A quick trip to Doha

Nathan and I ended up having a few days off together last weekend, that we had planned thinking Linnea might come down for her February holidays. She ended up not coming, as she felt it was too close to having been home for Christmas.
So, we decided to hop over to Qatar for the weekend, as it turned out Andrew and Anna were also free!
We arrived Saturday night to a beautiful dinner cooked by Andrew, and great views from the Pearl:

Sunday we went for a walk, and had brunch/lunch in a café. We met up with another old Brunei-friend, Mike, and then we relaxed by the pool for the afternoon. We had planned to play some padel, but as it was rather windy we scrapped that and just chilled.

In the evening we did a Chinese take-away, and chatted the night away. 

Then it was time for us to fly home again, but lucky it's only a 45 minute flight. Easy as.

Back to normal

So, I sent Mum home early Thursday morning. She was a bit anxious about traveling on her own, but at least she was in Business Class, so traveling very comfortably from here to Copenhagen to start with. 
They had warned for snow and traffic disruptions on all the trains in South-West Sweden, but all her three (!) train trips went without a hitch. 
It took her most of the day, but she got home no problem, and the house was still standing, so all good!

Now she has done the trip once, it will be easier next time.

I was back at work straight away, no time to loose. We have the Picasso opening in only two weeks, so lots of work ahead!

Ciao Milan

Nathan had a week of leave now in November, that we weren't quite sure what to do with. We toyed with the idea of exploring the Maldives or Mauritius, places I've always wanted to visit, but getting closer to the time, we weren't all that keen on a sun holiday. We rather wanted to go up into Europe, maybe to a Christmas market, or just somewhere we hadn't been before.

In the end we just had a look in the staff travel system to see where we could fly to, and fly home from (on firm tickets, no time to gamble) - and ended up having a two-stop holiday! First we flew to: Milan!

I had never been to Milan, or this far north in Italy. We landed just after lunch and took the train from the airport straight into the city center. Arrived at this beautiful train station, in gorgeous sunshine. What a welcome!

The first afternoon we just made our way to our hotel, and then went to explore the neighbourhood for a little bit. We ended up in an Osteria nearby for our dinner, yummy pasta, of course!

The Watson Airport Shuttle service

The past few weeks the Watson Airport Shuttle has been very busy!
Not only was Pia here in the beginning of October and she came back again on Friday for another week. 

A little over a week ago I was at the airport FIVE times, during the course of five days! I picked up and dropped off Anna, picked up Linnea, and also picked up - and dropped off - this one after a very short visit:

Lucas' friend Simon was on his way to Sydney, and had a 14 hour layover here in Abu Dhabi. Staying at the airport all night wouldn't have been tiresome for him, so instead I picked him up and brought him here. He got fed and watered and got to sleep in a bed and have a shower before it was time for the next long flight down-under. 

After Pia goes home on Sunday, we have a few weeks break from visitors before the next lot arrives though!

ID-travel

Finally time for me to return home to Abu Dhabi, I had to travel stand by as I couldn't get a firm seat. It didn't look that good on my first try, but I still went across to the airport as Lucas was coming in on the flight I was hoping to get home on. 
So at least we got to hang out for a bit, have a coffee and a chat.

I didn't get on that flight, but no matter, I returned to Pia's for the night and got to enjoy another day in the beautiful autumnal southern Sweden.

 Luckily the next day there were loads of seats, and I got home no problem. 

Departure

End of his leave, and it was time for Nathan to go back home. Linnea decided to go with him for a short while, as I stayed behind with Mormor and Morfar to help out.

They took the rental car back down to Malmö, and had brought Nathan's old road bike with them, to bring across on the train to Copenhagen. Lucas seems to think that he wants to start biking!

So glad you came, thank you for these weeks!

Canary Wharf

Packed my bags again and off I went to London for the week, before trampling across to Sweden. 

This time I stayed in Canary Wharf, an area of London I wasn’t previously familiar with, and that I really, really liked.

I had to come up already on the Thursday, as that’s when there was a free seat. Linnea wasn’t going to come into the city until Saturday morning, so Thursday evening I just hung about in the hotel before meeting up with Anna the following day. More about that in the next post.

Melbourne by night

Time for an Aussie holiday!
This trip had been planned since a long, long time, going to see Nathan's sister and brother-in-law, with some added days in Melbourne to start.
The flight out was not too bad, we left at 9.30 pm in the evening so I had just about time to have some bubbly, dinner and start a movie before I felt sleepy and went to sleep. It was only 12 hours long, so I woke up just in time for breakfast - and to finish my movie! :)

We landed in Melbourne in the late afternoon, so before we had made our way to the hotel and checked in, in was already evening and time to go for dinner.
We stayed on the Southbank so we went down to the waterfront and walked along the river to have a look around. A really nice area.

We had booked a table at Meat & Wine, which was lucky, as everywhere seemed surprisingly busy for being a Monday evening. I enjoyed a pomegranate margarita pre-dinner... mmm!

And then, then we ate some serious meat! What a gorgeous meal! What a nice start to our holiday!

Flying off

We all left Istanbul on the Tuesday, flying off in all different directions but luckily our flights were actually almost all at the same time so we could go to the airport together.
Linnea and Nathan took off with 10 minutes in between, Linnea back to London and Nathan back home to Abu Dhabi.

