Europe 2014- ABBA The Museum

No self-respecting tourist could possibly visit Stockholm and exclude ABBA The Museum from their itinerary. Located on an island with other tourist hot-spots like Skansen and Grona Lund, the building housing ABBA the Museum, may appear small, but it took us over three hours to learn everything that we ever wanted to know (and then some) about Sweden's most popular band.

Our ABBA experience started before we purchased our admission. In the outside courtyard, we were given the opportunity to be our favorite ABBA member in a photo-op and we spotted a ABBA themed bus.

We added an additional 40kr to our 145kr admission fee, so that we could have the audio tour. The audio tour had tons of in-depth commentary from all four of the band members, plus important people who knew and worked with them. It's a worthy addition to the ABBA experience.

After watching a five minute introduction film, that left us pumped for all things ABBA, we entered the museum and saw this giant sign.

The first part of the museum is dedicated to the early lives of the band members- Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson.

ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision contest with Water-Loo. On display, they had the costumes that they wore, the guitar played and the medal that they won in the contest. It was this win that put ABBA on the fast-track to fame.

There was a sign telling us to pick up the phone when it rings to hear a message from the band. Sadly, we waited and waited and it never rang. I guess ABBA didn't want to talk to us!

There was a section of the museum with recreations of ABBA's recording studio, their managers office and a country cabin where they liked to go to escape and write songs.

We saw several displays of tour merchandise, including ABBA soap!

There was also some ABBA fandom that was a bit creepy.

Beyond the music, ABBA is know for outrageous and unforgettable costumes. I love the cat dresses. Besides the many outfits on display, there was a mock costume shop and scene depicting a typical ABBA tour dressing room.

It was at ABBA the Museum, that Dan learned that I really can't sing. I told him and he didn't believe me. Here I am, butchering Dancing Queen. No video, I spared you.

We also played around on instruments. This was my first time holding a guitar.

We saw all of their albums and gold records on display.

This has to be the best album cover of all time. Nice jumpsuits. I want to hear Gracias Por La Musica!

We saw Benny's childhood accordion and their snazzy tour microphones.

The saddest thing in the museum was this room.

The room is a recreation of Agnetha's house, where she lived after divorcing Bjorn. In the audio commentary, Bjorn remembers the sadness over picking up their children from Agnetha's house and how she was the one who decided to put the children above being in the band. He wanted to keep making music and she wanted to retreat to a quiet life and raise their children. In reflection, he admits that she was right about putting the children first and at the time, he couldn't understand how she could abandon their dream of ABBA.

The ABBA component makes up about 90% of the museum, however there is a small section dedicated to other Swedish musicians. Who remembers Roxette?

Modeled after the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Swedish Music Hall of Fame opened in the spring of 2014. It was a small exhibit, limited to one room and we saw the initial batch of inductees. The honorees seemed to represent a wide range of styles, but I had not heard of any of the artists. The immense fame of ABBA really overshadows everything else in the museum.

Whether or not you are a fan of ABBA, the museum is a must-do tourist attraction. It's highly interactive and entertaining.

Europe 2014- Bauer

I may not have mentioned it on my previous posts, but the second half of our vacation in Sweden, took place nearly a month later. Our time in Sweden was like bookends to our overall trip. During the first half, we stayed near where my step-kids live and we did kid-centric activities, like Grona Lund and the Junibacken. We then took the kids to England ( those trip reports are coming) and finally, we spent a few extra days touring Stockholm after dropping the kids back home.

It was on the first evening of the second part of our trip that we discovered a sushi bar/cocktail lounge called Bauer. Bauer was located a short walk from the Hilton Slussen and was one of the few restaurants that was still open late on a Sunday night. We were in need of a nice dinner after a long day of travel.

Bauer with its crazy cartoon pop-art and club music, just had a fun vibe. It caught our attention.

Unfortunately, the kitchen had just closed when we arrived. No sushi for us. Dismayed at the thought of having to walk down to the 7-11 for a korv ( hot dog), we decided to give up on food and start drinking. Luckily, the awesome bartender took pity on us. She sliced up an apple and gave us an enormous cup of nuts for our dinner.

We decided to try all four drinks on their "Last Days of Summer" menu.

The Pisco Sour was the clear winner, followed by the Rosetta.

The two bartenders working that night were the best. We had such a great time chatting with them, that we promised to return the following evening for sushi.

