Pint night

Posted on Thursday, 8 January 2015, 0:06 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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Last night was a very fun evening. My second pint night since I moved to SLO. The first one was the first week of school last quarter.

I went down there at 9pm with Måns, Pelle and Toby and met up with people down there. We thought we were early but when we got to SLO brew the line was enormous! Fortunately we found some of our neighbors halfway to the entrance and sneakily cut the line. No one noticed. We probably saved ourselves an hour. It still took us an hour to get in, good thing it wasn’t too cold. And the company was great. After a little while Matt joined us too. We got in and bought cheap beer. It was extremely crowded in there and very loud, but when we finally got a table as far away from the bar as possible it was easier to talk. It was the five of us who hung out the whole evening. The three Swedes, the German and American. I am a little bit embarrassed to admit that we spoke a lot of Swedish. But it was just one night, I will go back to my normal English (and weird-feeling Swedish) as soon as Måns has left tomorrow. I don’t know exactly when he is leaving, if he stays so we can go to Farmer’s Market or if he wants to stay even longer and go to line dancing. He should, but he also has a long drive down to LA. We will see. I have a long day in school first, noon to 6pm without any breaks except for the 10 minutes between classes. I don’t think I will be a big fan of Thursdays this quarter.

Before pint night yesterday I had my first day of classes. It started with Introduction to Urban Planning at noon to 2pm. It seems like an interesting class, but a lot of work. There are only two midterms, no final, two assignments, so not too bad. BUT, we do have readings before every class. Just skip the reading you say? Nope, because we also have a quiz before every class (which is twice a week). So this time I will have to do all the reading. Ugh… This morning I read more than 20 pages and took the quiz between my two classes today. I got 88% because the short answer questions needed to have the exact phrasing. I knew the answers, but typing it wrong many times. Annoying.

My second class was German and I can already say that I love that class and that it will be my favorite class this quarter. I didn’t miss anything on Monday, the teacher just talked about the syllabus. And yesterday he went through all of last quarter briefly. I recognized everything so I don’t think I will have any problems at all with this step 2 class. And the teacher is funny. A very important trait with teachers. He made us laugh all the time, and he seems to know most of the students since last quarter.

Right after class Lauren, Måns, and I went to Slodoco to buy 23 donuts for Rachel’s 23^rd birthday yesterday. She got really happy! And now we all have donuts to eat whenever. Not too good… But still very good!

Then Måns and I went to Pismo Beach to watch the sunset, and it was a glorious Californian sunset. No clouds and it was warm. Oh yeah, the whole day had been really warm. Like a summer day. Almost 30C. Winter? Nope, SLO goes straight for summer. I love it! I was afraid it was gonna be cold when I got back from the Caribbean. Today has been as nice, but I was at home most of the day and didn’t go out until in the afternoon. Still very nice though.

Seals were swimming right next to the pier.

After the beach I bought food since I threw everything out when I left for winter break. Pizza was ordered for dinner and I took a hot shower with our new showerhead the maintenance guys put in over the break. Awesome!

Today was another day of school. I did the reading, went to my German class (where we watched an old 40’s movie about post World War II), and then took the quiz, and went to my first Public Transportation class. The teacher talked extremely fast, and he was Indian so I had to really focus on what he was saying. What I hear was that we don’t have any class next week, yay! And he also talked about the different public transit modes for an hour and a half. I talked to him afterward and I was still in the class, thank god!

I went back home, watched the last part of Sex Tape with Måns, and then he started cooking dinner. He made poppy seed salmon with haricot vert/ginger/honey pasta. It was delicious!! For dessert he made us Swedish pancakes with strawberry jam and ice cream. Very appreciated and so nice of him. I am still full and this was three hours ago.

After that Toby and Aiden stopped by and hung out for a while. We all played Trivia Crack against each other and it was just a very nice evening.

And now it is past midnight so I should go to bed. Not that I have anything to do before noon.

Yesterday morning I had to go up really early to buy a parking permit for Måns, and on our way back to my apartment we saw Bishops Peak and the moon.

