A quarter century!

Posted on Monday, 11 April 2016, 22:59 by Alexandra

So, 25 years ago I was born. Twenty-five years! It is a big number and definitely a milestone. It’s crazy, but I can’t do anything about it than thank everyone for their happy-birthday-wishes today. I had a wonderful day, it was the most beautiful spring day ever! Not a single cloud anywhere to be seen and it was warm in the sun. Sure, I guess it could have been any other day than a Monday and a school day, but it was still okay. I didn’t do much, went to class, went grocery shopping, cleaned the apartment, played a little on my new Wii U (that Jesper gave me yesterday) and waited for Jesper to come home from work. Soon after that mom came over and we made dinner; tacos. And for dessert; princess cake! Doesn’t matter how old I am, there should always be a princess cake, haha!

It’s been a long time ago since I updated, and not because not many fun things have happened, I just kinda lost my will to write. So here comes a bunch of photos from the last three months instead (sorry, but many of them are of the cats).

Ramses There was a period when the cats pooped shapes, here was a cat! Cleo is sit-sleeping. You can’t go to the bathroom alone. They removed the soles from my shoes not once, but twice!! They got a new active toy which they love, blinking balls on a rollercoaster. This is the cutest picture ever. I did not put them like this,they fell asleep like it! They always sleep along my legs or on them when I am sitting on the couch! Never alone. Even if they fight a lot, they still seem to like each other. Ramses is very chill! We had some very pretty sunset the past months. Semla mudpie Ramses the chill. St. Patricks Day. IMG_20160401_192251 Jesper and I went up to my cousins in Nynäshamn a week ago. We had a great time up there, played a lot of cards, walked around in the harbor, enjoyed their new hot tub with an ocean view and just hung out. IMG_20160403_112435 I got new toys for the cats, and it did not take long before one of them was in its natural habitat. Now it is completely gone! Cleo is such a beautiful cat! Rachel (for those who don’t know, to the right, and my former roommate in California) came here with her friend Elyse to visit for a few days. We went out to the archipelago and enjoyed the amazing Swedish spring on the west coast.

Here is a link to google maps where I uploaded a sphere picture taken at Öckerö after my 17-year old cousin told me about it, haha! (I am getting old):

Other than what I have taken pictures of, I am doing well in school. I am almost done with my first year in grad school, one more to go. Last quarter I took a class called Leadership & Communication and the home exam I wrote with another girl was super interesting: Why do people follow destructive leaders? We brought up Hitler and Trump as examples and it was the easiest finals week ever. I haven’t gotten the grade for it yet, but it should arrive very soon.Then we had three days in school and then two weeks off. I needed it, just relax for a bit. Today was the first day back after the break and on Wednesday we have a presentation. A few more weeks and then the summer is here and lots of work at Liseberg (where I actually start in two weeks already, but not full time until the last week of May).

I have also been reading, but haven’t finished anything new in a while since I am reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and it is long. The new ereader (Kobo GLO) is working perfectly!

I have also played a lot of beach volleyball and have already have many ups and downs. I hope I will have time to play this summer as well, even with lots of work at Liseberg (or maybe SKANSKA if they will contact me about my application I sent in a month ago).

I should probably go to bed now, I am not as young as I was yesterday and I have a lecture tomorrow at 9am. I can’t make any promises about more frequent posts, but I can almost say that the next one won’t take three months.

Desert Safari and kitten

Posted on Sunday, 24 January 2016, 2:15 by Alexandra

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 Dubai was amazing and was over so fast. We started the day at Kite Beach. It was a beautiful and warm day, we spent some time in the water and it was just awesome! We got back to the hotel at 1pm and we actually had time to take a taxi to Deira City Center and crossed our fingers that that Max hadn’t closed down as well. And it hadn’t. We ordered a normal Frisco meal with fries. They said they had Crispy Fries but it was not the same as in Sweden. The Burger wasn’t the same either. But it was still worth it.

We got back to the hotel and had time to pack everything before we got picked up for the desert safari. A humongous Toyota Land Cruiser. It was the two of us and another Indian family of four. The first stop was at a Dune Buggy place, it wasn’t included in the package and none of us went. Then we went straight out in the desert, the road just ended and there were so many cars! We all went in a long line and it was a bumpy ride. I guess I should have known, but I was surprised at how bumpy it was, I felt sick. We then stopped for some pictures in the desert, the sun was setting and it was beautiful. It was windy and we had sand everywhere, but it was nice. We then took normal roads (and at the end in the dunes) to reach a camp that was set up in the desert. It looked like a small small circular city where there were small stalls where we could pick up starters, coffe, tea, sodas and then later a buffet table. The food was okay and I guess the closest to the Arabian culture. We sat on pillows on the ground and in the middle of the whole camp was a stage where people danced. Right outside of the camp there were two camels that we could ride as well. That was scary, especially when it rose and lied down.

