Mikael’s 30th in Byron Bay

Posted on by
Reply

A few weekends ago, on 2nd November, Mikael turned 30! In the spring, when it’s warm and light outside. That is so strange! My own normal spring birthday will now be in the fall. Land of upside-downs.

He was welcomed into his 30’s with two night’s spent in Byron Bay and some rain, but all in all by a very cosy weekend down south.

After the most incredible visit to Coombabah, we packed our car and drove down to another timezone. It is so weird that you right now travel one hour into the past, just across the border to New South Wales just south of Gold Coast.

The weekend was all about camping and just soaking in the Byronshire atmosphere with mother in law while celebrating Mikael’s 30 years on this planet as well as our first year as engaged.

His birthday started at The Farm in Byron Bay. Super busy even if it was raining a lot! Really good breakfast and cute place with animals.

We then drove up to the lighthouse and were so lucky the weather was not optimal, there were pretty much no people and we managed to get a parking spot. As with the whale season being over, there were no whales. But the views were still incredible! Up there, we took a fika break and Elise and I had a very funny encounter with a magpie friend. He was walking on the rail, right next to where we were sitting, Elise was filming it and it was cheeky enough to keep walking and then hide behind a pole, just for it to pop its head out around it as she just stopped filming. It was hilarious!

This time, the most eastern point of Australia was accessible and we have now stood on one of four corners of this continent.

This poor guy had the biggest tick I have ever seen right under his eye. Also, these water dragons are everywhere now when it’s getting warmer outside.

Birthday dinner!

Coombabah

Posted on by
Reply

This blog is not as active as I was hoping. But so much stuff is happening all the time and while trying to find a routine, it’s hard to keep up with updates (we’re not even gonna discuss my Instagram).

Mother in law has now been here with us down under for a week and she is loving it! She was a bi anxious flying so far, but all went so well, she came down with so much energy and has had no jet lag at all. We have been more tired than her, haha!

On her third day all across the world, we took her to my (so far) favorite place, Coombabah Lake Conservation Park where we had the most wonderful day! The first time, Mikael and I went, we spotted 5 koalas, countless kangaroos, and several kookaburras. This time, we spotted 9 koalas, fewer kangaroos, and no kookaburras. Although we heard many of them laughing loudly. They have a very specific sound.

Spring is definitely here, the days are higher 20’s, 30’s even some days. Mostly sunny, and stormy in the evenings and nights. On Halloween, we had a massive storm right above us. BOM gave out warnings of severe storms with hail more inland. Crazy! But beautiful!

Friday, the day after the extreme thunderstorm, was beautiful, like nothing happened the night before! And we had a once in a lifetime experience ❤️

Here we had koala number one, by the first grass field, 5 minutes walking from the car park.

A kangaroo mom and her joey hiding from the sun.

Koala number two.

And this you guys, is koala number three. I spotted this one after Mikael and Elise had already walked past them. She was awake and started climbing down the tree. And as she was descending, I realized that koala number four was there as well.

She climbed all the way down to the ground, with her baby on her back.

She walked straight toward us to climb a tree right next to us. She was also one eyed.

She hopped up the tree, stopped every now and then and posed adorably for us spectators. Her joey also being super photogenic.

She climbed all the way up to the top where they most likely fell asleep again. Probably that day’s adventure for them since they sleep pretty much every hour of the day. This was the most incredible experience I have ever had and I might have shed a tear of joy or two.

Here is koala number five, clinging to the tree as if its life depended on it.

Kangaroos cooling down in the water.

Koala number six.

And these two guys! Number seven and eight. I wasn’t sure how this worked when I first spotted them because there was a leg hanging very low from the fluffy bum higher up on the right. Then I realized there were two of them sleeping together.

And last but definitely not least, number nine.

This lizard was spotted by Elise.

And we didn’t just see a baby koala, we also had another encounter with a roo mom with a joey poking its head out, eating with its mom. So adorable!!

This was definitely a unit of a kangaroo. The biggest and most muscular one I have seen!

Oh, I miscalculated. We actually spotted ten koalas this day. How could I have missed that?! Oh well, happy mistake 😄

Every day should be like this! Sun, warmth, nature and wildlife. Love it!

