#62 Abba The Museum

The facts: I went on a Saturday afternoon, and I was told to come back at an allotted time about 2 hours later - which is pretty good since it has only opened.
It costs 200kr, which is pretty expensive.
It's not very big- the rooms are packed with different things to see and take in - and unfortunately they are packed with people too. So I think they could have spread it out a lot more.
The Swedish Hall of Fame is small and disappointing.

 The phone didn't ring :(

 Nice costumes

 The recording studio

 The "Become a 5th member" hologram

 This quote on a wall near the end of the museum made me sad

 A wall of their releases

And a wall of all their awards

So, the "Become the 5th Member of Abba" hologram thing was pretty disappointing. The holograms are very cartoon-y, I had really expected it to be more realistic. Nevertheless your video is recorded online, so you can go back and download it and keep it forever! There is also the karaoke booths, a quiz with different difficulty levels, a music mixer thing, a video that puts you in the video for dancing queen (although it doesn't look quite right), a thing that takes a picture of your face and then puts it on a cartoon Abba member - and then you can dance as them. There is also a disco room blaring Dancing Queen for those who feel they want to dance (no one did). They had lots of pictures and quotes from songs and tvs playing their songs and stuff all over the museum, and basically anything about Abba you ever wanted to know.

Swedish Music Hall Of Fame

This was pretty much the room

The Swedish hall of fame was disappointing - there are so many famous songs that have been written or produced by Swedes and they barely got a mention in a list on a wall. . .They really could have done a lot with this museum, and I feel it was just shoved onto the side of the Abba Museum to fill in space. They have different rooms with some information and samples of songs that were popular from the 1920s to today. It was nice but it could have been a lot better.

Just to point out that I am not a big Abba fan, I just know the singles like Dancing Queen etc etc. The museum provides a lot of background about each member, how the band started, the stories behind some of their songs, their recording equipment, outfits, albums, awards etc. There is also the interactive things like the karaoke, quiz, dancing, music mixer etc which are fun. There is really a lot, but it is all very close together, and I think they could have made it bigger and easier to see at a more comfortable pace.

If you're an Abba fan you simply have to go, but if you're not it's still interesting and I would recommend it!

#37 First look at Sweden

The first thing I saw in Sweden (at Arlanda Airport)

This is only my fourth full day in Stockholm, but already I've started to get my head around things. Being in Europe, there are so many shops and restaurants that are the same as being home in Ireland, so it's not too difficult to adjust. The language barrier isn't a problem either, most things are only signposted in Swedish, but you can ask anyone for help because almost all the Swedish can speak fluent English! I'm in college so this week we had lots of introductory meetings to attend, but from next week my schedule should be much more free.

It's cold here now, around -7 to -15 on average I think. There are mounds of snow everywhere and every roof and tree top is covered in a thick layer of white snow. The rivers are mostly frozen solid which is really fascinating to look at. It's really pretty, but also too cold to take out your camera every time!

This was a soccer pitch

The first day here I went grocery shopping, and I found something special for all the Millennium Trilogy/Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fans out there: Billys Pan Pizza!!

Mmmmmmmm!

Also, as promised, I took a trip to the worlds largest Ikea! It was also my first Ikea visit, and it was a little overwhelming. Nothing was signposted in English so it was pretty difficult to find our way around, and then most of the things we wanted were in the warehouse rather than around the display floors upstairs. Mostly, it was really difficult to leave, we spent maybe 15 minutes walking aimlessly in the warehouse looking for the exit! We went to the big cafe, but it was still breakfast time so we couldn't try the famous meatballs! They had a Kanelbulle (popular Swedish cinnamon bun) and coffee for 5 krona though, which is super cheap!

Beautiful!

This is half of it, I was too close to fit the whole thing in one picture

So there it is, the first of many posts about this snowy country!