Touchdown Copenhagen

Nathan got two weeks of summer leave in July this year, so we took off to start our summer with a few days in Copenhagen. It was absolutely beautiful summer weather so we walked about a lot. We caught up with Lars and Nanna, Søren and Jonna, and even Pia who came over for a stegt flæsk dinner.

Lucas was working, so we went to see him down at Broens Gadekøkken and had early dinner from his food truck. 

He's the poke bowl king!

Thomas was away with the family on holiday in Japan, so we had the house to ourselves:

 

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!

She's home!

Linnea is back from her Au Pair-experience. She landed early Saturday morning, with a lot of luggage... unpacking took its toll!

Good to have our baby back! Now let's see where the next chapter takes her.

Ann's Baby Shower

On the weekend it was time for a Baby Shower for my colleague and good friend Ann. 

It was a lovely evening in nice company, fun to see everyone outside of work! 

We played Baby Bingo and Baby Charades - see my ‘The Lion sleeps tonight’-impression?

Indian food for dinner and yummy desserts, thank you so much Ann and family, and best of luck! Can not wait to meet your new little princess!

 

The Quantum Dome Project

There has been something cooking in the Lower Forum at work for a few weeks now - an installation of a brand new VR experience!
Today we were invited to come try it out, before it opens to the public, and of course we jumped right on that!

This VR experience has been developed by a team here at the museum, and it is inspired by some of the pieces from the Louvre Abu Dhabi collection. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect really, and was rather apprehensive when we got the big “helmets” on, but WOW! It blew my mind!

I mean, almost literally! It was crazy how the brain reacted to all these VR sceneries; the amount of time I wanted to bring my phone out of my pocket to take photos… Duh…

It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I can not wait to do it again! 

If you are in Abu Dhabi any time soon, come try it for yourself! It inaugurates on the 2nd July.

Morfar's Birthday

I wasn’t there for Morfar’s birthday this year unfortunately, but of course we connected via Zoom. Happiest of birthdays to you Dad, 88 years today, hip hip hourray!

New rotations

Coming back to work there is not a lot going on at this time of the year, it really slows down. 
It’s good, gives us time to catch up on some admin, and prepare for the next upcoming temporary exhibition; but mostly we have been enjoying some new rotations in the galleries. Both loans, but a surprising amount of new exciting acquisitions as well. See here:

Portrait of the artist, 1800, Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot:

The Rialto Bridge from the South,  c. 1720, Antonio Canal (Il Canaletto):

Portrait de Kosa Pan, first Ambassador from Siam to the court of Louis XIV, 1686, Antoine Benoist:

The Storm, 1947-48, Germaine Richier and Woman of Venice V, 1956, cast 1958, Alberto Giacometti:

White Oval, 1921, Vassily Kandinsky:

Casket, c. 1543, Ceylon:

I decided to bring some colour and wear my new Picasso t-shirt one day. I was thinking to save it for the Picasso-exhibition, but it needs more exposure than that! This motif is a bit special, as Picasso created it for the 1958 Peace Conference in Stockholm. It portrays two hands grasping a bouquet of flowers. Picasso painted it wanting us to pause and consider the importance of connection and kinship in the creation of peace.

Mamma Mia the Musical

I seem to be in my Mamma Mia-era, as I returned to Abu Dhabi it was time to experience the musical! 

I had actually bought the ticket for this long before Linnea and I decided to do the Mamma Mia the Party, so it was just a coincidence.

One of the girls from the SwedishLadies-group had suggested we group together and go and have fun, so there was about 15 of us who had booked in.

We started with a Mamma Mia-themed brunch at the arena before the show. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was, both the food and the drinks! Live music and a glitter bar made for some girlie fun before we entered to see the show.

The show was great! I hadn’t seen it before, and I was actually surprised to learn that the musical came before the movie! How did I not know that?!

At the end, everyone was standing up dancing and singing along. Electric atmosphere! Fun night out, a bit of a happy pill!

Typical Swedish summer

I had sun and beautiful weather in Stockholm, but then it turned. The rest of my stay in Skara was full of grey skies, cold days and rain. 
I only had time to help mowing the lawn once, did a bit of gardening, and managed to find a dry day to install the fish tower:

But the rest of the time was pretty miserable. We went shopping, but not the kind of shopping I enjoy - it was more Mormor's paradise:

Here are the results of the shopping:

The weather was really coming and going. Well, it didn't matter much to us really, we just stayed inside on the rainy days. I did feel sorry for all the young people celebrating their Student (=Graduation though), in the cold and rain. The weather wasn’t even with us for the Swedish National Day, that day it was even too cold to sit outside to have our fika. 

But it didn’t stop us from celebrating with a bit of Smörgåstårta (=sandwich cake) though. Om nom nom!

Happy Ending

The reason I had booked this weekend in Stockholm in the first place, was actually to go to a show. Back in January Pia and I got tickets to go and see the final show in the trilogy from Pernilla Wahlgren - Happy Ending.  

We came to Stockholm to see the first show six years ago, for the weekend of my 45th birthday. Since then she has done three different shows, and this weekend she was putting on all three of them Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This was going to be the very last show ever, so we decided we wanted to see it.

We had booked a hotel connected to the Avicii Arena, so we were nice and close!

We had a great time, it was very funny. I like this rather innocent humour, where it’s all about recognition. They poked fun at many situations that you yourself often have found yourself in.