Author Archives: Alexandra

Atlantis The Palm, Mall of the Emirates

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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 travels. This full post can be found here.

Today was all about water. We spent most of the day at Atlantis The Palm Aquaventure park which is a water park out on the manbuilt palm in the water here in Dubai. We went several times on the lazy river which had waves coming with short intervals, we went on the rapids “lazy” river and then on several slides. There were two towers with slides, one that shot water on the floatie thing we had so we actually went uphill (we had a two-seat floatie all the time), that was scary. We also went on a slide without the floaties, it was a competition and he won by one second. That one was fun too! And then there were a couple of slides with big rafters or what to call it where you had to sit inside a circle-shaped thingy, up to six people. That was scary with the deep falls. We only did those one time each. We both decided to skip the single slide where you started standing up and then the platform beneath your feet just disappeared and it went straight down (almost). Nope, nope, just nope! Our favorite was either Torrent (the lazy river with waves) because it was so chill, or Shark Attack which was a two-seat floatie slide where you went around in Helixes in complete pitchdarkness and when there was light again you were under a water tank with fish, rays, and sharks in it. It was so cool! And also the water was warmer in that slide than the rest. It is not exactly cold here, but in the shadow it can get a little chilly when being wet. I think Atlantis would be much more enjoyable when it is burning hot in the sun, then the water and shadows would be a cooler.

We would have been allowed to bring a GoPro, but we thought this morning right before we left, that this culture probably wouldn’t appreciate people using cameras inside of a waterpark (and also in general, who would want to be photographed and filmed there?), so we left it at the hotel. But when we got there they asked us if we wanted to rent a GoPro for the day. Bummer. So no pictures from Aquaventure, but you could just google the place to see what it was all about.

Right after the water park we went to The Lost Chamber which is the aquarium at Atlantis. It was pretty big and really cool! I love water animals, they had cool rays and sharks and lots of other fish. Cool experience!

Our third and last stop of the day was the second biggest mall in Dubai, Mall of the Emirates which is the mall that is home to Ski Dubai, the ski slope inside. It was cool, but except for that, I only bought a pair of VS panties and Jesper bought anti-inflammatory pills for his wisdom tooth. I feel sorry for him, I know what it is like to be in pain because of those stupid and unnecessary teeth. I hope these pills will help him feel better soon. My home insurance will probably cover it, but why risk it. We also bought a new sunscreen at Carrefour (a huuuge store) in the mall, and also some snacks for tonight when we watched the move, Ant-Man. Surprisingly good!

We were to late to sign up for the free shuttle to the beach tomorrow, so we can sleep in a little bit tomorrow (the shuttle leaves at 9am). The woman in the reception saw our disappointed faces and said it was okay to sign up for the shuttle on Wednesday, even if it was two days in advance. So tomorrow will all be about sleeping on the beach, and in the evening, another shopping center where Hard Rock Café is.

Also, something I forgot to write about day one, was that we had a celebrity on the airplane to Dubai with us. “Tobbe Trollkarl”, most Swedish people probably know who he is. He was/is (?) a magician when I grew up. Pretty cool!

 

IMG_20160118_184601 Atlantis resort. IMG_20160118_172934 IMG_20160118_174141 IMG_20160118_183630 IMG_20160118_174154 IMG_20160118_174800 IMG_20160118_174936 IMG_20160118_175637 IMG_20160118_180021 IMG_20160118_180301 IMG_20160118_180339 IMG_20160118_182823 IMG_20160118_182156 IMG_20160118_182343 PANO_20160118_183255 PANO_20160118_180605 IMG_20160118_191451 IMG_20160118_195440 IMG_20160118_191554

Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa

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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 travels. This full post can be found here.

Ten hours at a mall, not sure if I want to do that again, but it was a fun day! We didn’t do too much shopping, but we bought a few things, a cork globe where we can pin where in the world we’ve been, a box of cool Arabic postcards, a shot glass from the top of Burj Khalifa, a thermos I can bring to school, a deck of cards all in gold, a fridge magnet, flip flops to Jesper, and a new shirt for me and I will get to why later.

