Category Archives: Sweden

Christmas at Liseberg

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It is my workplace, yes, but it is a very pretty workplace and I don’t mind going there every now and then to enjoy it. Today I went there with Sofia, Marcus and Ville and Jesper. We didn’t stay for too long, but we saw everything and went on one ride, the ferris wheel, Lisebergshjulet. And this time we went in the VIP gondola. Three years of working at Liseberg and I still hadn’t been in that gondola. It was fancy. Leather seats, glass floor, tinted windows and a screen (not sure what it is for). It was nice!

We did a little bit of shopping, found one last Christmas gift, bought a couple of board games for us (we still don’t have any and I don’t think we are proper adults until we do, so now we do!), we also bought two big chocolate balls with special flavors. I also bought a very very nice scarf. It was made by South American women from (I think) Alpaca wool. Super soft. And the blue color was amazing! I will feel even more adult in that one compared to my old one. No marzipan pig from Bräutigams today, didn’t really feel like it today. I might change my mind and get one after work one day, I wouldn’t be surprised, hehe.

img_20161219_160918 img_20161219_162152 Fake snow is the only snow we get here in Gothenburg nowadays,img_20161219_162314 Santa’s workshop.img_20161219_163521 img_20161219_163828 img_20161219_163900 img_20161219_164137 pano_20161219_164144img_20161219_164322 img_20161219_164329 img_20161219_164924 img_20161219_165050 img_20161219_165429 img_20161219_165442 img_20161219_165504 img_20161219_165533

An early Christmas gift

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Christmas came early this year when I the other day got a package in the mail. Earlier this week, Massolit Publisher had a contest on Instagram where you could win the whole Stjärnklart series signed by the author if you knew the name of the third book in the series. The contest was over before I even saw the post, bummer. But I tried contacting them anyway, the contact person was the one I had been in contact with when writing my reviews. She replied very quickly that they were already on their way to me, sent from the auhor himself. So cool!

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They are now an important part of my bookshelf! Thank you, Lars Wilderäng!

Adventure time in the middle of the night

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Ugh, sleep deprivation is truly the worst. School is killing me! Yesterday morning I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but by the evening it was hard to see anymore. We were finalizing our Revit project last night. So I was in school in the morning, work in Kungsbacka in the afternoon and then back to school. I didn’t think we would stay too long, but we ended up staying until 00:30. Crazy!

I took the 6 tram home because nothing else relevant was running at that time. I noticed too late that it didn’t take its usual way so I ended up somehwere I wasn’t sure where. There was one tram left going back to downtown. But I wasn’t sure if it went that way or not. But at that time, my internet completely died. I couldn’t double check. I called mom and she said she would pick me up in downtown so I wouldn’t have to wait there for 30 min for the tram back home. I would not feel safe standing there all alone in the dark… My mom is the best! Getting out of bed at 1 in the morning to drive me home. She is the best!

I had to get up shortly after 6, after 4 hours of sleep and sit through 3h of presentations at work and then back to school for meetings with everyone I am working with right now. Crazy day! I feel awful, I feel physically ill. But I can’t go to bed just yet. I have to prepare for the two presentations I have tomorrow, both in the morning in different parts of town. Yay!

That will be the end of this year, though. But two individual assignments are due the second week of January based on these two courses, but that is it, when it comes to courses at Chalmers. Then it is only my master thesis left. Shit, am I ready for this?

 

Break time is over, back to studying and preparing for tomorrow. Here are some of the rendered pictures that took forever last night. Enjoy!

3d-view-2-alexandras-strak-ljusare 3d-view-7 3d-view-marias-kvarter idas 3d-view-overview

gatunamn Here are also the names we gave the streets and neighborhoods. Mine is Mjölkdisken (~Dairy Counter) with the skyscraper Gräddhyllan (~Cream Shelf) (which I now realized after looking at Wikipedia, means a neighborhood with fancy houses) as the eye magnet to the whole neighborhood. The other neighborhood we designed (we only designed 4 out of the 14) are Filbunken (~Bowl of fil – I think fil is a Swedish thing), Glassbägaren (~Ice Cream Bowl) and Ostkällarn (~Cheese Basement). Vällingby (~Formula Village) is the name of the pre-school in the area. The roads are named:
A-Filen (a type of Swedish fil)
Strössegränd (~Sprinkle Alley)
Lattestigen (~Latte Trail)
Cheddarbacken (~Cheddar Slope)
Mejeriallén (~Dairy Avenue) which is the main, walking only street.