I had to wait another hour, which was ok, before it was time for me to board my plane up to Copenhagen. I was continuing my trip in Scandiland, starting with a pit-stop in Bunkeflo for a special celebration!

Touchdown Turkey

Friday morning Linnea and I got up very early to get an uber to Gatwick airport. We were setting off to Istanbul, to meet up with the rest of the family!
Lucas had already been there since Sunday, as his girlfriend had come for a procedure and needed someone for support. Nathan had flewn in from Abu Dhabi earlier in the afternoon.

Our hotel had a nice skybar on the top floor with great 360 views of the city. As it was situated in the middle of town we could see both the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia from up there, very pretty!

As everyone had traveled we decided to have an easy dinner at the hotel. Tove didn't join as she was resting, but it was really good to be together all the family again, on holiday!

Looking forward to a weekend full of sightseeing!

The National Gallery

I managed to even convince Linnea to come along to visit the National Gallery. Another museum with free admission, perfect. It wasn't as crowded as the British Museum by far, and much smaller in size.
The collection might be smaller but most major developments in Western painting are represented with an impressive show of important works.

I thoroughly enjoyed this visit, as there were so many artworks on display from the art history books! It's amazing to get to see in real life, the images you have studied during different art courses! Like this one below, The Ambassadors by Holbein, 1533; with the intriguing scull that only emerges as you place yourself on the correct angle.

Or this, The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck from 1434. One of the most studied paintings of all time.

The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velásquez, 1647-51. The inspiration for the painting Olympia, 1863, by Manet.

This self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi, Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1615-17.

Lovely spaces, but a bit confusing to walk around as there was many doors in each room. Sometimes I wasn't quite sure if I had covered it all, as there was no particular route to follow but indeed many galleries.

Cézanne and Van Gogh:

A lovely London afternoon!

The British Museum

I had to get out of the hotel room Saturday afternoon while Linnea was doing her online assessment. Luckily our hotel was situated not very far from the British Museum!
I really enjoyed spotting this plaque in the neighbourhood, as I do talk about Sir Hans Sloane every now and then during my tours, when I talk about the creation of museums. He was the one who, upon his death in back in 1753, bequeathed his collection of over 71,000 objects to the nation. This became the founding collection of the British Museum.

The British Museum of course is HUGE, and I only had a few hours to myself. So I chose carefully which artworks to go and have a closer look at; and then I speed-walked through the rest of the space to see it "all", ha ha!

The architecture of the British Museum is (almost!) as beautiful as at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. That covered indoor court is really something else, indeed the largest covered indoor court in Europe. It is designed by Normal Foster & Partners, the same architect firm that has created the Sheikh Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi.

I have to admit, I spent quite a lot of my allocated time in the souvenir shop, always do when visiting museums. Here they had an incredibly huge and impressive selection of books and beautiful items... aaahh!

The British Museum was the first national public museum in the world. It was first housed in a 17th century mansion, but the building has expanded vastly over time. Now, there are over 70 galleries to visit!

The museum's holdings now comprise over eight million objects, oaw!

First things first, the Rosetta stone of course, maybe the most well-known and popular artefact in the museum. The importance of this stone to Egyptology is immense, as it holds the key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs.
The inscription, a decree passed by a council of priests, is inscribed on the stone three times. First in hieroglyphic, suitable for a priestly decree; then in Demotic, an Egyptian script used for non-religious texts; finally in Greek, the language of administration.

I also prioritised to scurry downstairs to the Africa Galleries, where I got met at the entrance by an artist I now know very well - El Anatsui. How cool! Here he opens the exhibition, and at the Louvre Abu Dhabi at the moment he closes our Kings & Queens of Africa exhibition.

Lots of artworks here that similar to the ones we present in our museum. Got inspired and fueled with more information to use during my tours of the Kings & Queens.

The British Museum has free entrance, and this was on a weekend, during school holidays... so it was crowded. We are not used to crowds like this in our museum, only on certain days of the year, as Museum Day, or Free Entrance Day..!
So much walking, so many people, so much to see, I quickly got completely overwhelmed.

Having visited Athens 5 years ago, and the Parthenon Museum, I was keen to see the Parthenon friezes.

The very famous Moai Hava statue:

Look at that happy face! Happy face in happy place!

I decided to get the smaller guide book and follow their quickest itinerary. I think they called it "Must see"- or "Highlight"-objects. I am hoping I will be back many more times, but for now, I wanted to get just an overview.

The Holy Thorn Reliquary, France, before 1397. This was made to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns, placed on the head of Jesus at his crucifixion:

The Rosetta Vase, Grayson Perry, 2011. This contemporary piece was made to show the museum as a place of pilgrimage where cultures and ideas meet.

The Lewis Chessmen, probably made in Norway, 1150-1200 but named after the place in Scotland where they were found. They provide a fascinating insight to the international connections of Scotland at this time, and also the growing popularity of the game of chess in medieval times.

I also spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East galleries:

The oldest known sculpture of a couple making love!

This small sculpture is about 11000 years old, probably from Palestine.

The Meroë head, head of Augustus, Sudan, about 27-25 BCE.

The Portland Vase, Italy, 5-25. One of the most famous cameo-glass vessels from Antiquity.

I have hundreds of more photos, but I think this is enough for this post. Even though my visit was short, I really enjoyed this space, and am hoping to come back again next time I'm in London to explore more!