Category Archives: USA

New shoes

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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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

It is the day after Halloween, most people were hungover but there were still a lot of people at the library. On a Saturday… It was a bit sad going there, but it was fun being there with Kelsey and dark-haired Cody (there’s a blonde one too). I did get work done, I wrote about one page on my Field Trip paper.

Walked back home after a few hours, talked to Lauren for a while and then wrote some more. At 8pm me, Kelsey and Lauren went downtown to meet up with the fourth, Rachel, and we had dinner at Habit. Really good burgers and sweet potato fries.

On our way to the car we stopped at Ross and I found two pair of shoes that I accidently bought. What’s good about Ross is that it is very cheap, and I kinda wanted to have high-heels. Converse isn’t that pretty when you go out. I am still looking for sandals, but those are hard to find in the stores now since it’s “fall and going towards winter”. I still want my sandals. Maybe I should look on Amazon. They have everything! And I am gonna order some things from there tomorrow or maybe the day after. I am gonna buy a GoPro (I think I said that before), snorkeling gear, and a garlic peeler. I might as well add a cute pair of sandals.

This morning when I woke up my sinuses hurt. I have been sneezing this whole day. I really don’t wanna get sick again. I just got non-sick! I hope it will be better tomorrow. Because tomorrow’s the big soccer game!

New shoes

Halloween 2014

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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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Well, this evening did not turn out as I was hoping. I have to say that I am pretty disappointed. For the first time in like 200 days the rain finally came and that made everyone crazy. First, everyone hated it and didn’t wanna go out in the “freezing cold”. So after like one and a half hour of discussing how we were gonna go downtown (which was after a long discussion on whether we were going to a house party first, but then decided no because we had heard rumors that they were full) and we finally found a ride, the three girls I was with decided to skip the whole thing. That’s when my party mode totally disappeared so I just went to my room, wrote a little on my field trip thinking paper for Sustainable Environments. Then I started thinking about the Caribbean and started researching what to do there. I have a nice list now. So many beautiful beaches, and I’ve found many tours that sound nice. But I’ve decided that I will need a car most of the days on Puerto Rico. I might skip the car the last two days if I take tours on those. I will start looking into Jamaica now, unless I fall asleep, I am kinda tired. These lists will be updated, but it feels good to have something already. I am still very very excited about this. For example, google Flamenco Beach, Puerto Rico. I am totally going there!

So, Halloween didn’t turn out what I was hoping, but I think we are a bunch going out tomorrow, so I guess I can use my $50 costume then.

The day in general was pretty okay. I finally sent those two packages, it was a bit annoying since I had to go downtown to do it. And it was even more annoying that I got an email when I got home telling me that I got a thing that should have been in one of the packages I just sent to my brother. Stupid!

I started writing the paper in the afternoon and I made a spinach/mushroom omelet which turned out really well. The only thing missing was the feta cheese. Next time!

Halloween 2014, viking The British boysThe two British boys living a floor above us. Adorable!

Pumpkin carving

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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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I didn’t get much sleep last night. I hate Wednesday evenings, I get out of class at 10 pm and I have to get up early so I am in class at 7:40am the next morning. It sucks! But tomorrow I don’t have to get up until 10:30am, yay!

After my first two classes today I went to the bike guy and traded my bike (and a 6-pack of Corona as a processing fee) for a new one. It is way nicer, the breaks works and the tires are wider so it’s more stable to ride. Love it!

New bike

On my break today I painted my nails and watched the latest episode of The 100. Love that show!

In the lab we handed in our latest lab report and got a long introduction for our next lab which is a four class project about AutoCAD Civil 3D. We are gonna design a road in the coastline mountains north from here. That will be fun. It s a 30 point lab. Normally they are 10, so this is big.