We got back to the hotel at around 9:30 pm and the taxi came and picked us up at 11pm to go to the airport. The flight would take off at 2 am, but it was delayed and we didn’t take off until 3am. And also because of winds the plane had to take a detour over Poland and make a landing to refuel. And that meant that we lost a lot of time and therefore missed our connection flight in Stockholm. We landed when it took off at 8:30am. The next Norwegian flight that we didn’t have to pay anything for was at 5:45 pm. We could book with SAS, but that would have been expensive, so we stayed at the airport the whole day instead of being home with Cleo and chilling. In total we stayed up for 40 hours with a few hours of bad sleep in the plane from Dubai to Stockholm. It was brutal. I am still tired, even if I got a good amount of sleep last night. I guess it can also be because I spent two hours this morning playing beach volleyball. We were only 4 people there so it was a lot of practice time. I was dead afterward.

I am still not 100% recovered, but I have a full day of just doing nothing at home tomorrow which is good, but then on Monday, school starts again.

Today was a big day. After practice I met up with Jesper downtown and we picked up the scratch map we left for framing before we left, we then bought a frame for the pictures we bought in Dubai, and our last stop was Webhallen where I bought a new eReader. My old one was drenched when my water bottle leaked last Thursday on my way to practice. Too bad, that was a good eReader and they are not sold anymore. So instead of a Sony, I now have a Kobo Glo HD which has light in the screen which is a huge plus! It actually seems like a really cool eReader and much more complex than my old one. I think I will like it.

And then we made an even bigger purchase, we got Cleo a Friend! He looks almost exactly like her, but he is fluffier and a boy and 1.5 months younger. He is adorable, and didn’t complain at all when we drove him home. He was curious and then fell asleep. When we got home Cleo was super curious about this new little guy. But she is very rough with him, playing all the time, refusing to leave him alone and he is much smaller than she and can’t defend himself. I guess she is making sure that he knows that she is in charge here, but she is kinda overdoing it. I know that she is very playful, but I hope she will calm down and not be so rough with him, he is just a baby! But I guess in a month or so he will be as big and will be able to hit her back. They have slept together twice, but as soon as nap time is over they are fighting again. I really hope this will calm down soon and that Cleo won’t hate us because we brought a smaller cat here. All of last week she was with mom and her two cats and apparently she was all over them there. She would never leave the two oldies alone so we thought a friend for her at home would be nice too. But I don’t think she realizes that the cat she played with most at mom’s was 8kg, while she was only 1.7kg and this new one can’t be more than 1.2kg. We will let the small one sleep with us tonight with a closed door and Cleo on her climbing tree and hope she will behave better tomorrow.

We don’t have a name yet, so if you have any suggestions for a fluffy red boy, let me know.

It is so beautiful in Gothenburg right now! It is kinda sad that we missed this last week when it was this much snow. Unfortunately tomorrow it will be above freezing and therefore everything will melt… On our way to Orust through Winter Wonderland to get our new family member. And here he is! At first she followed him around like an extra tail. And then she started to get rough and play with him. One nap was okay and they were like siblings lying there. And then there was some more fighting… And another nap, closer this time! And then some more fighting.And lastly before they went their seperate ways to sleep in different locations, Cleo washed him. Cute! I think this will work out, we just have to give them time (especially for him to grow more).

Kite Beach and a bad taxi driver

Posted on Wednesday, 20 January 2016, 23:27 by Alexandra

Today was exactly yesterday, except that we stayed on the beach until sunset. It was warmer than yesterday, and not as windy. A really nice day. I also finished the 9th book in the Tales from Shadowhunter Academy series.

We then tried to find a cab, and the one we found turned out to be ridiculously expensive. We were going to Oasis Center because a few days ago it said that there was a Max Hamburger restaurant there, but when we got there it had closed down. Bummer. We spent 50 AED to go to a stupid shopping mall where they didn’t even have the thing we were looking for. So we bought some candy and donuts to have while watching a movie tonight. We got a taxi quickly at the mall, but that was a mistake. First of all, this guy was young, had an extreme lisp and we could not understand what he said with his accent. Then he didn’t know where we were going, had to put it in his phone GPS (no one here so far has used the GPS), and then he insulted me asking me if I was Jesper’s mom! And then he said it was a joke. Why would a taxi driver make a joke like that? And also I don’t think he was joking because later he asked if he had permission to speak something, and then said that he suggested me to dress in black to look younger. What an asshole!! Then he was in a car accident while we were in the car and had to stop right on the freeway. He drove into the car in front of us, nothing really happened but he told us he talked his way out of calling the police, and then he explained why. I think it was something about that he had to pay a huge fine because he was a taxi driver and also pay out of his own pocket if the car got damaged. He said we would get the ride for free because of this delay and that money wasn’t everything. After that he drove extremely recklessly, he was driving fast and very carelessly. He said he was 21 but his passport said 37 because you can’t be a taxi driver here unless you are 25. We left the taxi when we finally got to the hotel, he honked at us and asked us to pay. I was so angry at that point that I gave him a 20 instead of 30, and then borrowed the phone at the hotel to file a complaint. It took a while, but they took me seriously and I will learn what they did about it before January 31. Worst taxi experience ever.