I guess you can see a theme here? The old dairy factory of Arla used to be there, or is actually today, but it will be torn down to make housing. For those of you who are located in Gothenburg, or know the city, this is the area on the other side of Ica Maxi in Mölndal. This is right next to Smörgatan in Kallebäck.

It has been a fun project, and I am very satisfied with the result. And especially considering I have never even opened Revit before this class started. It would have been much more fun without the stress though. Too little time, too much to do. Tomorrow we are presenting it on a special screen (I think it was about 12 square meters big!) and with the help of VR glasses. I think I will make a short video walking around in the neighborhood and post it on my instagram (AlexBemm) if you want to see the 3D-environment. Maybe tomorrow, if I figure out how to make videos directly from what is happening on the screen.

Spontaneous book purchase

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img_20161208_191832It was not my intention to go to Science Fiction bokhandeln (Sci-fi bookstore), but I tagged a long when my boyfriend wanted to go there. I ended up buying Siri Pettersen’s book Odinsbarn, the first in the trilogy called Ravneringene. It was originally written in Norwegian in 2013 and has a pretty high rating on Goodreads. I have also heard a lot of good words from people and reviews, so I am really excited to read it soon.

 

Other than that, my life is a mess right now. The end of the quarter is coming up and I really feel like I am done with school now. I have been enrolled at Chalmers since 2010. I am ready to move on. It just feels rotten that I don’t enjoy the end of my last two classes ever because both of them are group projects. One is going fine and we are on schedule. The other one though, the really fun one is not going so well. We have to send it in on Wednesday and we are not close to done. I am done with my part, so next step is to put our four different files together and create the space between the houses, and make the presentation for Thursday. We don’t really have time and I feel stressed. The project is to create a neighborhood in Revit, a 3D CAD program. It is really fun and I have learned a lot. But it is sad that my experience in this class falls on other people. It is also sad that I had limited time so I couldn’t do everything the way I wanted. Much of this took so long, and I would have loved to make it better. I might continue to make it better after it is done.

1This is what my part for the project looks like. This is not a rendered picture so the materials aren’t really visible. Maybe I will do one of those tomorrow and post it. The  ground was almost black today for some reason, maybe it was some setting on that specific computer, I don’t know.

I haven’t posted any pictures of my cats lately, so here’s two cute ones!

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And I finish this post with a picture from work last weekend. Liseberg might not be as fun as it was before, but it sure is pretty!

Book review copies

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The main reason why I am writing book reviews now, are because of my friend Elin (tickmicks bokblog) whom I know from Liseberg. She is as crazy as I am about books. Okay, she is probably more crazy honestly. But she inspired me and made me realize that I could contribute to the world about the experience and enjoyment I get from reading books. Now in hindsight, I wish I did this a long time ago. I have had this blog for almost four years now and I have read tons of books since then. They were a big part of my life in California and on my travels and have made me associate make books with great memories.

Anyway, Elin and I talk every now and then about books and she keeps telling me that she gets recex, which is short for recensionsexemplar, which I guess translates to review copy (=revco?). It basically means that you get books for free to write reviews on them. I decided to try this out for myself since I am actually writing reviews now. So I contacted a publisher a few days ago, and today I got it emails with links to download .epubs of the whole “Stjärnklart”-series. Unfortunately for you who don’t speak/understand Swedish: the books are in Swedish and there are no translations yet, that I know of. But if you like the review (which will be up in about a couple of weeks I guess, or sooner depending on how awesome it is) and think that the books sounds interesting, I am sure they will be translated soon enough, they are a huge success in the postapocalyptic dystopia category here in Sweden right now.

I am at the point in my blogging that I can ask publishers for review copies, but I am still waiting for authors to contact me. But on the other hand, this way I can ask for books that I really want to read, so it’s not too bad. I think I will go and lie on the couch now and start reading Stjärnklart (or should I continue with Resan till Ljuset?).

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The Legendary Dragonite

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Tonight I reached level 27 in Pokémon Go. Many people have stopped playing that game, but as with everything for me, it is either all in or nothing. Guild Wars = all in! Aion = naah. Pokémon Go = yeah! So I am one of the loyal players of Pokémon right now. I think the game is great, I walk more now, and with updates coming all the time, the game gets interesting again every month or so. The buddy system that came a while ago was huge. But the latest update which didn’t seem like much actually did something enormous as well. The nests where the Pokémons pop up are now revealing more uncommon Pokémons and especially the evolved versions. Like today for example, I caught a Wigglytuff, Gengar and a Dewgong within 20 minutes of each other. And right before those I saw a 2400 CP Dragonite. Funny story that I thought deserved a blog post.