Supermoon

Posted on by
Reply

This month’s full moon was the third supermoon in as many months. It must have been the one in August where I saw something red rise above the horizon while playing beach volleyball. I had no idea about it then, but this time, I knew what was coming and we spent both nights down by the beach watching the moonrise.

An extra treat was the Country Music Festival going on at the same time and place. We had dinner in the free festival area, listened to some music, watched people line dance and just watched people in general. Some were so dressed up. I love how this city hosts events like this all the time. And for free! And just around the corner from where we live.

I didn’t take any photos of the festival sadly though, so please enjoy a a few bad pictures of the incredible full moon instead. The phone adjusts the lighting on its own, and it just turns so bad. I asked Mikael to bring his Sony camera, but he didn’t. So that was a bummer. His new Samsung phone is pretty great though 😊. (The first two are mine, the second two are Mikael’s)

My first doctor’s appointment

Posted on by
Reply

After five months in Australia, I have now been to the doctor’s for the first time. And I think it went pretty well. Well, I am waiting for the pathology tests results, but administrative-wise all went well.

The day we received our PR, 3 October, we got our Medicare cards in the mail that we applied for a couple of weeks prior. Pretty much enrolment in the Australian health care system. There are three types of Medicare cards, yellow, blue and green. Yellow is for the countries with a reciprocal health agreement with Australia and when you are visiting or are a student. 11 countries in total, and Sweden is one of them. We could have saved so much money, not getting travel insurance for our first time in Australia and just gone straight for the yellow card, but oh well. The blue card is for people who applied for their PR but still waiting for the outcome and green is the card for PR and citizens. So on the day we got our PR status, we received our blue cards in the mail and they were instantly made redundant because we had to get new cards that matched our status. Australia Services sent new cards out automatically though which was very refreshing. We have them digitally as well, along with everything else here, our MasterCards, our driving licenses. They are digital here which I like. But we are very dependent on our phones.

I got a longer appointment to start with to go over my health history, the doctor took notes on when I should get my next cervical screening for example, we talked about contraception and when that is due to renew etc. And he even explained how Medicare works quickly. If you are enrolled in Medicare, that means that you get money back from doctor’s appointments. You still pay full price, but get a certain amount sent back into your bank account. I got my money the same day. Super convenient. My visit this time cost $211 and I got $83 back, so still kinda expensive compared to what we are used to back home in Sweden. There, you pay $15 per visit unless it is with a specialist, then it is $45. But I guess that price can go down with private insurance? That is a later thing to deal with for us though.

The reason for my visit yesterday was bloated stomach. And not just a little. I wouldn’t go to the doctor otherwise. I am crossing my fingers for just a gluten intolerance, but worst case scenario, it could be coeliac disease. We set up a plan with tests depending on what the blood tests today says. I feel well-taken care off and we will just have to wait and see what the results are and how to deal with it.

Approved 190 Permanent Residency Visa

Posted on by
Reply

3 October 2024

I honestly can’t believe I’m writing this. Lots of people know already, but now it is finally time to make it official. Long story short: Mikael and I have been in the process of applying for a Skilled Nominated subclass 190 Permanent Residency Visa for the past 2 years after finding it hard to get out of the squirrel wheel in Sweden (I’ve no idea why we say that in Swedish). Not that we had bad lives, we actually had it pretty good, but it wasn’t enough.

This arvo, at 5:10pm, I heard Mikael’s phone ring from the other room and as soon as I heard him answer: “Hi Jenny”, I instantly knew that our journey had both just ended and begun! Jenny, our migration agent, only contacts clients via email, unless it’s THE CALL. The visa grant call! More than two years of hard work, lots of money spent, many emotional rollercoasters has finally come to an end. And our life in Australia as permanent residents can finally begin (even though we technically arrived here more than four months ago).

We can’t believe it! We are over the moon! And we are beyond grateful and thankful to be able to call Australia our home!

I understand that there might be some questions regarding this, that this came out of the blue. But don’t worry. I have privately been blogging about the process from the very start but didn’t want to publish anything before everything was finalised. And this was the last step in the process. I still can’t believe we are here, we got our grant. Holy schmoly! As time goes, I will start publishing these old blog posts so you can follow along, alongside with our current adventures down under.

