Author Archives: Alexandra

Lightning and thunder

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After weeks of tropical heat, rain was so very needed. The day started out hot like every other day, but that changed in just a few hours. It dropped 10C (it was actually a bit cold when I walked home at 10pm in shorts and a tank top) after the heavy rain and thunderstorm in the afternoon. Up on the mountain we aren’t allowed to have any rides open when thunder is roaring and because of that we had several breaks. First at 2pm there was a 15 minute break when I was on Helix. The second break came at 4:30pm and lasted for almost two hours. And right after it stopped to thunder I was going to be on AtmosFear for an hour, but after lightning hit that tower we had technical problems and the attraction was closed that whole hour. I think all of the park heard the boom when it hit Atti, and just a few minutes later it hit the middle Gothia Tower. I missed it all, I was down in our pause room.

Because of the weather I’ve had a headache a big part of the day. Not too fun. I also hit my elbow on one of the Helix gates and that still hurts when I move it in a specific way. I hope it will be better tomorrow, it will be hard checking the safety restraints otherwise…

Last night I saw Divergent and it was so good. I probably would have had a lot to say if I read the book recently and didn’t have 30 books read after that triology. I remember the story, but not details about what happens. But I want to reread them. But I probably shouldn’t since I have like 600 books on my to-read-list. At the moment I am actually reading the four short stories from Four’s perspective. I wish I had more time for reading…

Sunburn

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I’ve got a good share of my long longed-for Swedish summer. First yesterday at Öckerö and today before work at Björlanda with mom. It was warmer today because there was no wind. I put sunscreen on the most exposed areas, like shoulders, back, and chest. But I got burned on my stomach and thighs. Stupid me. I should know by now that the sun up here in Sweden can most definitely give you a sunburn. It is not extremely bad fortunately and it will probably be fine tomorrow.

BjörlandaThe water was very very shallow at Björlanda so it was hard to get all of the body cooled down.

Mom drove me straight to work after that and it’s been a very rough day. I’ve been trying to drink as much as I can, but I’ve still felt like I was melting away. It is still around 32C and that is the warmest in all of Europe right now! Crazy that Sweden is warmest… It is gonna stay like this and even if I normally like warmth, it is not very fun to work in. I think I will need to eat more salt from now on, skip the sweet semolina porridge and go for scrambled eggs and bacon. I have almost 10 hours tomorrow and I really hope it will be cooler tomorrow, but I doubt it…

Liseberg at nightI had to wait for 15 minutes for my second tram and spent that time taking pictures of the glittering Lisebergshjulet.

Liseberg and Öckerö

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What a weekend! Yesterday I had an amazing day at Liseberg with my cousins and today I was out by the ocean, enjoying the Swedish summer to the fullest. The best part of weekends at Liseberg is that we have almost a whole day after the weekend as well. I don’t start working until 4pm tomorrow so me and mom will go out to the ocean tomorrow again.

My cousins in Hjo comes down to Gothenburg once a year to go to Liseberg with us. That day was yesterday. After we had decided to take this day (which was pretty much the only day that worked for all of us) I had heard that Tuesday or Wednesday in week 30 is always the worst day of the year. And with the amazing weather it definitely was. It was hot, and tons of people everywhere. But that didn’t matter, we had the best day together anyway. We cooled ourselves down with Flume Ride and Kållerado and went on Helix three times. I even tried Uppswinget which is an attraction that I haven’t even been able to look at before. It was actually pretty fun, the second time though almost made me throw up and I was done after that and skipped the last rides on AtmosFear and Helix. Instead I talked in the mic on AtmosFear and waited after Helix.

I told my cousins a lot of fun and interesting things that happen at work, explained how things worked and introduced them to some of my coworkers. They thought all of them were really nice and funny. They got a little jealous of me for having the best summerjob!

We were in the park from 11am to 10:30pm. It was a long day and we were all extremely exhausted when we all got back to my apartment. We bought candy on the way and watched City of Bones. I found out that the middle cousin also loves to read and she loved the movie, so I told her about all those books and gave her a list of all of Cassandra Clare’s books so she can read them. It is not that common today that people read. But she and I share that interest and that made me very happy. ”It’s like going to another world for a while”.

2014-07-22 22.19.48Me and my lovely cousins! ❤

2014-07-23 12.22.42This is a famous statue of Poseidon at Götaplatsen in Gothenburg. Not everyone knows that if you look from a special angle it looks like he is extremely well equipped. Normally he is the opposite.