So, a while ago, when the game was rather new, I guess it was in July-something and I was probably level 21 something. My boyfriend was just below me and his sister level 15. We went Pokémon hunting in Slottskogen here in Gothenburg. Lots of lure in one place so we sat down, and soon heard someone scream Dragonite. One of the rarest Pokémons in the game. We saw it. Mine was 400 CP. Jesper’s was 47 and Nathalie’s was ???. For Jesper it was easy-peasy, didn’t take many tries to get it. I thought mine would be fairly easy, but to be on the safe side I started with an Ultra Ball right away (Pokéball<Great Ball<Ultra Ball). I used all my Ultra Balls (around 20), some of my Great Balls (15-ish maybe) and it escaped. Nathalie (who is only 12 years old) used all her Great Balls on it, and decided to try with a normal Pokéball. And she gets it, and the CP turns out to be 800 something. So unfair!!

Story number 2. Several months later without even spotting Dragonite again (and yet it seems like everyone in this stupid town has it because all the gyms have at least one), I saw one that was in the area. And I noticed that right when I sat down on the tram to go to the train station to go to work after school. Was today finally going to be the day when I got my Dragonite? I didn’t have time to get off the train. So I went off at the next stop, jumped on a new one to go back to try and catch it. I found it directly, and it had 2400 CP! Crazy! Once again I started with Ultra Balls, but I could only use 2 before it ran away. Twice now. So unfair! I think the game felt sorry for me though, because within an hour I had caught not one… not two… but three fully-evolved Pokémons. Gengar, Wigglytuff and Dewgong.

It is great that rarer Pokémons spawn now, and I hope Dragonite will come more often than every three months. I want it!! It’s annoying to have 122 Pokémons in my Pokédex, but have seen 123. Not too many left until I have them all (151).

Stupid, addicting game.

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Upcoming TV shows

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This week I have gotten two very good pieces of news. Two new TV shows are coming (I think next year?) based on books I recently read. Apparently Netflix is doing a series about the unfortunate Baudelaire children, the book series of 13 books, which I recently read. One book will be covered in two episodes so the whole series should then be 26 episodes long. And Count Olaf will be played by no other than mr. Neil Patrick Harris (Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother) and the show will be Netflix’s most expensive show yet. I am excited to say the least. Hard to imagine Neil as Olaf, but the picture on this link shows that he will do just fine (maybe even better than Jim Carrey, though he did a pretty amazing job in the movie from 2004 (covering the first 3 books of the show). Why didn’t they do the rest? That movie was actually pretty good!). This was the first I heard of this TV show, so I guess reading them this spring was a smart move from my consciousness.

The second piece of good news is even better than the first one. One of my favorite book series, Throne of Glass, will be turned into a TV show (maybe next year?). I am currently reading the 5th and second to last book in the series, Empire of Storms and it is incredible. About a third read so far. I can’t wait for this show! And I sure hope they will make it good, because the books are amazing. Here is a link to the website I found the news on. It will be called Queen of Shadows (like book number four).

New job

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I think I have written something about this new job that I would get this fall. Well, three days have passed already with preparing for the upcoming school year. I feel rather confident with the role as a teacher that I will have. We are three brand new teachers (who never ever worked as teachers before) and we all got the teacher education (which is normally 5-6 years) in 2 days. The other teachers there are very helpful, but when it comes to the planning of my 3 courses I am pretty much on my own. I have read the course syllables and they feel strict, but at the same time I can do whatever as long as I go through all the points in the central contents and test the students on the grade requirements. I am glad my classes don’t start until August 31st. That gives me 2 week to prepare. I am surprised that 3 full classes are only 30% work. It feels like a lot.

The school anyway is a small computer game developing high school where I will have one course in each year. Basic engineering for the first-years, CAD for the second-years, and Construction for the third-years.

This week is full time with preparations, next week the students are arriving and I will there to greet the new ones on Monday and then I have 2 days off (after 8 straight days of work) to prepare and I think my own studies start that same week. I will only take 2 classes this fall since I can transfer the 3 German classes I took in California. That will be so nice, study 50% and work the rest and make more money and make my debt smaller. I just hope that UCSD will be able to send my transcript to Chalmers and that it will work out, otherwise I am pretty screwd since I have now only applied for two classes and 50% loans. Otherwise I have to take one more class before getting my Master of Science.