We also got a couple of birthday presents for Jesper’s younger sister. We walked around for hours and hours, it is ridonculously big!! But I think we manage to at least go everywhere, even if we didn’t go into many stores. We had lunch in one of the food courts, Johnny Rockets, haha! When it comes to food, this trip is more American than Arabic.

At 6pm we had booked to go up to the top of Burj Khalifa. We got a briefing beforehand with tea and some snacks, went through security and then took the elevator up to the 125th floor in only 60 seconds. That is pretty fast!! Then we took another elevator up to the highest floor people go to, 148, the floors up until 160 is only for telecommunication and maintenance and something. The whole tower is 828 meters high, but less at where we stood. I can honestly say that I didn’t feel any difference between the Eiffel Tower and Burj Khalifa, both are so high up that it feels unreal and that everything below is photoshoped. It was pretty cool up there though and we saw a little from the first fountain show of the day at 6pm (we got up to the top a little earlier than our reservation). We then saw the whole 6:30 show on the 125th floor where we stopped for a bit.

After that we decided to watch the fountain from the ground so we watched the 7:30pm one after some restroom brakes and some of the shopping. We got a great spot, I filmed and took pictures and it was kinda exactly like the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas. I didn’t see it coming, but in the end of it, the water came right at us, there were no warning signs that we would get wet, so I wasn’t expecting it at all and was watching somewhere else when the shower hit me. Jesper saw it coming, backed away but didn’t tell me. I got soaked through! It was worse than SeaWorld… When we walked back to the mall I heard some Swedish people behind me say something about me being soaked, haha! We got the new shirt at Holister and then went to Cheesecake Factory to have dinner. It tasted kinda the same, but not really, or maybe my memory is piedestaling the food, or it’s different because this is Dubai, not California. I think I was too tired to eat as well, but we got the leftovers boxed up so we have dinner for another evening as well, yay. It was good!

Then we saw some really fancy pancy cars outside the mall, took a taxi and came back to the hotel at around 10pm. Tomorrow we have to get up a little bit earlier since we are going to Atlantis The Palm tomorrow and it opens at 10am and since we don’t want to waste spending time outside on the warmest day of the week (it will be around 27C tomorrow) and because we were inside all day today, we want to be there as early as possible.

PANO_20160117_114115 PANO_20160117_120521 IMG_20160117_122201 IMG_20160117_122715 IMG_20160117_123248 IMG_20160117_125226 IMG_20160117_135544 IMG_20160117_143900 IMG_20160117_145250 IMG_20160117_155629 PANO_20160117_171137 IMG_20160117_171955 hdr_00002_0 hdr_00001_0 IMG_20160117_180933 IMG_20160117_180140 IMG_20160117_180255 IMG_20160117_180630 IMG_20160117_180810 This is Dubai Mall, crazy big!!IMG_20160117_182122 IMG_20160117_182245 In the lounge at the top we got served snacks and drinks.IMG_20160117_182327 IMG_20160117_183108 Level 125.IMG_20160117_183325 IMG_20160117_184322 IMG_20160117_184526IMG_20160117_184541 PANO_20160117_181602 PANO_20160117_181638 IMG_20160117_192133 IMG_20160117_192156 A gold car.IMG_20160117_192304 PANO_20160117_192719IMG_20160117_193010 IMG_20160117_193110 IMG_20160117_193520 IMG_20160117_195946 IMG_20160117_203147IMG_20160117_200140  12545797_1060388483983160_1629833500_o A Tesla!!12556959_1060388520649823_1927103004_o A matte black Lamborghini.12544663_1060388460649829_191403_o

First day in Dubai

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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 travels. This full post can be found here.

Being away from cold, work and stress in school is great. Today was supposed to be the coldest day this week with about 22 C. It will be a great week!

Yesterday we left Gothenburg at 7 am, spent 7 hours at the airport in Stockholm and then another (almost) seven hours on a pretty uncomfortable plane. I think the length of this flight is too short to require comfortableness. It was not very nice. But we had three seats all to ourselves so we could kinda lie down. We landed at 1 am local time, our taxi took us to the wrong Holiday Inn Express so we didn’t go to bed until 3am. Up again at 9 so we wouldn’t miss breakfast and then we got fooled by the hotel that gave us a taxi which took the long way to the beach so we had to pay about twice as much as it would have costed. Whatever!