Today I held an interview for Cultural Care Au Pair for the first time since April. It is very weird that I haven’t done any recruiting since then… It was a very nice interview with a girl who’ve been living in Bangkok and Singapore and had interesting hobbies and were easy to talk to. Right after that I took the bus to Chad. He got home from Minnesota yesterday so today was the first time I saw him in three weeks.

A few minutes later mom came and picked us up and we went out to Öckerö where we spent the rest of the day. I read a little, tanned a little, but most important of all, I went swimming in the water! I haven’t been in the Swedish ocean in two years, it was definitely time! It was a little bit cold at first, but after I got used to it it was so nice. It was so nice that I went in there twice!

It was an amazing day, this is what I love  about the Swedish summer. The warmth, the sea breeze, and the warm cliffs on the west coast.

After dropping Chad off to pack his things I shared a pizza with mom. A chicken pizza with banana, pineapple, curry and kebab sauce. My favorite!

On the way back home we decided that I want to take advantage of my half day off tomorrow aswell so we are going back to the ocean tomorrow but in Björlanda. I haven’t been able to enjoy the Swedish summer yet so I might as well now when it is so warm. I love the Swedish summer!! I am so glad I won’t miss it next year ❤

2014-07-23 19.58.33

City of Heavenly Fire

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I am now done with the sixth and last book in the Mortal Instruments series. I love Cassandra Clare, all of her books are amazing and the story is really good. The ending was perfect. A happy ending. But this was not the end, Clare has said that she will write six (or was it seven or five?) series about Shadowhunters and this was just the second, or first, depends on how you look at it. This one took place in the present, the other one, The Infernal Devices, in the 1800. Several characters from the Infernal Devices came back in the Mortal Instruments, but not too much, just for a little while. They were hard to let go of so I was happy when they came back. In this sixth book, new people were introduced and the next series, the Dark Artifices will be about them. All of the books in the different series will be connected and in a very good way. I am so bad at writing reviews, but I really like all of her books, and if anyone likes demons/angles/vampires/werewolves/fairies/warlocks in a modern society I can really recommend all of her books. The series about the warlock Magnus Bane is also good. There are 10 100-page novellas.

I wish I had more time for reading, at the moment I am only finishing a book every month…

LäsdagbokThis is my reading diary. I’ve written down every book I’ve ever read in this little book.I started with the exact dates in 2004 when I realized I loved reading. In total there are 19 full pages full, one book per line. I had an ugly reading diary before but I ran out of pages (a lot of unecessary space in it for things I didn’t care about writing down, I think it was two or three books per page!) so I bought a notebook a couple of years ago and transferred the reading list to the new one. And decorated it with a dragon, because my favorite genre is fantasy. Läsdagbok = Reading Diary.

Today I had my Friday at work and that was awesome! These last 6 days have been long and my last weekend short. This weekend will disappear way to fast too. I opened SpinRock today, an attraction at my second area, Balderado. I haven’t been there in so long and had to read the manual on how to open it properly. I was there for 30 minutes before I had to run up to Helix for another half hour. And in the ridiculous heat today it wasn’t that fun.

About Helix, I had the test yesterday and I passed. So now I have 8 approved attractions I can operate at Liseberg. I have been told that I will get one more, but I think I will just get the introduction, the amount of education hours, and the test, just because. Not because they need me at that area. But I don’t mind. I like Berget!

Tomorrow will be another warm summer day and I will spend it at Liseberg with my cousins. They are driving down here so we can be there when it opens at 11am, go there the whole day, and then they will stay over at my place and drive home the day after. I look forward to it. It might be the last or second to last time I will see them before my departure in the middle of September.

I will go to bed now and read in my new book, I Am Number Four; The Lost Files – Return to Paradise. It’s a 100-page novella from the series I Am Number Four. Another good series, but this one is about friendly aliens on Earth who are being chased by evil aliens who want to take over the Universe. Sounds childish, but I am too tired to write a more thoroughly description. Look of the trailer for the movie I Am Number Four and you will know. Goodnight!

Last day of Gothia Cup

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The world’s biggest soccer tournament for kids is finally over. This week means that the whole town is being invaded by people from all over the world, all of the tram’s are always full, they smell of sweat and they all get a super cheap bracelet to Liseberg that is valid for the whole week. That means that everyone is at Liseberg as soon as they don’t play any games. That means a lot to do for us who work there. It hasn’t been too bad actually, but once in a while there is half a team who wants to go on a ride without tickets or bracelets and doesn’t understand English. Or the scenario where another half of a team wants to sit next to each other one a ride… I survived and I even survived an intro and education at Helix, the busiest attraction by far at Liseberg.