I went to Target with Kelsey to buy LED candles for our pumpkins. And when we got home we started carving them. We were a few people sitting on the floor on the third floor carving. This year I made a similar design as the one I did last year. But instead of a howling wolf, I made a cat. The problem was that I carved out the whole moon before I realized that I shouldn’t have done that. I got really upset, but went to my room instead, picked up the tape I bought yesterday (that was lucky) and taped the whole piece back onto the pumpkin and started over on the other side. It turned out pretty.

Pumpkin Carving in PCV Gypsum 3rd floorToby, Rachel, me, Cody, Ryan, Margarita and Lauren. (Ryan’s pic) Pumpkin 2014The five steps to the end result. First an ugly design which now looks like a mutilated Mew Pokémon, then the taped pumpkin, the new cat design, the carved cat and the cat pumpkin in action. It’s funny when the cute cat is facing out, and Mew is visible from inside our living room/kitchen, haha.

After that the same people hung out in our apartment, eating ice cream and brownies. A very nice evening, many many laughs with Ryan’s weird horse head (those are very creepy, but very funny) and Kelsey’s funny video when she brushed the horse’s teeth. Hilarious!

Hanging out in our apartment

Our pumpkins are decorating our living room window and tomorrow’s Halloween! I am so excited!

I am going to the CARIBBEAN

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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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

In 43 days I will be sitting on a plane on my way to my biggest adventure so far. Sure, moving to San Diego for 13 months was pretty big, and moving to San Luis Obispo to try out the life of an American college student was too. But going on a more-than-three-week-vacation alone to the Caribbean is pretty frickin big! It is still not completely 100% certain that I will go all by myself, I am still trying to convince my mom and Toby and his brother. And I will of course meet lots of people at the hostels, but I will go there by myself. And I couldn’t be more excited!!

So, on the late evening of December 11th (my last day of finals) I will jump on a plane to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. It is pretty far away so it will take me 14 hours before I land at 2pm on December 12th, and that’s when my adventure will begin. I will stay in Punta Cana for 8 nights (Dec 12-20), then fly for an hour to San Juan in Puerto Rico. The hostel there has a 7 night rule so I will be on my way to my third and last destination on December 27, to Montego Bay on Jamaica. I will stay there for 8 nights and then a 12 hour flight back to San Luis Obispo on January 4th. I am beyond excited and I was literally shaking when everything was booked this afternoon. In total everything will end up at $3000 and I think that is a fair amount of money to pay for 23 days in paradise.

I’ve started googling on what there is to do and I have a feeling that the planning is gonna take a while. There are so many things to do, and so many amazing beaches!! Have you ever heard about the Blue Flag Organization? Me neither. But that is a ranking thing in Europe and they rank the best beaches in the world. Punta Cana has several and the Dominican Republic in general has more Blue Flag ranked beaches than any other Caribbean island. I think I will be in for a treat (since I love beaches).

I just started looking into it so I haven’t really come up with anything yet except that there is a Hard Rock Cafe in Punta Cana and that there is a catamaran cruise to a very beautiful island. It costs $90 but it looks awesome. And since I will be traveling alone I think tours would be good for me. But I will of course have plenty of lazy days by myself at the beach too. And I am planning to go ziplining on one of the islands.

I’ve also decided that I am gonna invest in a GoPro camera for $399. I am going to the Caribbean, crystal clear waters and hopefully nice fish and turtles (dolphins?) and the new series are waterproof. And with a stick I would be able to take selfies without looking too ugly up close. I don’t wanna go to several paradise islands without having proof that I was there. So I will buy it, hopefully soon. And when it comes to money, I’m not short of it. A few days ago I got the stipend from Chalmers for going here. It’s pretty great that my school pays me 25 000 SEK ($3400) to go to California to study for a year. And in a month I will get my financial aid of 46 000 SEK. I am not gonna be wasting money on unnecessary things, but I also don’t wanna feel like I did on Hawaii this January when I couldn’t buy things because of lack of money. So I am not gonna feel bad for renting a car for a whole week on Puerto Rico for example. I will save money on food, since it is a bit awkward to go to restaurants on your own.