Home sweet home

Posted on Tuesday, 6 January 2015, 2:00 by Alexandra

I am finally home in SLO, exhausted like I don’t know. I had to spend 6 hours at Phoenix airport today because there was no chance of me getting on the standby flight at 11am (the aircraft was changed to a smaller one so 20 people were without seat, and ahead of me on the waitlist). I was at the airport at 9 am, and left at 3pm. Long day.

But it started pretty good. I had difficulty falling asleep last night, but when I did, I slept like a rock. The bed was so soft and awesome. I got up at 7am, took a hot shower, put on the hotel complimentary body lotion and felt awesome (the dryness was back when I was at the airport three hours later, it was nice as long as it lasted). I got free breakfast buffet. It was definitely an okay breakfast and I had a lot because I knew it was gonna be a long day either if I got the earlier flight or no.

For lunch I had Starbucks, I helped my dad get Snapchat, texted with Matt and my mom and just tried to keep myself busy the whole day. I was bored, but 6 hours was actually over pretty fast.

This flight was also delayed. The crew was not there on time. I couldn’t believe it! Once they arrived everything went smoothly and we took off ten minutes later than planned. The flight was a very comfortable one. You couldn’t even tell you were on an airplane, it was so smooth. I read two chapters, listened to a few songs, and then it was time to land. It was only 1.5 hours.

I landed and my baggage didn’t come to baggage claim. Great! It took almost 30 minutes for the security guard to tell us that our bags had arrived with the early flight (even if the lady at the gate told me she rerouted it to my later flight). I was relieved. This horrible trip was over!

Matt picked me up and drove me home. I was tired, but started unpacking and talked to my neighbors. At 7pm Måns from Sweden told me he was at Slodoco, so I managed to get a ride there and we went back to my place. Stayed for a few minutes and then headed to Firestone with Lauren, Rachel, Toby, and Pelle. It was a great way to end a long day.

Back home and I did laundry and finished unpacking. I looked at my schedule and made one for my door. I have a pretty great schedule this quarter too. Not as nice, but it is still okay.

Oh, how could I forget? We didn’t get a new roommate! So it is just gonna be the three of us this quarter. Kinda boring actually, the closed door ruins our corridor. But now we are all over 21 so we can have alcohol in our room, yay.

I have to go to bed now, my first day of class is tomorrow!

January 4: Stuck in Phoenix

Posted on Monday, 5 January 2015, 18:19 by Alexandra

This day has been the worst. I was so looking forward to come home, but instead I am stuck at Doubletree Hilton hotel in Phoenix for the night. It is kinda comical how much bad luck I’ve had today. Never before has this happened that I missed a connecting flight. But I guess there’s a first for everything.

This morning I was in a good mood, I was ready to go home, I was ready to start school tomorrow. But US Airways had other things in mind for me today. My first flight from Montego Bay to Charlotte, NC went as it should. I was nervous about missing that connecting flight since I had to go through customs and recheck my bag, but it went smoothly and I reached the gate 20 minutes before boarding. But then the flight got delayed again and again and again. When I got to the gate and asked for my boarding pass from Phoenix to SLO I understood that something was wrong. The guys back there were on their walkie talkies all the time and something was clearly wrong. We then found out that they had some serious maintenance problems and we had to change plane. So we all ran to gate D7 (we were at B something). Boarding was supposed to happen within 20 minutes. They said. That would have made the plane takeoff an hour later than originally planned. BUT, then there were problems with this one too. First the people on it had to get off, which took a long time, then the crew had to get on and get ready and our boarding was said to happen at 5:30pm (originally the flight would have taken off at 4:15pm). Still all good, I had two hours in Phoenix. I wasn’t too worried. BUT, then we found out that there was a flat tire and it had to be changed. It took an hour apparently. Okay, I was most probably screwed, I started to realize that the possibility of me spending a night at a hotel in Phoenix was getting bigger by the minute, since the flight from Phoenix to SLO was the last for the night. But they still gave us hope and told us we could board any minute, as soon as the doors opened. BUT they didn’t. It thought it was an international thing. So first we had to wait for a British plane coming in and dropping off the passengers, then the doors could open. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it had something to do with an international flight. This took forever and three hours after original take off time we finally boarded. BUT, it took us an hour more to actually take off. First there was some trouble with baggage not reaching the plane. Nice that they wait, but seriously, WTF?! And then we stood probably 20 minutes on the runway.