So, today was the last day those special Gothia Cup bracelets were valid, but that doesn’t mean Liseberg won’t be as busy. These next couple of weeks are vacation weeks for most of Sweden, and that means that everyone is going to Gothenburg and Liseberg. I wonder if that will be worse or better than Gothia Cup? If there is something that’s actually been better this past week compared to normal weeks, is that people are too afraid of asking if they can wait for the next ride for example on AtmosFear because they want to sit next to each other. It is like they know that that isn’t something they can ask for. That that is just the way it is, we have a certain amount of seats and those need to be filled every time. I am so thankful for that!

My day started like yesterday; break on Helix. But today I had Helix for an hour and I could be a part of reopening it after about 35 minutes of telling people that it was closed. I learned how to do that which was good since I am not an approved attraction driver there yet. I did have my check-up today though, which means I will be ready for the test tomorrow. Yay! When that is done I will have 8 attractions in total at Liseberg.

When I came home from work at about 9pm I didn’t wait long until I started Guild Wars 2. Time flew away, it’s already 0:30 am and I should probably go to bed. I have a long day tomorrow. First 8 hours at work and then prepartying. Liseberg arranges every other Sunday something called a Rabbit Party at a nightclub in Gothenburg. I’ve never went, I enjoy the preparties more. And I work pretty early the day after, so I will hardly even drink tomorrow and just hang out for a while. Even if we work together at Liseberg, we don’t have time to hangout there, so we need these parties. We should do more stuff though, not just the Rabbit Parties.

Morotskort

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Today something very fun happened at work. Some guests get a special card, called a Morotskort (en=Carrot card) when they arrive in the park. They are supposed to give them to Liseberg workers who’ve done something extra and I got one of those today!! More than smiling and being nice to people I didn’t do anything special. It was on AtmosFear where a little girl was too afraid of going, so I let her out by opening all the safety restraints and telling everyone in the microphone that I just opened them but they needn’t worry because I knew what I was doing. I then started checking my half again and after a few guests there was a guy with one of his hands in his pocket and suspicious as I am I asked him what he had in his pocket (it is not allowed to have any loose objects during the ride so we try to prevent that before we start by taking everything and putting them in the baskets by the walls). He just smiled back at me and pulled out one of those cards and told me it was for me. I thanked him a lot and I was in a very good mood the rest of the evening. I don’t know if he was flirting with me, saw what I did to the little girl, enjoyed what I said in the mic or if he were about to leave the park and just wanted to give it to someone (which he didn’t because he came back on the ride). It was very nice anyway, and when you get one of those cards you get a Trisslott (you scratch it and have a chance of winning money). I hope I will win a million!

My day started with 30 minutes at Helix and like another day a week ago, it was on break. That meant that I stood for 30 minutes by the entrance telling people that we had some technical issues. Last week I had a whole hour at Uppswinget. Nice to start the day that way! And it was nice speaking English again. I haven’t done it almost at all these past two weeks, since Chad left for Minnesota. I missed it. On Tuesday he will be back though and I will have someone to talk to daily again.

A stupid thing that happened on AtmosFear today, before I got the carrot card, a guy in the seat started smoking!! I was about to go to the other side and check the restraints and I just saw a big cloud there. I walked up to him and asked him what he was doing and told him to put it out right now! He told me he wanted to throw it off the top of the attraction. Asshole! I took his lighter, I probably should have taken the pack of cigarettes instead, and also his friends lighter. I really really hope they didn’t have a third lighter and smoked up there anyway. What does some people think with?? It is not allowed to smoke in the park, why should it be okay to smoke on an attraction??

That was pretty much my whole day. Now I will go to bed and prepare for another long day tomorrow. But I do get off at 8pm already so I will have some time to do something instead of just going home and going to bed. I look forward to Tuesday (my Saturday).

Double vs single room?

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A few days ago I got a question from CalPoly housing if I would be interested in saving $1500 (or maybe it was more?) by changing my single room to a double room. It said I might be interested and today I got a reply that I need to answer before July 20th if I want to accept the change. Pros and cons with everything.

Pros:

  • I will save a lot of money
  • I will really try out the whole American student lifestyle
  • I might get a friend for life

Cons:

  • No privacy
  • What if the girl is a bitch?
  • Bunkbeds

Opinions anyone? It’s a lot of money, but I also like privacy, but at the same time it would be fun to try see what it’s like to have a roomie…

 

Still tons of people at Liseberg and it is exhausting. Even if I slept for almost 10 hours last night and woke up by myself at 9:30am, well rested and everything, I’ve been so tired today! Mostly Swedish people, but almost all of them wore the Gothia Cup bracelet. I think I saw 10 people in total with Guldpass. Gothenburg people are smart and staying away from Liseberg this week.

