more snapshots of the day, of some of the rest of the participants of Global Village. It felt massive this year, I think it must have been a record number of countries participating. Everyone making such an effort too, it was absolutely beautiful!

Such a great morning! I am so extremely happy our kids have grown up to get to know so many different countries, cultures and traditions. This is by far the best part of their schooling, hands down.