We finally took off and the flight wasn’t too bad. Okay, it was pretty bad. The guy next to me smelled real bad, I was tired, upset, sad, angry. Everything at once. I hardly slept and felt awful when we finally arrived after 4.5h flight.

As soon as I landed I started up my phone and I had three voicemails. From US Airways telling me my flight to SLO had been delayed due to previous delays. Could the world really be this nice and try to make up for the stress I went through in Charlotte? NOPE. They said in the first one that it was delayed until 10:43pm (which was five minutes after we landed). I ran as fast as I could to the closest US Airways person with hopes on getting home tonight anyway. BUT no. Apparently it took off at 9:50pm. Which my second voicemail said. STUPID F-ING US AIRWAYS to give false hope like that. I got frustrated and upset again. WHY ARE THEY SO MEAN?? I am already a whole day delayed, I will miss my first day of class.

I went nicely to customer service. I was booked for the 2:50pm flight tomorrow, but when I got there apparently it wasn’t so anymore. It took forever to get me on that flight again. The bad thing about that flight is that it is not the earliest flight, because that is full booked. I am on standby for that one at 11am though and I am crossing my fingers like a crazy person and hope that I will get a spot. How much bad luck can one person have in 24 hours?! If I get on that one I will have time, not much but still a little bit, and will make it to my classes that starts tomorrow at 2pm. I really hope I will get on the flight at 11. I don’t think I deserve more bad luck. And I don’t wanna spend another day at the airport. I’ve kinda gotten tired of it after this trip. 9 flights in four weeks. And in the past 8 days I’ve stayed in 5 different hotel rooms. I am sick and tired of this now. I want my own bed…

I will go to bed now and hope for everything in the world that tomorrow will be a better day!

2015-01-05, 01:12

It was a very nice room and the best bed I have slept in in a very long time. Even better than my own bed!A cookie at check-in made me feel a little bit better.

Last day in paradise

Posted on Saturday, 3 January 2015, 23:50 by Alexandra

The weather today was the best it has been since I got to Jamaica. The sky clear blue, a few lonely clouds here and there, but it never got in the way of the sun. It was hot, very very hot! Don’t know how many degrees, but the sun was burning like I’ve never felt before. I even got a tiny bit of sun rash on my thighs if I stayed out of the water for too long during the midday hours. I was in the water a lot!

I was at the beach with the guy I talked to yesterday. It was nice with some company on my last day. I still read a lot. I finished Graceling yesterday and read a fourth of the second book, Fire. This one is so far better than the first and what’s awesome is that they aren’t connected. It is the same land, but two different stories. Maybe they will intertwine eventually, I don’t know.

I enjoyed every last second of the sun and watched the sunset and then went back to my new hotel. This morning I walked the 400m to my new hotel with my suitcase and checked in and actually got my room right away. Not the best room ever, and the AC is not working, nor is the toilet. But whatever. It is only for the night. But I should probably complain about the toilet, maybe I will get a little bit back?

For dinner I went to a place called Marguerites. It was a very nice seafood restaurant and the food was amazing! We saw a huge shooting star (I am not completely convinced it was a shooting star, but it is the most reasonable explanation). There will be a big meteor shower tonight according to I Fucking Love Science on Facebook. If I wasn’t this tired I would sit on the balcony (with an almost amazing view as Polkerris) and lookout for them. But I should probably go to bed not too late. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. My flight leaves at noon, and I will land at 9:45pm in SLO (the time difference makes it 13 hours). I can’t wait to be back home! I hope it will go as fast as the trip here did. Two layovers, first in Charlotte, NC, then Phoenix, AZ.