I’ve gotten the second introduction to Helix, the one which covers evacuations. It wasn’t that complicated. And after that I had my very first hour covering my own position at Helix. That was nervous, but I did well. And now it feels like I’ve been there for a while. It doesn’t take much time to get used to a new attraction. I can already feel it in my body though. So many complain about the ergonomics of checking those restraints. I am trying my best to do it correctly, but it is hard to avoid getting muscle soreness from doing something I’m not used to. The underside of my arms are so sore!! I hope this will go away soon.

I closed Uppswinget today and normally there aren’t many people at all at the end so they can go on the ride several times in a row. But today, there was a big line up until the very end! So I had to tell people that we were just about to start the last ride and they had to go away. That’s a first!

Time to go to bed and sleep in my own bed now. Goodnight folks!

Helix

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The day has finally come when I got an introduction to Helix, the new big rollercoaster at Liseberg. I’ve been waiting for this day from my second week at work which was more than a month ago now. It’s not just that I want o work on that awesome attraction, but now I will be a bigger part of this group of people who work on Berget. I am now one of those who can complain about how boring it is to be on it every hour of the day and be a part of the conversations about all the crazy things that’s going on there. For example, today, during my introduction there was someone in the platform, right before boarding the train, who peed themselves. That would never happen on Höjdskräcken. I am not gonna complain though, I will check the safety restraints as good ergonomically as I can and since I’ve been looking forward to this for so long, I don’t think I am allowed to complain actually. I am excited anyway! In total I only had the one hour introduction and 1,5h of working on the platform with someone walking beside me. I will probably get introduction phase 2 tomorrow and after that I will cover my own position until I have the test in a few days. Part of the education on an attraction is going on the ride. My spontaneous side popped up and I jumped on the train without really thinking it through. I was hoping that I wouldn’t feel sick, but if course not. I felt a bit nauseated for probably three hours after…

It’s nice to have something else than the typical amusement park attraction where you check the safety restraints, press the buttons and watch the ride go. This is a rollercoaster, more things happen, and of course the principal is exactly the same as the “typical amusement park attraction”, but it feels different. And it was fun being on education again, it’s been a while. I think the next attraction I will get is Balder, one of the other big roller coasters. I am not sure when that is gonna happen though since that area barely need any people from the pool.

The day went by extremely fast, probably because I only had six hours of work, 4-11pm. Tomorrow it will be longer. I was called today at work and asked if I could work an extra hour tomorrow. Nemas problemas! I need the money, so instead of working 11am-8pm I will be working 1pm-11pm. Yay, money!

After work I went home to mom’s. She is away in England again for the week and my brother wanted to sleep at his girlfriend’s place and asked me nicely if I could stay at mom’s and take care of the cats. Of course, I am a nice sister. And I like my cats and probably should take every opportunity I can to see them while I still can. One of them isn’t feeling very well and I had to wipe up four throw-ups right when I got here. Poor thing!

Now I will go to bed, I am so tired and with no computer game distracting me I will probably get a few hours of sleep. I hope it’s nice weather tomorrow so I can enjoy the balcony for a while before work. Goodnight everybody, and thanks mom for letting me borrow your computer. And you should thank me for not faceraping you ;).

Helix

New haircut

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My computer was kaputt last night, so even if I had a lot of interesting things to write about, I couldn’t. My weekend is over and it was over way too fast. I wouldn’t have minded another week or so. My Friday was celebrated at Stage Door (a bar) with some of my colleagues. A very nice evening that ended at 1:30am.

Yesterday I woke up at 1pm I think. It was awesome to sleep in that long for once! I had an ambition to study some, but I realized I had lots of time so I decided to do some other necessary things. I called Radiotjänst again and asked them if they could give me back the last 500kr for wrongly charging me for the TV-license. They told me I would have it by the end of the week. The phone call, waiting including, took almost 30 minutes… After that I tried to call Kosmetisk Kirurgi to make an appointment for hair removal. I have two left since 2012 and thought I should get at least one done before I leave again, or hopefully both, but they have vacation now until the beginning of August, so I will have to wait. Not many people know it, but I have been going through some IPL treatments to remove hair under my arms. I am not done, but what an improvement after 6 (I think?) treatments. I can go one or maybe even two weeks without shaving, when I had to do it every day before.