I’m sure you can tell that I am excited since I’ve been writing almost a whole page in word about this already. I just can’t believe this is happening. I am going to the Caribbean for 23 days in just 43 days!!! 😀 I don’t want time to go faster than it already is, but I want Winter Break to be here NOW! And I guess time goes slower when you really look forward to something? So that’s good too, because I still don’t wanna leave SLO. And when this trip is over I have Spring Break to look forward to. I’m hoping for Cancun!

Anyway, this morning I couldn’t sleep in because I had a field trip in Paso Robles at 8:30am. It was an interesting field trip as well. They had transformed a street (21st Street) into a “Complete Street” I think it was called.

When I came home at 11am I booked the trip and then I went with Kelsey and Toby for some errands. Lauren had to study so she couldn’t come with. We bought pumpkins, carving tools and some other things. It was a successful trip. I got home, just had time to make dinner and then off to class. I almost fell asleep today, but I managed to stay awake by eating my dark chocolate pieces flavored with pomegranate I accidently bought today. Good thing I did though, because they kept me awake. It’s so embarrassing falling asleep in class…

Now I am home and I know I should go to bed, but I so want to go to google and look up amazing things to see and do on DR. Stupid excitement!

Punta-Cana-BeachThis is the closest beach to the hostel I will stay at on Dominican Republic! EXCITED!!!!!

Test results

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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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Sorry for the silence the last couple of days, but I’ve been in beed watching movies until I fell asleep. I have finally watched the two Amazing Spiderman movies. I didn’t want to at first because I loved the first Spiderman triology and didn’t want anyone else to take Toby Maguires place as Spiderman. But I have to say that The Amazing Spiderman movies are amazing! I loved them.

Anyway, today’s big event was the email I got this morning. It was from my gynecologist telling me that I still have cell changes, but not bad enough that it has to be removed ASAP. A new test when I get back to Sweden was enough. I am so relieved!! This means that I can go to the Caribbean this winter. I was planning on booking it tonight, but for some reason the time just disappeared so I will do it tomorrow instead.

I got the results for my architecture history class as well and it was okay. I got 41 out of 50 on the multiple choice questions which was a B-. But then I got an F (5/10 = 50%) on the short essay questions. So the resulting grade was 76% and a C. The grades are so high here. 70% on a test is a C, a pass? I feel bad for not getting higher grades (except in the transportation lab where I am doing great). But I at least pass everything. And I found out today that I don’t have to pass all of my credits to stay in the country. I thought I was gonna get kicked out if I failed a class. I am not planning on it, but IF it happened I didn’t wanna worry about this. I just have to make sure that I pass enough classes to be able to enroll in classes for the next quarter. I don’t know how many that is, still waiting for a reply. But now I am calm again.

In the lab in the afternoon I wrote on the paper, I organized a ride for tomorrow’s field trip, and printed package labels for my two packages I’m about to send to Sweden. I am a great multitasker.

After class I made dinner, chicken filet, quinoa, a salad on the side and Famous Dave’s BBQ sauce. Healthy and easy. I did have some ice cream after dinner which probably made the whole dinner unnecessary, but I don’t care. You need sweets once in a while.

Chicken dinner

And time disappeared after that while I was talking to my roommates. And now I need to go to bed, I am not off tomorrow, I have a lot of things to do. Like go to a “green street” in Paso Robles for my last field trip, run tons of errands with Kelsey, Lauren and Toby and then go to my evening class. I don’t like doing many things in a day. It makes time go by faster and I don’t like that. I don’t wanna leave this awesome place…

Wine tasting, tattoo, BofA, shopping, frat party

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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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Yesterday was a very fun day. It started with a field trip to a winery in Paso Robles, Kukkula Winery it was called. It is Finish and means “living on the hill” or something. The guy owning the place had a Finish father. The farm was an organic and dry farm, which means he doesn’t use pesticides, fertilizers or water. If the soil is fertile and full of porous rocks it works out in the end. It is very important to keep away weeds and have distance between the plants to keep the water competition low.