Good thing we have another day tomorrow, I think I would hate this place if I left after tonight. Stupid fuckface!

Tomorrow anyway is our last day here and we are spending half the day at the beach and the other half on a desert safari. That will be fun. Too bad we won’t have time for Max before we leave. We might have time tomorrow between the beach and the safari, but we will have to see.

Kite Beach and Hard Rock Cafe #17

Posted on Tuesday, 19 January 2016, 20:41 by Alexandra

There is not much to say about today, we spent most of the day at the beach. Kite Beach was a big beach kinda close to our hotel. It was very few people, a big white beach, and there were real serious beach volleyball courts and a Jamba Juice. I feel proud every time I see one since the founder of it went to Cal Poly.

The water felt cold, but that could have been because the sun was burning today, even if it was a bit windy. We went in several times though, even if not all the way. It was just nice to stand in the blue water.

When it got a little too cold, we started looking for a taxi to get to Festival City Mall, which is mostly under development. IKEA is there and also Hard Rock Café. This was number 17, haha! We bought some more painkillers for Jesper. It is still pretty swollen, but I think it might be getting better, but it is hard for me to tell.

Tomorrow a similar day awaits us!

Festival City Mall. Dubai Skyline during sunset

Atlantis The Palm, Mall of the Emirates

Posted on Monday, 18 January 2016, 23:54 by Alexandra

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!

Atlantis resort.

Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa

Posted on Sunday, 17 January 2016, 23:50 by Alexandra

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 125^th 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 125^th 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.

This is Dubai Mall, crazy big!! In the lounge at the top we got served snacks and drinks. Level 125. A gold car. PANO_20160117_192719 IMG_20160117_203147 A Tesla!! A matte black Lamborghini.

First day in Dubai

Posted on Saturday, 16 January 2016, 22:41 by Alexandra

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.

You know you are in an Arabic country when camels are walking on the beach. JBR The Walk. Jumeirah. JBR The Beach. It’s too bad they are building so much out in the water, it ruins the sunset… A chrome Lamborghini. All the cars here are extremely fancy pancy, but this one was a little bit better. This 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

Posted on Thursday, 17 December 2015, 22:27 by Alexandra

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. 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… 42 thousand minutes of listening to music this year. Chip. Stuff. Jesper and I before his dad’s wedding. Jesper’s dad and his new wife Roxanna.Jesper’s super adorable baby brother with a vest and a tie. Roxanna is half Iranian so there was a traditional Iranian wedding ceremony after the church. New shoes that can handle the Swedish winter (=rain and sometimes slippery ice). On the 8th of December we left this apartment that has been mine since the summer of 2011. 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.

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).

This is what the living room looked like before we put everything to where it should be. Coziest cat and boyfriend ever! She loves to climb and my back is all scratched up because of it, haha! 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. Waking up like this is not too bad! Cleo playing with our tiny Christmas tree. Cat selfie! The Christmas gift I got from Liseberg, 1.6kg of expensive Chocolate. She loves to walk around on the keyboard, annoying when I am trying to study. We have a washing machine and dryer in our apartment which is the best ever! Cleo enjoyed it too, cutie! 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! Lussekatter!!Studying when she is sleeping in the lap is not too bad.

Halloween at Liseberg

Posted on Monday, 9 November 2015, 23:00 by Alexandra

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.

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! Mine and Jesper’s pumpkins. The dismantling of three of the attractions at Liseberg. We were babysitting Jesper’s adorable 13 month old brother for an evening and overnight. We had perfect Halloween weather on October 31. Foggy and colorful. We had a very pretty fall this year! 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! 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.Liseberg is kinda scary witouth any guests…

Catacombs, Lafayette, Louvre

Posted on Thursday, 24 September 2015, 18:43 by Alexandra

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!

He was looking for secret passageways, found none (luckily I would say).

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.

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.

#tourists Nailed it. Nike of Samothrace. Emeralds!! Big (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”

We 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 ❤ Venus de Milo. But first, let me take a selfie. Rebellious Slave by Michelangelo. Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss. Exercising with a phone on his arm?

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.

I 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.