We spent a few hours at the JBR beach, we both got burned. It was a nice beach, the water was warm, probably 23 C or something. But it was a bit windy so we only got in the water once and left around 4pm to have early dinner at Panda Express. I have to say, that Dubai is very international, all the fast food chains from California is here, and it doesn’t feel at all like an Arabic country (except for the Arabic letters everywhere). It feels like my second home, I like it. After dinner we walked around on JBR at the Walk which is a strip right next to the beach where tons of stores and restaurants. This place was pretty far away from where we live, definitely the touristy place of Dubai. We walked around a lot, bought some food to snack on tonight and then  we found a nice taxi who took us to the hotel up north, kinda close to Burj Khalifa.

We are so tired, long day of traveling yesterday, and a lot of walking today, so now we will chill with a movie, fall asleep and prepare for a day at Dubai Mall tomorrow with Burj Khalifa afterwards.

20160116_023323 PANO_20160116_181911 20160116_121542 20160116_133843 20160116_133848 20160116_135712 You know you are in an Arabic country when camels are walking on the beach.20160116_154215 JBR The Walk.20160116_163602 Jumeirah.20160116_175101 JBR The Beach.IMG_20160116_164857 IMG_20160116_172308 IMG_20160116_172314 IMG_20160116_173012 IMG_20160116_174247 It’s too bad they are building so much out in the water, it ruins the sunset…IMG_20160116_174636 IMG_20160116_180223 A chrome Lamborghini. All the cars here are extremely fancy pancy, but this one was a little bit better.IMG_20160116_180641IMG_20160116_181907 IMG_20160116_183708 IMG_20160116_183758 PANO_20160116_163328 PANO_20160116_164340 PANO_20160116_172655 PANO_20160116_172741 PANO_20160116_174657 PANO_20160116_175014 PANO_20160116_175513 12583606_1059748967380445_1723920627_n IMG_20160116_204548This is a very international city, so why not try stuff from other countries? This basil seed drink is from Thailand.

Wedding, new apartment, Cleo and so on

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I think it is easier for me to just post pictures from the last month and let them talk for me. I don’t know why I don’t feel the urge to write anymore, it is kind of a bummer, but here is a small update since last I wrote. Many things have happend, for example we moved to a bigger apartment, we went to a wedding, we got a cat, I have worked at Christmas at Liseberg, there was snow one evening, we went to see the final Hunger Games movie, we watched all Star Wars movies to prepare for Episode 7 which we will see in four days, I was at Sofia’s kid’s namegiving ceremony, and I have drowned in school work. That is some of the things that happened. And also, we spontaneously booked a one week long trip to Dubai in January after my finals! We both really need it, me after a hectic semester in grad school and he needs to take some time off from his security guard job.Snapchat-3531780390756977846Snapchat-259527005693573995Spotify_yim_sv-SE_4w99ue This is surprising. How can One DIrection be the band I listened to most this year?? I don’t understand! Fall Out Boy is more suprising now that I think about it…Spotify_yim_sv-SE_eBXdbQ 42 thousand minutes of listening to music this year.20151126_114720 Chip.20151126_114732 Stuff.20151128_132827 Jesper and I before his dad’s wedding.20151128_143541 Jesper’s dad and his new wife Roxanna.20151128_170403Jesper’s super adorable baby brother with a vest and a tie.20151128_172224 Roxanna is half Iranian so there was a traditional Iranian wedding ceremony after the church. 20151130_180959 New shoes that can handle the Swedish winter (=rain and sometimes slippery ice).20151205_172254 On the 8th of December we left this apartment that has been mine since the summer of 2011.20151206_195548 Christmas at Liseberg is pretty with the fake snow and all the lights. But it is cold to work outside in the just-above-freezing weather. I got rid of a lot of work shifts to focus on school which was needed. So far I have two courses done, and I got a 4 out of 5 in both of them. Not too bad. But I have to admit that grad school is much harder than undergrad. I am so stressed and with tough classes this quarter, work, and the move, it has not been an easy month. Now I have only one more report to submit in 4 days. I should be able to finish it tomorrow so I can go up to my cousins on Saturday to celebrate Christmas and work on Sunday and Monday.20151209_001117

