This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

In 43 days I will be sitting on a plane on my way to my biggest adventure so far. Sure, moving to San Diego for 13 months was pretty big, and moving to San Luis Obispo to try out the life of an American college student was too. But going on a more-than-three-week-vacation alone to the Caribbean is pretty frickin big! It is still not completely 100% certain that I will go all by myself, I am still trying to convince my mom and Toby and his brother. And I will of course meet lots of people at the hostels, but I will go there by myself. And I couldn’t be more excited!!

So, on the late evening of December 11^th (my last day of finals) I will jump on a plane to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. It is pretty far away so it will take me 14 hours before I land at 2pm on December 12^th, and that’s when my adventure will begin. I will stay in Punta Cana for 8 nights (Dec 12-20), then fly for an hour to San Juan in Puerto Rico. The hostel there has a 7 night rule so I will be on my way to my third and last destination on December 27, to Montego Bay on Jamaica. I will stay there for 8 nights and then a 12 hour flight back to San Luis Obispo on January 4^th. I am beyond excited and I was literally shaking when everything was booked this afternoon. In total everything will end up at $3000 and I think that is a fair amount of money to pay for 23 days in paradise.

I’ve started googling on what there is to do and I have a feeling that the planning is gonna take a while. There are so many things to do, and so many amazing beaches!! Have you ever heard about the Blue Flag Organization? Me neither. But that is a ranking thing in Europe and they rank the best beaches in the world. Punta Cana has several and the Dominican Republic in general has more Blue Flag ranked beaches than any other Caribbean island. I think I will be in for a treat (since I love beaches).

I just started looking into it so I haven’t really come up with anything yet except that there is a Hard Rock Cafe in Punta Cana and that there is a catamaran cruise to a very beautiful island. It costs $90 but it looks awesome. And since I will be traveling alone I think tours would be good for me. But I will of course have plenty of lazy days by myself at the beach too. And I am planning to go ziplining on one of the islands.

I’ve also decided that I am gonna invest in a GoPro camera for $399. I am going to the Caribbean, crystal clear waters and hopefully nice fish and turtles (dolphins?) and the new series are waterproof. And with a stick I would be able to take selfies without looking too ugly up close. I don’t wanna go to several paradise islands without having proof that I was there. So I will buy it, hopefully soon. And when it comes to money, I’m not short of it. A few days ago I got the stipend from Chalmers for going here. It’s pretty great that my school pays me 25 000 SEK ($3400) to go to California to study for a year. And in a month I will get my financial aid of 46 000 SEK. I am not gonna be wasting money on unnecessary things, but I also don’t wanna feel like I did on Hawaii this January when I couldn’t buy things because of lack of money. So I am not gonna feel bad for renting a car for a whole week on Puerto Rico for example. I will save money on food, since it is a bit awkward to go to restaurants on your own.

I’m sure you can tell that I am excited since I’ve been writing almost a whole page in word about this already. I just can’t believe this is happening. I am going to the Caribbean for 23 days in just 43 days!!! 😀 I don’t want time to go faster than it already is, but I want Winter Break to be here NOW! And I guess time goes slower when you really look forward to something? So that’s good too, because I still don’t wanna leave SLO. And when this trip is over I have Spring Break to look forward to. I’m hoping for Cancun!

Anyway, this morning I couldn’t sleep in because I had a field trip in Paso Robles at 8:30am. It was an interesting field trip as well. They had transformed a street (21^st Street) into a “Complete Street” I think it was called.

When I came home at 11am I booked the trip and then I went with Kelsey and Toby for some errands. Lauren had to study so she couldn’t come with. We bought pumpkins, carving tools and some other things. It was a successful trip. I got home, just had time to make dinner and then off to class. I almost fell asleep today, but I managed to stay awake by eating my dark chocolate pieces flavored with pomegranate I accidently bought today. Good thing I did though, because they kept me awake. It’s so embarrassing falling asleep in class…

Now I am home and I know I should go to bed, but I so want to go to google and look up amazing things to see and do on DR. Stupid excitement!

This is the closest beach to the hostel I will stay at on Dominican Republic! EXCITED!!!!!