It’s been the best trip ever! I’ve seen so much and I’ve had so much fun (even if I most of the times were all by myself, but I enjoy my own company sometimes and I needed to be alone for a while). Now I am ready to go home and start my second quarter at Cal Poly.

This is the link to the video Michael did of his four days here. Everything we did (including my cliff jump) is on there with some good music: http://vimeo.com/115875177

The sky looked like this all day! Coconut water Baptizing on a beach in Jamaica, why not?! Yep, I’ve proven it, a Swedish girl can get tan after 23 days in sunny Caribbean! 😉

Getting tan and bored

Posted on Friday, 2 January 2015, 19:49 by Alexandra

My second to last day here in paradise and I have to admit that I am getting bored. It is beautiful and amazing and I can never get rid of the feeling of sand between my toes and this warm and crystal clear water. But I am getting ants in my pants. I wasn’t tired today so I was in the water a lot and I also read a lot, finished half the book and now I am almost done with it. I will hopefully finish it tonight.

The day was perfect again, not many clouds and warm and awesome. I think I have gotten a lot tanner the past two days. My face is covered in freckles and the underside of my feet look very white, and so does my butt and boobs. I love being tan, it’s a “fräsh” feeling.

And that was today, and I think tomorrow will be exactly the same, except that I will sleep at another hotel. Oh, and for the record, if anyone goes to Montego Bay, stay at Polkerris Bed and Breakfast. The couple owning this place are the sweetest, the breakfast is amazing, the view of every room is gorgeous, and it is just a nice place to stay!

I love sunsets! ❤I didn’t see this tiny cruise ship arrive this morning, but I did see it leave. This is the view from my new room, not too bad!

First day of 2015

Posted on Thursday, 1 January 2015, 20:14 by Alexandra

Who pushed the forward button on today’s remote? The day was gone in an instant! I might have fallen asleep once or twice or more times, and I probably slept for longer than I expected. Eh, that happens. It was a great day nonetheless. I got up at 8:30, had breakfast while watching the new cruise ship coming in to the bay. Then I packed my stuff to change room when I got back from the beach and walked there. Since I got there early I was pretty much alone. And I am so glad I got there early, otherwise I would have missed the big and very visible rainbow. It was cloudy, but they went away and the day turned perfect. I read a lot in my new book, Graceling. I will try to finish it before I leave. Five books in three weeks is not too bad.

I had sweet potato fries and a mango daiquiri for lunch and I stayed and watched the sunset. It was as beautiful as always and on my way back to the hotel I bought a cute tank top. I also got a lot of questions if I wanted to buy drugs. These people are crazy.

My new room isn’t as nice as the one I had, but it works. The shower isn’t nearly as nice as the other one. But this is just for two more nights. I only have two more full days here in the Caribbean and then I will be going back home to California. I look forward to it. This trip has been the best ever, but I feel ready to go back home. I really look forward to have Matt pick me up at the airport on Sunday evening.

And here comes the mandatory review of the past year for every blogger. I had a great year, there were definitely some parts I could have been without, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?! I started 2014 with my last couple of weeks with my hostfamily in San Diego and then 3 weeks on Hawaii. And in paradise is where I ended the year too. In between I had the best summer job ever where I met a lot of fun people, and then I moved back to California. My first quarter was my best one in school so far. Living the American college life is so much fun and I kinda don’t want it to end. After the next two quarters my new real grownup life starts and I am not ready for that. This year will definitely be different from all my other so far, but I am sure it will be as great as the last two have been.

Happy New Year!

These cruise ships bring so many people. Doc’s Cave isn’t that big. The beach was packed today again. “The Hip Strip” in Montego Bay. At 9am you are almost alone.

New Years Eve

Posted on Thursday, 1 January 2015, 0:19 by Alexandra

Happy New Year, everyone!