The move and this little cute furball. Her name is Cleopatra, but we call her Cleo. She is the sweetest, cuddliest, kitten ever (I think it has been too long since Chip and Stuff were kittens so I don’t remember correctly, but this one is more energetic and cuddly at the same time). She was born on September 7th this year and we drove out to Trollhättan the day we moved in to our new apartment to pick her up. The first few days she was extremely talkative, we are guessing since she was insecure and felt scared, because now she doesn’t talk at all almost. We noticed right away that something wasn’t right with our new little family member so three days after we got her we brought her to the vet for vaccination and to chip-mark her. It turned out that she has scabies in her ears (really bad), and since none of our cats had it before. We noticed that her ears were black, but didn’t think too much about it. So twice a day until her next vaccination on January 8th, we have to clean her ears. I feel like it was really bad of the previous owner to sell us a cat with scabies, but we have loved her from the moment we picked her up and gladly help her get better. She acts normal though, runs around like a normal kitten should, and according to the vet she is perfectly healthy, except for the scabies. It already is a lot better and I hope it will all go away soon so Cleo won’t hate us every morning and evening when we thoroughly clean her ears while firmly holding her, she is not a big fan of that. In the evenings (when we let her if she is not too annoying and playful) she sleeps between us, it is super cozy! Eventually we will probably get her a friend and a big climbing tree (our living room is huge, I will post pictures next time I update my blog so you will see our nice apartment. However, we are gonna replace a lot of furniture eventually).

20151208_231729 20151208_231827 This is what the living room looked like before we put everything to where it should be.20151209_010539 Coziest cat and boyfriend ever!20151209_182044 She loves to climb and my back is all scratched up because of it, haha!20151209_225301 20151210_150016 20151210_145805 20151210_160652 20151210_175104 20151213_174910 20151213_161006 Four days ago I went up to Trollhättan again to go to my second cousin’s baby’s namegiving ceremony. Lots of cookies and cakes were offered and the cute baby finally officially got his name, Ville.20151212_112029 Waking up like this is not too bad!20151213_233110 Cleo playing with our tiny Christmas tree.20151213_233645 20151214_182355 Cat selfie!20151215_185138 The Christmas gift I got from Liseberg, 1.6kg of expensive Chocolate.20151215_170132 She loves to walk around on the keyboard, annoying when I am trying to study.20151216_120751 We have a washing machine and dryer in our apartment which is the best ever! Cleo enjoyed it too, cutie!20151216_215746 Last night we were baking Christmas sweets. Lussekatter, Mozartkulor and Knäck. The knäck didn’t turn out firm enough, but it was still very good!20151216_234950 Lussekatter!!20151217_193412Studying when she is sleeping in the lap is not too bad.

Halloween at Liseberg

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I can’t even remember the last time I updated this. But living my normal life here in Sweden doesn’t really seem read-worthy. But on the other hand, some things have been happening lately that might want to be good enough to post here.

First of all, a week ago the first ever  Halloween at Liseberg ended and I was part of it the whole week. We had exam week that week and since we barely have any exams in this program I chose to accept the schedule I applied for before I got accepted to this program. I ended up quitting early a few days and taking one day off to finish a big paper of 5000 words on project management, but worked all the other days. It was fun and I really enjoyed it. It was more exhausting than a normal summer week. Acting was actually a little part of it when we were working on AtmosFear – The Experiment. It was too bad the story behind the Experiment didn’t reach out to the guests. Doctor Volt is a “mad scientist” who wants to create a superhuman. To run her experiment, Atmosfear provides the electricity needed when it falls down and the adrenaline the people get from going on the ride will help them survive when Doctor Volt saw them apart. No one understood this story and therefore didn’t want to go on the ride (the Experiment was after the ride) and that made things very complicated for us. It was chaotic but I hoped the supervisors learned something from it and will give us a routine for next year. It was tough working without one when it is normally very strict with routines.

It was a fun week, the weather was good, and Liseberg got 200,000 guests during that week compared to the 80,000 they had counted on. The haunted house tickets sold out every day, and yes, it was full in the park. Very pretty decorated also.