My third call that day was to the hairdresser, they had an appointment just a couple of hours after I called so I took it. I like being spontaneous. I knew my hair was getting pretty damaged, even if it didn’t look too bad. But 6 months since last time, it was needed. It felt kinda stupid afterward though. I paid 400kr and the before and after picture look exactly the same… It feels better though and it definitely is healthier now with no split ends. I wanted to have the hair in the front a bit shorter as well, so there is a little bit of difference actually. I will post the before/after picture just because it’s so silly to pay that much for that little…

Before/after hairdresser
On these pictures it actually looks better on the before picture, probably because I am newly showered and the light is better. And I suck at taking selfies… Tomorrow my hair will look awesome after a shower and a hair mask and when I can style it the way I want.

I walked around in Nordstan (downtown) after that, tried to find a place who could fix my sunglasses. My engineering skills aren’t that good yet. No one could help me so I decided to make one final serious attempt to fix them. I bought thin iron thread and made a new loop and with some glue and tape it actually seems to be working. I just have to be careful and not put them in my purse anymore. If this doesn’t work I’ve actually found a website that sells those spare parts and I will order some if they break again. I know I am stupid for trying so hard to fix a pair of sunglasses that just cost $4, but they are so cool and so me and I love them. I don’t want another pair unless they look the same!

I did some grocery shopping on the way home because I had a very special plan when it came to dinner. Pierogi (according to Google Translate)! I had found a recipe for pierogi with spinach and feta cheese with pink pepper, parsley, hazel nuts and garlic. It wasn’t as perfect as it sounds, but definitely edible and a little more. Probably not the best with vegetarian food for me right now though. I’ve realized I probably don’t get enough proteins anymore. Poor and no time to cook real food have made me a temporary vegetarian. I like vegetarian food, but I think I need to focus on the meat now when I have money again. I have 17 000 right now in my account! But as I’ve said, I am a saver from now on.

Spinach/feta pierogi

And just when I was about to start updating the blog yesterday my computer pretty much died. No, it didn’t, but I couldn’t go to any webpages that required a login, like Facebook or my blog or even Google. It said something about an SSL problem. I googled it on my phone and after a while decided it was time to reinstall it. I probably got some virus… That’s what I did this morning inbetween my study sessions. Now it is working perfectly fine again. I tried the option to reinstall the operative system without removing my personal files (which is stupid when I have a virus, I know, but it worked!). It went’ smoothly and I just had to reinstall some programs.

I studied for a few hours, but I only managed to solve two problems. The easy wooden and steel pillar problems are done and I am now getting myself into the concrete ones. I hate concrete… But it started out pretty okay, I understood what I did and just when I reached for a new paper to continue the problem on, I realized all of them were out. It was raining outside but I was in such a good flow, so I took a break, went to Nordstan (where by the way, hundreds and thousands of million people were!! On a Tuesday afternoon?), bought two notebooks, a new deodorant and went home to continue on the problem. That’s everything I did actually when it comes to studying, but I am trying to understand what I am doing, not just copying the answer key, so it’s okay that it takes time. I will do some more tomorrow before work.

I had another pierogi for dinner and then played a few hours of Guild Wars 2 before I noticed the late hour. Time just flies when playing that. What’s so awesome about GW2 is that they are always updating the game. They release new seasons of the game with new storylines and map changing quests. The first season I missed because I was in California. It was a fun one I’ve heard, maybe it is possible to go through it by reading about it or something. I know the biggest thing that happened, and that was that the biggest city on the map got completely wiped out. I was so surprised when I logged in after a year and saw it and had no idea what happened. This time though I am playing through season 2 from the start. Today the second part of it was released and it turns out that another big-ass dragon is awaking! So much fun! I love this game, it’s not just the same thing over and over, but they are always changing it, good job, ArenaNet, you have really succeeded in making a great game!

Colder weather

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It has definitely been colder today, but still pretty warm, 24C. Lots of people though. Höjdskräcken had a really really long line for once. Annoying! I’ve started to rethink my fondness of that attraction actually. I don’t understand why they only put three seats on each side (four sides) when most people at Liseberg go in pairs. And when they demand to wait for the next ride because they wanna sit next to each other is really starting to get me angry. Especially when there is a long line!

The day went by pretty fast, got off at six and haven’t done anything since, except petting my cats at mom’s and picking up some tiny screwdrivers for my sunglasses. The electrical tape wasn’t enough and I’m not sure this solution with an iron wire works either… Poor glasses!

I don’t feel like I have something of importance to write about so I will just stop now and go to bed. I am sleeping very badly for some unknown reason and I think that, in addition to the heat makes me this tired… Tomorrow it will be around 20C and lots of rain and thunder! Nice 🙂

Today it is exactly 2 months until my departure by the way! 2 months and I will be back in beautiful Cali! ❤