What started as (yet another) crappy Swedish summer in 2022 and just getting sick and tired of vitamin D deficiencies, winter depressions, and darkness has turned into us trying to figure out what our priorities in this new life are. That will take time, because honestly, we have started our new lives from scratch, we are blank pages, we can do whatever we want. And to get to this new chapter in our lives, we have had invaluable help from the Down Under Centre, the DUC, a migration agency in England. We first contacted them in September 2022 and from then it’s been an adventure, for sure. Stay tuned for flashback posts on how we got to where we are today!

In the world of migration, it is very popular with timelines, so I will post ours here. It probably won’t make too much sense yet.

  • 2022-07-29: We made the decision that we wanted to move to Australia, even though we’ve never been
  • 2022-09-12: Initial DUC consultation
  • 2023-02-03: Completed the gathering of documentation for Mikael’s skills assessment as an electrician
  • 2023-02-25: English test
  • 2023-03-25: English test 2
  • 2023-06-03: Skills assessment and technical interview for Electrician (general) in Crewe, England
  • 2023-06-19: Offshore Technical Skills Record (OTSR = approved skills assessment)
  • 2023-07-16: Put in Expression of Interests for visa subclasses 189 and 190
  • 2024-03-13: Received State Nomination for subclass 190
  • 2024-04-04: Approved nomination and invitation to apply for the 190 visa
  • 2024-05-28: Lodged 190 visa application onshore
  • 2024-06-18: s56 request from Immigration for medicals and police checks
  • 2024-07-25: Medicals
  • 2024-08-24: Bridging Visa A kicked in
  • 2024-10-03: Approved 190 PR visa
I am really excited to finally start telling you about our journey! But not quite as excited as I am for Mikael and myself to live and work while on a vacation where palm trees grow, where whales migrate for several months every year, and where sleeping in means until 7am at the latest. It is unreal! I hope this feeling will last a long time. I will do everything in my power to never take this for granted ❤️

Review of “The Alloy of Law” by Brandon Sanderson

Posted on by
Reply

Title: The Alloy of Law
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Series: Mistborn #4, Wax & Wayne #1
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 332
Published: 2011, Tor Books
My Grade: 3.5 out of 5

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.

Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Spook, and the rest are now part of history—or religion. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Out in the frontier lands known as the Roughs, they are crucial tools for the brave men and women attempting to establish order and justice.

One such is Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn who can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will.

After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax has been forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel. Now he must reluctantly put away his guns and assume the duties and dignity incumbent upon the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs.

 

MY REVIEW

As far as Sanderson goes, I have to admit that this was not up there with Elantris and Mistborn Era 1. But I would say that has more to do with the setting than anything else. The old West is not really what I am into and I would say that that is the main reason why this one didn’t get a 5, which I almost counted on.

I knew that the story took place 300 years after Era 1 which of course made me interested since the ending of Era 1 was so unexpected and drastic and world-changing. But I honestly think it would have been cooler to know what happened straight after. 300 years later, and there are lots of things that developed, they are referencing to the old days and titles of people back then, but you as a reader don’t really know who they are referring to yet. Which is both a captivating thing, because you want to continue to read to be able to understand what they mean, but also a little bit frustrating that you don’t already know. Even if “you were there” when it happened in Era 1.

The familiarity with Sanderson’s work is definitely there though and that is a comfort. The story is progressing a little bit slower than I would like. The full book only covers a short amount of time, even though it doesn’t feel like it due to so many events keep coming.

I also found the character Wayne to be too much. At least in the beginning, but he definitely grew on me.

All in all, a great read! But I wasn’t as excited to pick it up to continue the story as I was with Era 1. And I would say that is because of the setting. It is fantasy, the allomancy is there, but still wasn’t as magical as The Final Empire. I will continue to read, if I know anything about Sanderson at this point, is that it will most definitely pick up. 3.5 out of 5.

 

 

QBVT #3 Elliott Heads

Posted on by
Reply

This weekend was the premiere for me in the premier division of the Queensland Beach Volleyball Tour and I got the honors of playing it with Rose.