 

So, my first quarter at Chalmers (again) is over and I would have to say that I did pretty good even when I missed the first 3 weeks out of the 8. Project Psychology was an interesting class. I haven’t gotten a grade on my 5-page paper about cross-cultural business behavior yet, but I hope it will be a pass at least. The second class was harder, Project Management. We wrote a 5000-word academic essay. I had troubles with that one. First of all, 5000 words is a lot (half of my whole bachelor thesis)! And I had to do more research than everyone else since I wasn’t there for the first three weeks of lectures.  The week it was gonna be handed in, I was working full time and the week before, when I had planned to finish it, I was sick and could barely get out of bed for five days. I was stressed, but I handed it in on time and in a week we will get the grades for it. I am nervous.

This quarter is not that interesting, we are taking one class called Financial and Management Accounting and the other one is called Organizational Project Management. We have a lot of papers to write in OPM and one exam and a couple of workshops in FMA. It will be a busy quarter, but there are fun things to look forward to as well. For example Jesper’s dad’s wedding on November 28th and our move to the new apartment in Kvillebäcken on December 28th. This weekend we went shopping for the wedding, Jesper spent almost 5000 SEK on a suit and I bought two dresses and a blazer for 3000. The dress I am gonna wear at the wedding is gorgeous, the other one I will probably wear on Christmas or New Years or some other time, it was just too pretty to not buy it.

What else has happened? Not much I think.

Kitten at my second cousin's Jesper and I went up to Sofia and said hello to her baby. I think the kittens craved attention because the baby stole all of it. This one was adorable!Halloween pumpkins 2015 Mine and Jesper’s pumpkins.Liseberg The dismantling of three of the attractions at Liseberg.Babysitting We were babysitting Jesper’s adorable 13 month old brother for an evening and overnight.Liseberg We had perfect Halloween weather on October 31. Foggy and colorful. We had a very pretty fall this year!Chalmers tunnel Oh right, this was a big thing that happened recently. The tram broke down in the middle of the tunnel on the way to Chalmers. We were let out and had to walk through the rest of the tunnel. It was very very cool!Christmas food Last Thursday (four days after Halloween was over) I was back at Liseberg to signmy contract for Christmas at Liseberg which opens on November 20th. My first schedule I got before Halloween only had five days on it, my new schedule last Thursday had 10 days, and today I got a new version with 12 days. I need all the extra money I can get. I will try to be smart about my studies this quarter (I have said that every quarter in school so far, bt maybe this time it will happen?) so I won’t be stressed out of my mind.LisebergLiseberg is kinda scary witouth any guests…

Catacombs, Lafayette, Louvre

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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 travels. This full post can be found here.

Our last day in Paris was rainy. It started with more than an hour in line to go down in the catacobs under the city. It was cool and a little bit scary. At first it was just tunnels, but then the skeletons came. 6 million skeletons lined the walls. It was ridiculously many skulls. And one looked like a real head, that was scary!

IMG_20150916_141159 IMG_20150916_134442 IMG_20150916_135103He was looking for secret passageways, found none (luckily I would say). received_1003141196374556 IMG_20150916_135553 IMG_20150916_140033 IMG_20150916_140204 IMG_20150916_140359 received_1003141219707887 IMG_20150916_140824 IMG_20150916_140954 IMG_20150916_141114 IMG_20150916_143233 received_1003141183041224 IMG_20150916_141622 IMG_20150916_141846 IMG_20150916_142044 received_1003141206374555 IMG_20150916_142103 IMG_20150916_142502 IMG_20150916_142757 received_1003141193041223

We then had lunch and met up with Helena at the fancy pancy shopping mall Lafayette. It was a very cool shopping mall, but only brands and ridiculousy expensive and not even nice clothes. Tiffany’s had a counter there and a diamond ring for 174,000 euros. Craaazy! We didn’t stay there too long and then walked to Musée de Louvre. There were no people in line at all. So nice! So we just went straight in, Jesper and I didn’t pay since we are European citizens and under 25 (kinda close for me though, *gulp*). Mom and Helena walked very slowly through it all so we separated directly. That museum is huge, probably bigger than the British Museum. We gave most of our attention to the famous things, like Mona Lisa, Nike of Samothrace, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, Venus de Milo, Rebellious Slave and probably other stuff we didn’t know were famous. We walked around a lot and saw everything except the one part of France’s history, we learned afterward that that was one of the best part about the museum. Eh, well well.

