40b440: Dancing Queen

Välkommen tillbaka!

Copenhagen was not my only stop on my Scandinavian trip. Having danced by the Little Mermaid I crossed the 5 mile long bridge into Sweden and was immediately stopped and breathalysed at the toll booth. Even if I'd wanted to have had a drink I probably couldn't have afforded it, so I was given the all clear and off into Sweden I went.

I stopped to see some sites along the way:

Southern Sweden is chilled out, stunning, full of history and - for this week at least - gloriously sunny. Below is the most southerly point.

For those Wallander fans Ystad is the home of Swedish gritty drama. To me it was just an attractive town.

Sweden's answer to Stonehenge is Ales Stenar, it is a stone circle of 59 big old stones (many taller than me). There are a lot of stone circles and such like in Sweden. I like to think Obelisk and co. enjoyed a lot of Nordic holidays.

Unlike Stonehenge, it's free to visit and there are no barriers to stop you exploring, touching, staying all day - you just have to climb up a big old hill to see it.

Now I've lived in a lot of places and traveled a fair bit and I've need to furnish homes along the way plus I really like meatballs. So as a result I've visited a lot of IKEAs. 13 in fact. Including 3 international ones. I'm aware this is weird but hey I'm in Sweden - the home of flat pack so you can imagine that when I discovered that the first ever IKEA was within driving range of my accommodation: I had to pay it a visit.

Obviously it's been rebuilt since the original one - that was was built in 1958 after all - but the whole town of Amhult is full of IKEA factories and distribution centres. I have to admit this felt like something of a religious pilgrimage to me. I had visited my Mellby Mecca; my Billy bookcase Boudhanath Stupa; my Lundskar Lourdes. Or if you want to put it another way...I've now been to 14 IKEAs!

I had decided to stay in a cave. Like you do. Its not the first cave I've stayed in and may not be the last but that's just how I roll. Or as it's a cave perhaps that should be rock!

But I digress - you don't care about my holiday: it's all about the challenges. But I appreciate you sticking with me thus far. So as you may know my main reason for my Nordic trip was to have my first live experience of Eurovision. Usually I spend the night with a score card and a few friends who equally love the craziness and brilliance of the event. But this time I wanted to be there in person and to be part of that craziness. I had carefully followed the ticket website and was ready at the time they were released but sadly neither my phone nor my computer got through before they had all sold out in 22 minutes.

However I bought the next best thing: a ticket to the jury final. This is the dress rehearsal for the main final and it's also the show that the music industry panels, that represent each participating country, get to place their votes. You see the same show and interval as the main show but for about 1/3 of the price. So was it good? Will Cyprus be giving Greece 12 points?!

Course it was!

Here are a few pics not just of the stage before the show and the show itself but of me wearing the dress that I had made specially for the event (see previous post: Sew Macho).