We returned for sushi and the restaurant was absolutely slammed. One of the bartenders from the previous night was working with a new server and they just couldn't keep the restaurant under control. It was too much for two people.

We ordered the chef's choice plate to share and it looked great.

After a month of missing sushi, we were really excited for this meal. It just wasn't very good sushi. I can't pinpoint what about it was off. The fish tasted fresh. It simply wasn't as good as we can get at the cheap places back in Los Angeles and Bauer was not a cheap restaurant. It had a grocery store sushi taste. We ate it, but we were disappointed. Of course, we washed away our disappointment with a few more of the summer drinks!

Bauer is a great bar, but not such a great sushi restaurant.

After dinner, we took a walk around the neighborhood to take pictures. We even climbed to a look-out on top of a hotel to get some great views of the city.

Since we don't have cobblestone streets in Los Angeles, I took a few close-up pictures of the road. I love the color variation in the stones.

Dan takes the best panorama shots. These were taken from the roof of the hotel.

Europe 2014- Grona Lund

Every great vacation must include at least one trip to a theme park. On our trip to Sweden, we visited Grona Lund...twice. Confession time, the second time Dan and I snuck back to the park for an hour without the kids to go on all of the coasters. It wasn't planned, but we were walking by the park and we noticed that it was empty, so we seized the opportunity. This review is a composition of pictures and wisdom gained from visiting the park on both occasions.

Depending on the crowds, Grona Lund can be done in a few hours or an entire day. It's not very big, but when it's busy, they cram a lot of people into the park and the lines are massive.

Some of the best pictures were taken from the ferry.

The ticket booth is unique. Rather than waiting in a queue, you take a number, like at a deli counter and watch for your number to come up on a giant board. I'm not really sure if this was better than simply having a queue, as it was crowded and created one mass of people waiting at the ticket counter.

There are different tiers of ticket pricing. You can simply buy a pass to enter the park and then buy individual tickets for rides, like at a carnival or you can buy an all-day wrist band. When we went with the kids, we opted for the all-day bands. This would have be great, except for we didn't factor in the crowds. Most of the lines were thirty minutes within the first half-hour of park opening. The lines ballooned to around ninety minutes by lunch. In this case, tickets would have been cheaper, as we only managed to go on a handful of rides. When Dan and I visited on the slow night, were opted for tickets, since we only wanted to go on a few rides. However, had we wanted to do more, a slow night is a great time for the wrist bands.

Grona Lund has a bunch of characters that were unfamiliar to me. Like these guys at the front entrance.

The park is filled with creepy characters that race up next to people on unicycles or rolling balls and startle you. I don't like to be startled! I was on edge the entire time.

Most disturbing of all, was this...

Grona Lund is one of those parks, where every ride just feels unsafe. They probably were extremely safe, but I was double checking the safety restraints and just feeling a bit unsure about everything.

One of the most "I'm about to die" rides is the Vilda Musen, a crazy mouse type of little coaster. It is zippy and terrifying.

The scariest thing that I experienced in the park was an old fashioned fun house. It took about ten minutes to go through and it was filled will obstacles like spinning floors and uneven stairs. Just to get inside, I had to climb up a moving staircase. I almost ended up in the hospital before going through the attraction! It's a wonder that we made it out unscathed. The only picture that turned out was this bumpy conveyor belt slide. Ouch.

Grona Lund fits a lot of rides into a very small space. The coasters cross paths and have a lot of sharp turns to fit into the area. It's a marvel to see the layout. It's also extra miserable on a crowded day. Here are bunch of miscellaneous pictures that I took during our visit.

In another theme park first, when we left the park to eat lunch, we only had to give our names at a reception podium. They didn't stamp our hands or need to see our park tickets for reentry, we just showed back up at the podium and gave them our names. I think that this says a lot about trust in Sweden. Really, they must not have too many people trying to cheat the system.

Grona Lund was just so crowded that we felt like we had to get out of there for lunch. We needed a break. We walked directly across the street to a fast-food restaurant called Big Shark. Specializing in all things junk food, at Big Shark, we had Korv (hot dogs), onion rings and fries.

Grona Lund had a lot of advertising for their summer concert series. Kacey Musgraves was even there in July!

The park was absolutely filled with carnival games. Everywhere. The attendants were really aggressive in trying to get us to play. The funniest games were ones where the prize was a giant candy bar shaped box, filled with smaller bars of candy. Plus, there is candy called Plopp and that's just funny.

Grona Lund is a fun park, especially if you want to live a little dangerously.