IMG_20150916_163623 IMG_20150916_163631 PANO_20150916_163713IMG_20150916_172437

At the end of the visit we sat down among statues and were dead. Four long days of walking and the huge museum to end the trip killed our backs and legs. My lower back and calves were hurting so bad. My feet were saved by my awesome new shoes.

IMG_20150916_174639#tourists IMG_20150916_175644 received_1003141179707891 received_1003141216374554Nailed it. IMG_20150916_182550 IMG_20150916_180840Nike of Samothrace. IMG_20150916_180933 IMG_20150916_181742Emeralds!! IMG_20150916_183106Big (and apparently famous) painting. “Consecration of the emperor Napoleon I and coronation of the empress Josephine in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on December 2nd 1804”

IMG_20150916_185154 IMG_20150916_193326 IMG_20150916_185254We learned that before the palace of Louvre there was a fort there, and in the basement was the foundation to it. Pretty cool. And Jesper walked into the picture as always ❤ IMG_20150916_190124Venus de Milo. IMG_20150916_190528 IMG_20150916_191210 IMG_20150916_191433But first, let me take a selfie. IMG_20150916_191545Rebellious Slave by Michelangelo. IMG_20150916_191818Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss. IMG_20150916_192037Exercising with a phone on his arm? IMG_20150916_193053 IMG_20150916_195131 IMG_20150916_195321 IMG_20150916_200343

On Thursday morning we left the apartment and headed for the airport where I read more than 100 pages in Shift. That book was amazing, I finished it shortly after and am now reading Dust, the third and last in the triology.

received_1003141223041220I took this picture with Jesper’s phone on the way to Paris. The sunrise over Gothenburg!

I have been super busy with school and stuff that’s why this post is a week late. And I probably won’t update now for a while again since my computer is broken and at the repair shopa and will most likely take two weeks to fix. I have Jesper’s tiny thing to work with until then. Probably good so I won’t spend time playing games when I should be focusing on school.

Three days ago I went to an apartment viewing out in Kvillebäcken and the day after, on Tuesday they called me and said we got it. So on December 1st Jesper and I will get a firsthand contract to a newly built apartment in Kvillebäcken, one bedroom apartment, 54 square meters. From October 1st and until then we will live in my old student apartment. Even if it is a nice apartment it will be nice to have an apartment that is ours, not mine.

Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe, Sacre-Coeur, Pigalle

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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 travels. This full post can be found here.

Today was all about being a tourist, again. Our day started with the Eiffel Tower where we went all the way to the top. I have to say though that the second floor or even the first was the worst. At the top it was so high up that all perspectives were lost and it just looked unreal. The view was amazing and it wasn’t too windy, but it was cold and it took a long while before we regained the warmth in our fingers. On our way down we decided to walk from the second floor. It actually only took 3 minutes between each floor and we stopped at the first to walk on the glass floor. That was scary AF. Time for lunch after that and then we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. That roundabout was the sickest I’ve ever seen. No lines and seven cars wide. Crazy.

Our next stop for the day was the big La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre. It was a cool church and on our way up there a bunch of guys trying to sell us crap grabbed us and got angry with us. Stupid and scary people!

We bought a ticket so we could go up to the dome and get a fantastic view. It was 300 steps up a staircase though and that was not easy. We then bought some macaroons and sat down at a café. Their Nutella crepes were not very good unfortunately. The last thing we did was to walk around in Pillage, the street where Moulin Rouge is and all the sex shops and strip clubs. Interesting area.

I forgot to write something that happened last night at Hard Rock Café. When I was buying my 16th glass the lady behind me asked me if I was from the US because it sounded like it. That made me ridiculously happy, haha! She thought that I was from USA!

Sorry for the short post today, but there are lots of pictures instead :).