We got lunch there and at the same time a mini wine tasting. We tried 8 wines in total, one white, one rosé and the rest red. When the grapes aren’t watered the color and the taste become more intense which made the wines very spicy and strong. I wasn’t a big fan of it, but I have to say that my favorite was a red wine called Sisu.

Kukkula dry farming Kukkula Winery wine storage Kukkula wine tasting

I got a little tipsy after that to be honest but not too bad. When we got back to SLO Kelsey and Lauren picked us up and we went to the Halloween store so they could look at costumes. They didn’t find anything.

Our next stop was Traditional Tattoo. I had an appointment at 2pm with Butters. I was a little nervous, like always. It went well and it hurt more than the other two I have, probably because it was so close to the bump on the side of my ankle. After about 40 minutes it was done and it was perfect. So much better than the picture I showed him. I am very very satisfied with it. It is the biggest I have so far (but it is still not big) and it was also the cheapest, I paid $80 for it.

Butters My third tattooMy third tattoo

But when I tried to pay my card didn’t work. So it wasn’t just the ATM that didn’t work on Thursday. My whole card is wrong. I went to the bank and they told me that the card was completely gone from the system. The guy who helped me get a new card told me he had never seen anything like it. Weird. I got a temporary card and will get a new real card pretty soon.

Our next stop was for a late lunch at Panera Bread. We had dropped off Johanna before the bank and the three roommates went clothes shopping at Forever 21. I don’t have many clothes here and really needed to buy some more tops and a new pair of “longer” shorts. It was needed. And it was cheap, no fancy brands like I did last year. I bought 6 things for $80. That’s not bad at all.

That store was huge so we got straight home after that. I cleaned my tattoo, took a shower and put on the $9 dress I bought and went to a frat party with Kelsey and Margarita. It was the British boy’s Phi Psi frat and I have to admit that it was fun. Three floors in a house, bottom was a dance floor, middle one was the bar and third social floor. Nothing bad happened, we just had a fun evening dancing. I liked it and will probably be back another weekend. Luka, the guy from Chalmers is a pledge at Phi Psi as well, but he wasn’t there last night.

Phi Psi frat party

I was home at 2am I think and stayed up for a while talking to Rachel, who just got home from a line dancing evening, and Lauren who couldn’t sleep. I stayed up and waited for Kelsey and made sure she got home safe and sound, which she did.Me and LaurenMe and Lauren in the middle of the night.

I slept until 12:30pm and I am still very tired. I am not hungover, just tired, so I should probably take a nap before I start writing on my two papers. I also have to look into how to send packages to Sweden. It is more complicated here since I have to do it online.

Farmer’s Market

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Three hours of sleep last night again. What’s wrong with me?! But I survived a long day with my three classes, a nap, and a trip to the Farmer’s Market. In the lab we were divided into groups and then had one busy intersection per group and we were gonna count all the pedestrians, bicycles, buses and cars. I counted all the buses and the cars and in the beginning that was crazy.So many cars everywhere and they didn’t go where my paper said they were supposed to go. But I think my numbers are pretty accurate. We sat there for one hour and it was way more fun than sitting in class for three hours.

At 7:30pm I went to Farmer’s Market downtown with Lauren, Kelsey, Julianne and Margarita. We started our evening with going to the ATM to take out money. But my card was declined because of unusual activities. So I called the bank and talked to them for the next 20 minutes and couldn’t buy anything because I didn’t have any cash. They didn’t know what was wrong and didn’t help me in any way. Stupid Bank of America. They told me to go to the bank office and get a temporary card. The card I have works (as far as I know, I haven’t tried to use it in the past few days) in stores and online, but not with ATM’s. I am going grocery shopping tomorrow, I hope it works then. Kelsey was nice and lend me some money so I could buy pomegranate juice and a corn on the cob. I felt better after that.