 

I think it will be a fun fall. I will probably play less Pokemon Go (I am halfway to lvl 25) when it gets colder, and that will probably make me play more Guild Wars 2 (one of my new co-workers play as well, so that’s awesome!) and read more. I am almost finished with the last book in the Unfortunate Events series, but before I write my first book review I need to come up with a template that I will follow. Maybe I will do that now. I am too tired to keep doing the school planning now, there’s another day tomorrow.

One extra day in Greece

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

So, our flight was delayed by 12 hours yesterday. Instead of being home at 2 pm we came home at 4 am. We were tired, and I couldn’t really sleep tonight, so 10 hours work today was not very fun.

We got picked up at the hotel at 8:30 am, we checked in and waited for takeoff at 11. We got information that it was delayed until 12:30, but at 11, we were told that we had to wait for 12 hours and that we would be driven to a new hotel where we would get a room, lunch and dinner and then driven back to the airport at 9 pm. So our day consisted of a lot of bus rides and waiting. We had lunch at the hotel right when we got there. It was not very good. Then we had to wait until 2pm to check in. Until then, we walked around on the hotel area and looked at the pool area. It was cute, but not many sunbeds. The room was not very nice, definitely not 5 stars. We put our stuff in there, changed into swim wear and then went down to the pool and were actually lucky enough to get two sunbeds. The pool was 3m deep, and that was fun. We read some, played around in the water and just waited for time to pass. At 7 pm dinner was served and it was pretty much the same food as for lunch. The people working there were not very nice and even rude and tried to charge us for drinks when it was supposed to be included. Right after dinner we went down to the beach (this hotel was just a stone throw away from our luxury hotel) to watch the sunset before packing again and leaving for the airport and hoping for the best. The transfer was supposed to come at 9pm, it arrived at 9:45 pm and the plane was supposed to takeoff at 11pm. I was seriously getting comfortable with the idea of spending the night there.

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We got to the airport 45 minutes before takeoff, but boarding didn’t start until 11, and because of lots of traffic, we didn’t takeoff until midnight. We landed in Gothenburg at 2:30 am and got home about an hour later and went to bed at 4. I am so tired right now.

It was nice to have one extra day in Greece, but it could have been better if we would have skipped the whole checking in and waiting at the airport when the personnel knew at 8am that this would happen. I will contact my home insurance and hope that I will get something for this. We didn’t have to pay anything extra in Greece, but we did have to pay for taxi since we didn’t get a ride from Jesper’s mom as was planned since she was on a plane to Portugal when we landed.

It was a great trip, still the best I have ever done, even if yesterday was sucky.

Spontanious 1-year anniversary

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I can’t believe it has already been a full whole year with Jesper. It has been the best year ever, full of adventures and love. I am a little bit sad that we couldn’t really celebrate yesterday. He was working 8-17 and I was working 16-23:30 so we didn’t see each other at all yesterday except when going to bed. But, we have decided to celebrate in a big way next week instead. So yesterday we spontaneously booked a last minute trip to Rhodes, Greece. I have been there many times when I was younger and I am so excited to go back there with the love of my life! And we are not just gonna stay at a normal hotel, it is a five star hotel and we are staying in a suite which is as big as our apartment, it has an ocean view and a Jacuzzi hot tub. It is located in Ixia on the west coast which is not preferably, but with a car it will be easy to reach the amazing beaches on the east coast.

There is one problem though, and that is that I left work early today because I feel sick. I have gotten a really nasty cold. I will stay at home tomorrow as well and hope that I will get better, no fun going on a trip with a cold. My colds usually don’t last long, so I am sure it will be fine.

Work is going really well, I feel really comfortable being the head operator at Helix. It is also very nice to sit down and rest my legs and feet for a bit. It is so nice to have something new to do, work is fun again.

Now I am almost delirious, so I will go to bed now and continue to read the latest and last book in the “I am Number Four” series. 15 companion books and 7 full books to an end. I always get a little bit sad when a series is over. I am also almost done with the whole “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. 13 books is a lot, but it is really really good, especially the last ones. I have finished 9 so far.

Snapchat-2829299475813702422 This is me when driving trains! 😀Snapchat-8359919723662461359 Lately, Cleo has been taken every opportunity to jump up on my back, which results in lots and lots of scratch marks on my neck and shoulders and back.Snapchat-2828353505443511660Cleo was the cuddliest cat ever today, and he LOVES tummy rubs. He never starts biting when he gets it.