IMG_20150915_114147 IMG_20150915_130458IMG_20150915_125607Etage 2IMG_20150915_135058Etage 2

Etage 3IMG_20150915_135007Etage 3IMG_20150915_135359IMG_20150915_135529Etage 3IMG_20150915_140119IMG_20150915_140829IMG_20150915_142534Etage 1IMG_20150915_142829Etage 1IMG_20150915_142841Etage 1IMG_20150915_142915Etage 1PANO_20150915_125628PANO_20150915_125827PANO_20150915_130352PANO_20150915_135155PANO_20150915_135534Snapshot - 2

IMG_20150915_130421Etage 2

IMG_20150915_141806IMG_20150915_141816IMG_20150915_144624IMG_20150915_160210IMG_20150915_161756Arc de TriompheIMG_20150915_163123Avenue des Champs-ÉlyséesIMG_20150915_170338Sacre CoeurIMG_20150915_172441PANO_20150915_172758IMG_20150915_17283212016561_1000920863263256_22732239_nPANO_20150915_172735IMG_20150915_174712Sacre CoeurIMG_20150915_175339IMG_20150915_180207IMG_20150915_185739IMG_20150915_190452IMG_20150915_191949IMG_20150915_193453IMG_20150915_193752IMG_20150915_194106IMG_20150915_19411512026477_1000920896596586_536543612_n

Hard Rock Cafe #16

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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 travels. This full post can be found here.

This day was only half because of this stupid UTI. It started kinda okay, but like yesterday we always had to keep our eyes open for restrooms. It is not fun to be on vacation and the only thing you are looking for are toilettes. We did go to Louvre, but the line to get in was probably 2-3 hours so we decided that we would do that big ass museum on Wednesday instead (it is closed on Tuesdays). We walked to the Latin district, went inside Pantheon where Madam Curie is buried. After that I had enough, broke down and went to a health center. They said there were no appointments today but I could get one tomorrow. I started crying and said that it was an emergency, and they said a doctor would see me in one minute. We talked for a short while and he said to sit down and wait for ten minutes and then he would help me. I am surprised, French people aren’t usually very nice. But that was really good service. After only an hour I had taken the first antibiotic pill out of three, one a day for three days. There was an option to get one shot, but for some reason the doctor thought that I wanted to drag the treatment out. I so wish I had that instead. Because those pills made me feel so bad! I have never experienced any side effects from medicine before, but I got almost all of it. I got dizzy, stabbing pains in the back, pretty bad muscle pain, and hard to breathe. Tomorrow I will take the pill when we get home so I don’t have to waste the day because we have a lot of stuff planned tomorrow. The pain went away as soon as we sat down for lunch right after, but that was the end of that day’s adventure. Jesper and I went home and watched a movie while the side effects wore off.

I was feeling much better after three hours and we were ready to go out. First we went to the Eiffel Tower, it is ridiculously close to here, only 10 minutes of walking. We didn’t go up, the line was long and we needed to eat. We walked through Le Jardin du Trocadéro and took the subway to Hard Rock Café. Number 16. Neither of us were very hungry so a pulled chicken sandwich was definitely enough.

Tomorrow we are going up in the Eiffel Tower, down in the catacombs and then up to Sacre-Coeur, the big church. Maybe some shopping to if there is time. It will be a fun day!

IMG_20150914_113051 Louvre.IMG_20150914_113210 IMG_20150914_113439 PANO_20150914_113450 IMG_20150914_130839 IMG_20150914_130150 Le Jardin du Luxemburg.IMG_20150914_125737 IMG_20150914_124517 12030783_1000485769973432_1704449548_n 11850936_1000485729973436_1135731086_n PANO_20150914_125757 IMG_20150914_122823 Saint Sulpice.PANO_20150914_12325012030787_1000485726640103_637875274_n 12028978_1000485776640098_1923032123_n IMG_20150914_131612 Pantheon.IMG_20150914_131758 IMG_20150914_132323 IMG_20150914_132507 IMG_20150914_132512 IMG_20150914_132618 IMG_20150914_132759 The crypt beneath Panteon.IMG_20150914_133111 IMG_20150914_134024 12032289_1000485763306766_1804774040_n  IMG_20150914_204350 IMG_20150914_205037 It was surprisingly big. I think I will have spaghetti legs at the top tomorrow!IMG_20150914_210411 Le Jardin du Tracadéro.IMG_20150914_210909 IMG_20150914_231417

Pictures from yesterday

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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 travels. This full post can be found here.