I am going to bed now, I have a really really long day ahead of me tomorrow. But all fun stuff, it will be a nice day 😀

The IRS

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I took my medicine last night at nine, read for 30 minutes and then fell asleep like a baby. I woke up two hours later from loud roomies, but when I asked them to keep quiet, and they listened, I fell asleep right away again. I slept all the way to 10am and felt so well-rested. It was the best night I’ve had in a very long time!

I called the IRS in the morning and they told me that they just received my payment, not the actual form I filled out. So they need me to send them in again. And when that process is done, in 6-8 weeks I can send in my tax transcript to CSN (the Swedish company that gives me financial aid) which for some reason needs to see if I paid enough of my loans back last year. Why is everything so complicated? I should have just skipped paying taxes last year, it seems like it didn’t matter anyway and I could have saved $600.

I had lunch and then spent a few hours at the pool. It was very nice. Dinner back home and then I went to class. Today we talked about transportation and it was very interesting. I got so angry when we watched the movie “Who killed the electric car?”. The state of California totally made it illegal pretty much to have an electric car like 15 years ago. Or maybe it was 10. Anyway, the stupidest thing ever. Just so the oil companies can continue to earn millions of dollars every year. This greedy country makes me angry! That movie made me want to have an electric car in the future, zero emissions would be so great. But before I have money I will have to be satisfied with a gas car. I and Johanna looked into buying one today. We realized that we won’t fit surfboards in a small convertible so we need to buy a bigger car. I’ve been told that a Toyota 4Runner is very reliable and can go on forever and ever. I’ve texted two guys on Craigslist but it was probably too late for them to answer today, so I’m hoping for answers tomorrow. It would be so nice to have a car as soon as possible. It would make my life so much easier!

Time for bed! A long day tomorrow again.

Medicine

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I couldn’t fall asleep until 3 am last night again. My average hours of sleep is very low right now because of this stupid cough. I had just fallen asleep when I woke up because I couldn’t stop coughing. I took something for the congestion in my chest and got an extra pillow from Rachel and could after a long while finally fall asleep.

I didn’t feel bad when I woke up for some reason. Not tired at all. It’s surprising how well you can function with way too little sleep.

In my first class at 7:40am (Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering) we got our midterms back. I have to say that I am disappointed. I got below average. I wouldn’t say that it was bad, but when everyone said that 60-70% was pretty bad I started feeling bad. I got 66/100. And I skipped one question which gave 25p. So taking that into consideration I didn’t do too bad. I hope this doesn’t mean a fail (average was 78). I think I remember the teacher telling us in the beginning of the quarter that he would curve us. That basically means that he takes the average and makes that a C. But that would mean I would fail. And I can’t fail, I would be deported if I failed a class… BUT, he said in class that I and Johanna had just done our first midterm ever in our life and that we both survived and then everyone applauded us. Haha, funny.

We didn’t get our results in Architecture history class yet. I have higher hopes on that one. I really like that class, it is interesting. All of my classes are. I hope it will be as good next quarter.

After that class I went to the Health Center again. The sign said 1-2 hours of waiting because of staff meetings. I thought it was worth it and it didn’t take more than an hour anyway. The first nurse who helped me gave me a mask to cover my mouth. Silly. The doctor I met a little bit later asked me some questions and then told me what he would give me. He told me he didn’t wanna give me antibiotics because it probably was a virus and it could get worse with it. He told me that like he thought that’s what I wanted to have. Silly Americans. I don’t want antibiotics, I know that it is not good to overuse it. So he told me to get a mucus relief non-prescription medicine and cough drops. He also gave me a prescription with promethazine and codeine to surpress my cough and help me sleep at night. I really hope this work. If it doesn’t get better by Friday I have to come back and take tests and probably get heavier medicine. He told me that if you try to keep cough in, you can get pneumonia. I don’t wanna have that. I haven’t tried the codeine thing yet, I will do It right before I go to bed so I can sleep well for once. I bought all the things at the pharmacy in the Health Center, and it all was just $9 and the visit was free. Awesome!