This morning a big cruise ship came in to the bay. Stayed there for the whole day, and all of those on board were of course going to Doc’s Cave beach. The line in was gigantic. So we went to a small entrance to the beach next door, and walk in for free, haha. We stayed for less than two hours, then back to the hotel for Michael to check out. I went back to the beach after that and the rest of the day was just perfect. No clouds, and really warm.

On my way back to the hotel I bought my souvenirs, a bracelet and a magnet. The rest of the evening I watched Despicable Me 2, I read a little bit and napped, until the clock finally turned to 00:00 and I watched the fireworks far away on the other side of the bay, and now I am ready to go to bed!

Goodnight!

Last nights amazing moon over the bay. Today’s Jamaican breakfast with fried dumplings, boiled green banana, boiled yam, fried plantains and ackee and cod thing. Real good. Doc Cave beach was packed!! Hope it is fewer people tomorrow. Blue sky, blue water, beautiful! The cruise ship left at 6pm. I watched the sunset from my bed!This is what I saw of the fireworks. Too far away :(.

Another day at Doc’s Cave

Posted on Tuesday, 30 December 2014, 18:16 by Alexandra

Today was very chill, mostly because we were completely worn out after yesterday (and me after the last almost three weeks). I couldn’t sleep in, got up at 8:30 but Michael didn’t wake up until the lady called us and told us our breakfast was done much later. I just can’t sleep in when I am on vacation, it feels wrong! But we made it to the beach after I bought a Jamaican flag and rebooked my hotel for the third time. I actually walked in there and talked to them. Apparently my change a week ago hadn’t gone through and now it was all fully booked, so I am lucky that I could stay here at Polkerris the first three nights and at Caribic House the last night before I go back home to California.

We got to the beach, just hung out for a few hours, then went to Margaritaville at two for lunch and jumping on the big floaties right below. I couldn’t really do anything with a bikini so I just chilled for a bit. Nothing wrong with that either.

Then back to the beach for another hour and back to the hotel. We left before sunset because he wanted to go back. And since we only have one key I had to go with him. But it turned out to be the right decision, the sun set behind a thick wall of clouds today anyway. I am hoping for a pretty sunset tomorrow night instead.

And yes, it is New Year’s Eve tomorrow and I am planning on skipping the whole thing. I don’t wanna be alone out there (Michael leaves tomorrow morning). So I will stay in the room and pretend it is a night like any other. It’s just New Years. Not a big deal.

Now I will take a nice shower and then head down to a restaurant for dinner. I think we will end up at Margaritaville tonight for a couple of drinks. I hope I won’t be too tired.

Waterfalls and cliff jumping

Posted on Tuesday, 30 December 2014, 0:09 by Alexandra

Today was an incredible day! Up before sunrise and back “home” way after sunset. We got breakfast at 6 am and were on the road at 6:30. We watched the sunrise from the car and it was really pretty. Michael’s GoPro was on the outside of the car.

We arrived in Ocho Rios at 8am, 30 min too early. Se we sat and waited in the car until the park opened. We were surprised to see that it was a park, and not just a place to see cool waterfalls. The place was called Dunn’s River Falls and if you are on Jamaica, you have to check it out. It is so freaking cool! We were there early, before everyone else so we managed to get a lot of nice photos without people in it. We climbed the whole thing to the top, took photos on the way and on the top we went down on the road and decided to climb it again. But this time filming the whole climb. I had a GoPro on my head and Michael used the pole. Most of the pictures were blurry, but I think the videos turned out better.

We left the place at 10:30 am and went into Ocho Rios for lunch. We found a nice place called Reggae Ally and I had coconut shrimp and fried plantain. Really good. Then we went up in the mountain to drive for a while. It was amazing up there! But an hour was plenty enough and we went down to the main road to drive all the way to Negril, on the west side of the island (Ocho Rios is east of Montego bay which is halfway in between the two places. I fell asleep in the car, I was so exhausted!