IMG_20150913_123838 12023163_999993233356019_1876803896_n IMG_20150913_135144 IMG_20150913_135154 IMG_20150913_135709  The birdmarket.IMG_20150913_135839 PANO_20150913_181105 IMG_20150913_180551 The weird-looking musem.IMG_20150913_141448 IMG_20150913_141825 No,  don’t want the frog’s thighs, I want its TIGHTS.IMG_20150913_180856 IMG_20150913_183950 IMG_20150913_184405St Jacques (I think it was called).11998381_999993230022686_217738168_nIMG_20150913_130014PANO_20150913_130807Sainte-Chapelle.PANO_20150913_131026PANO_20150913_133517IMG_20150913_132158IMG_20150913_132314IMG_20150913_132358IMG_20150913_132650PANO_20150913_133001IMG_20150913_13364811998397_999993170022692_1504168558_nPANO_20150913_13475012007161_999993160022693_1363018758_nNotre Dame.12021779_999993156689360_1220608502_nIMG_20150913_140545IMG_20150913_140320IMG_20150913_140555IMG_20150913_151556IMG_20150913_152038IMG_20150913_153249IMG_20150913_153713IMG_20150913_154852Notre Dame treasury.IMG_20150913_155054IMG_20150913_155143IMG_20150913_155200IMG_20150913_155244IMG_20150913_155410All the popes.IMG_20150913_160109PANO_20150913_154321IMG_20150913_170315In the basement of a cafe.

First day in Paris and a big surprise

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Our first day in Paris is over and we are all tired. But since I am traveling again, I feel like I need to update. The weather hasn’t impressed me at all sadly. It rained when we arrived at 9 this morning and it kept raining most of the afternoon. It wasn’t until later it stopped and it was actually kinda nice. Jeans were still needed and I had my big sweater and a jacket, but it wasn’t cold.

This morning Jesper and I woke up at 4:30am to catch a flight at 7am. The flight was only 2 hours and it was a nice one. I am pretty sure the company’s why. We had ordered a shuttle but it was late and didn’t pick us up until 10:30, and we didn’t arrive at the apartment until almost noon. The company mom works for has vacation apartments spread out over the world and this week she got the one in Paris, she has been here since Friday. It is a great deal, all the apartments are extremely well located and are nice. Last year we stayed in the one in London for a week.

Today we just walked around and looked at stuff. We went to Notre Dame, Saint-Chapelle, the bird market, St Jacques, a cool modern museum and just around that area. I have to admit that I couldn’t really enjoy today since I once again have a UTI. I get them all the time and it really sucks to have it while I am on vacation! I bought some medicine and hope it will work, otherwise I will have to make a makeshift heat-pillow. We had lunch at a small restaurant, the portion size was perfect and I had a pasta dish with a creamy mushroom sauce. It was delicious. For dinner mom, Jesper and I (there is also Helena, but she is allergic so she couldn’t come with us) went to a Creperie and had crepes for dinner. Mom a savory one and Jesper and I each a Nutella crepe. Yummy in my tummy! We discussed what’s on tomorrow’s agenda and now we are all in bed. But as the blog nerd I am, I am probably the only one awake right now.

 

And then to the big surprise! On Friday morning I got a phone call from Chalmers, it didn’t go through so I just heard the message, and it was a guy asking me if I wanted to take a reserve spot on a master program I had applied for, International Project Management. I was number 22 on the list so I didn’t expect to get in, but I did, and it took a little consultation with mom before I decided that I might as well. Even if I would have loved to go back to California, I have realized that it would be too hard to get Jesper to come as well. And since I don’t have much going on right now I felt like it was the right choice. Then there is the problem that I already missed the first two weeks (but I later that day found out that those two weeks mainly were introduction to the program and Chalmers (for new students) and team building. It is a bit of a problem that I am away this week, but it is project-based classes (no exams), so I should be able to catch up pretty easily. I am really excited about this opportunity and the program seems so interesting. And the coolest part is that I will get a dual degree, one from Chalmers and one from Northumbria University in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England. The third semester is studied abroad at that university, and it is possible to stay for another semester to do the thesis there. Such a fantastic master program! Like I said, I am really excited for this.

 

Now I should get to bed, A long day ahead tomorrow again, can’t wait to explore more of Paris with the love of my life!

 

(The wifi just decided to not work as fast as it did earlier today, so the pictures from today will be posted tomorrow morning instead. Goodnight, readers!)