At home I had a quinoa salad for lunch and then I took a nap for an hour and I managed to fall asleep right away. That felt really good.

At 3pm I went to the lab and we got the results from our last lab report. A 10/10. I’m doing best in that class, that’s for sure. Or maybe the Sustainable Environments class, I haven’t gotten anything graded there yet, but it feels like I’m doing well.

We divided ourselves into groups again, I ended up in the same group I’ve been in the last week. We prepared for Thursday for the rest of the time. On Thursday we are gonna sit at an intersection on campus and count the traffic, cars, buses, pedestrians and bicycles. That will be interesting.

On our way home I and Johanna stopped by the international center quickly. I realized today that I am not taking a majority of my units in the College of Engineering which I have to to maintain my visa status (I guess I could get deported if I didn’t fulfill it). This quarter I am taking 5 units in the College of Engineering and 8 in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. I really thought that the Architecure History class was in College of Engineering (don’t ask me why, I realize now that that was stupid). I panicked and I told Johanna and she said that she was in the same situation. So we went there and talked to a woman there. Apparently it is not a big deal. As long as it is approved by our program at our home university it is fine. Such a relief!

Rachel and Kelsey were home when I got home and we had a long and interesting conversation about religion. I am aware that talking about religion here in USA is a bit sensitive but I enjoyed it and I totally respect other people’s beliefs. I found out that I am the first atheist Kelsey ever met. And they are, both of them (I don’t know about Lauren), the first I’ve ever met who believe in it all, for example the whole Adam and Eve creation thing. They told me it sounded so unbelievable that everything was created with a big bang and then cells developed into things and then eventually crawled out of the ocean and slowly developed into what we look like today. So I asked them if it made more sense that God made Adam from clay and then took one of his ribs and made Eve. They both said yes. I respect their beliefs and will not try to convince them of anything else. But it is actually a bit weird meeting people who  believe that that is what happened. I could never in my life think that there is a guy/girl above the clouds who made a clayman and then created life in seven days. I do love religion though, like learning about all of them and try to understand why people believe the things they believe. So I told myself that I would take some extra units after Christmas and take a World Religion class if there was such a thing here at Cal Poly. But there isn’t. I wonder why. Maybe I should take a class at GU (University of Gothenburg) when I get back, just for fun. I don’t think I will have too much to do anyway.

Now they all are at a CRU-meeting which I learned today is kinda exactly like the church on Sunday’s, except this is for college students. I wanted to stay home, so I could go to bed early. I actually already feel tired. But it will be hard going to bed when I know I don’t have to get up early tomorrow. We’ll see what I end up doing.

No Health Center

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I woke up at six this morning because I was coughing. That went on for an hour and a half before I could go back to sleep. So after a long skype date with mom I went to the health center, but what I didn’t know was that everyone else was sick too. It would have taken me 1-2 hours and I had to meet up with my lab group an hour later to write the report. Stupid. I will have to go there tomorrow between my classes instead. Four hours should be enough and I hope I will have time to go home and have lunch before the lab at 3pm. It feels like it is going away, but I am still coughing too much for me to not do anything about it.

After we finished the 3 page-report about the dynamical cone penetration test we did on Thursday I went home, and talked to neighbors and played Guild Wars 2. I haven’t played that since I move to SLO. I missed it. The next chapter in the living world season hasn’t come yet though which is surprising. Well well. Halloween is going on right now.

I don’t get tired anymore. I don’t know if I all of a sudden grew up and don’t need as much sleep anymore (the same thing happened with my metabolism a couple of years back). I don’t like growing up. Or maybe I do?