Michael was driving the whole time, I just refused to drive a car on the wrong side of the road. I am adventurous, not ready to die. But going through downtown Mobay was scary! People were honking all the time, driving like crazy persons and we lost 40 minutes trying to find our way back to the main road. We got to Rick’s Café at 4:30. Rick’s Café has been voted one of top ten best bars in the world and I totally get why. It is a place right on the cliffs, the sun is setting right out in the water, there are cliff you can jump from and they had live reggae music. It was just perfect. The sunset was amazing, the food was good (but took forever to get), the music was great, and the cliffs were pretty cool too. Michael jumped a few times before we had dinner, I had told myself I was gonna skip it. But then, during dinner (after one of the most incredible sunsets I’ve ever seen), I decided that I was gonna do it anyway. So I changed into my bikini and went to the 25 feet platform, hesitated for 2.5 minutes and then just jumped. It felt so amazing!! Michael filmed the whole thing and I was so happy when I came up. I got courage from an eleven year old girl who did it earlier. If she could, then I could too, and I did! And most importantly, I survived it. 25 feet is only 7.6m, but it is higher than I have jumped before. During the jump I lost my grip on my nose and got so much salt water up my nose! I still feel weird and probably have lots of water up there. It is gross. And it hurts a little bit.

We drove back home and I got so tired. We had plans on going out, but we have to do that tomorrow instead, I was just too tired. I should be asleep, but the Internet is so slow and I still have 6 more photos to upload to my blog. I guess I could fall asleep for an hour and then post this, haha!

Michael is working on the movie of this trip. We both got a lot of good footage so far.

Tomorrow is all about relaxing at the beach. I look forward to it!

The mountains!Jamaican countryside.“Jamaicin me crazy” drink.Better resolution will come, some day. The video of it too! Just be patient, when you least expect it.

Doctor’s Cave Bathing Club

Posted on Sunday, 28 December 2014, 23:03 by Alexandra

I love Jamaica! The ocean is the right color and temperature, it is warm and beautiful! The people are extremely laid-back, which I like, but I would prefer if they stayed out of my way. Today a guy popped his head out from a wall and asked me if I wanted to smoke. I think I will get that question at least once every day this week.

We got up at 9 this morning, had an amazing breakfast on the patio. Here we order what we want to have the night before and this morning we had fruit and omelette. So good. This place is really nice!

Then we went down to the main street, asked how much flyboarding was. $90 for half an hour. Not worth it, so we just went straight for the beach, Doctor’s Cave. $6 to get in, and $6 for a sunbed, which was worth it. They are so comfortable. And there we stayed for the whole day. Went into the water so many times. Far out were a pretty nice reef for being downtown Montego Bay (downtown is probably the wrong word since this is not a big place). Took some pictures with the GoPro and read some, and got darker some. It was the perfect day! At 3:30 we took our stuff and went to the beach next to it and went out to sail for an hour. Michael’s biggest interest is sailing, so we went out on a small boat. It was really nice. The water splashing us were so warm, the water was amazingly blue and it was just awesome. We had our GoPro’s and took a lot of photos and videos. Michael is gonna make a video of this trip and I am really excited to see how it turns out.

We had dinner on the beach shortly after and then back to the hotel to plan tomorrow. But first I took a shower in the amazing shower that exists here. I will let the picture explain for itself.

Amazing shower

While I was in the shower, Michael went and picked up a car, and I planned our roadtrip tomorrow. We will be leaving at 6am, first go to Dunn’s Waterfalls, then through the middle of the island to check that out and all the way out to the west side of the island and Negril. There is a beautiful beach but also Rick’s Café which is a famous restaurant. They have cliff jumping, and an amazing sunset. We are totally checking that place out. Then back to the airport to return the car and then probably some souvenir shopping for me and GoPro filming.

I am excited! That’s all I am right now, haha! But my life is great and I always have a lot of stuff to look forward to. I love it!

Bemm

Life's a Beach

Author Archives: Alexandra

Pint night

Home sweet home

January 4: Stuck in Phoenix

Last day in paradise

Getting tan and bored

First day of 2015

New Years Eve

Another day at Doc’s Cave

Waterfalls and cliff jumping

Doctor’s Cave Bathing Club

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