According to Google Maps, Elliott Heads (Bundaberg) is 5,5h away from Gold Coast. Google Maps lies here in Australia. You kinda always have to add 20% to the trip, even if it should take traffic into consideration. On Friday arvo, we left at 4:30pm and didn’t arrive until 11:30pm. We were driving up with Karissa and Anna and had a really great car ride up. It is hard to drive in the dark though. It gets so dark here! And the roads are narrow, and speed limits are high, oncoming traffic has strong lights compared to the pitch-blackness all around. Mikael and I switched several times though.

Karissa and Anna were staying at the camping ground and Mikael and I were staying in the backyard of a small cottage behind the camping grounds. Very close to the beach and it was so quiet over there.

We popped the tent up and went straight to sleep after trying to figure out how to get into the house and use the bathroom.

It rained during the night and it was windy, so the straps from the tent hit the tent walls all night which made it hard to sleep, but I still felt rejuvenated when I woke up at 6am. It was still cloudy and we weren’t expecting much of the venue after the organiser, Vball in Paradise the day before had posted that nature had had its toll on the nature reserve where the courts were gonna be put up. But once we got there, we were surprised to find that he really did a great set up! 9 courts out of 10 planned, the sand was definitely rocky and had lots of shells still left in it, but so much had been raked to the sides.

Rose and I played really well together. We did some mistakes, but we always went all in for the points. My defense game was on point and the wind was on our side in every game. We lost our first game in the pool, but still got really good scores. The second game we won, so we ended up 2nd in our pool. Here in Premier division, you don’t go straight to quarter finals unless you win the pool. So the 2nd and 3rd meet in playoffs and the winner goes to QF. As 2nd in our pool, we thought we would be in advantage, but we got a team in the playoffs that should have won their pool, but instead lost. We thought we would win as well, but we didn’t. So that sucked. But that meant that we could leave early on Sunday.

Anna and Karissa made it to the final, but got a ride from their opponents in that game, so Mikael and I could drive home early. Still took 7h, even if Maps said 5.

On Saturday night, we all went to Elliott Heads Bowls Club, which was the place to be in this tiny town on a Saturday night. We had dinner, didn’t stay too long. People voted for Mikael to start playing and there was a limbo competition. On Sunday morning, we went to the beach a quickie and saw whales pretty close to shore. Soon, they will be gone again. What is the point of looking out over the water then?! It was so great driving in the light so we could actually se the environment around us. That made us unfortunately see things we didn’t want to see. We saw a dead roo, echidna and snake. So sad…

Great weekend, long drives, but fun to see something else than Brisbane, Gold Coast and Byron Bay,

Parkway Drive in Brisbane

Posted on by
Reply

In April, back in Sweden, we bought tickets to a concert that would take place at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre five months later. We were looking forward to this night for so long and it finally arrived.

The doors opened at 4:30 pm already and it said in the email we received a few days previously to arrive early to ensure a parking spot. 1 pm was a bit too early so we drove out to the ocean, Shorncliffe, where we had lunch at Matthew Thomas instead. There was a big pier where lots of people were fishing. The beach was not so impressive though, but Brisbane is not famous for its beaches. Not like Gold Coast. The Entertainment Centre was a bit north of Brisbane CBD with plenty of parking. Leaving after the event, even with thousands of people, was not a problem at all. Pros of having such an arena a bit outside of the city compared to in the middle of CBD where everyone would go on the public transit system and completely clog it.

Parkway Drive didn’t enter the stage until 9 pm, so there were three other bands warming up before: Void Vision, The Ghost Inside, and I Prevail. Haven’t listened to them, but they set the mood.

Parkway entered the stage from the back and walked through the crowd, they really engaged with the audience!

The stage had three parts: in the middle of the crowd, the main one, and the bridge that went up and down every now and then. They started in the middle, playing together on the very small platform and after their first song, they dropped the screen and revealed the massive stage behind. Show-wise, it was incredible! They jumped around, changed clothes, interacted with the crowd and seemed to really have a great time. There were so many special effects. Lots of fire, even falling water, rotating drummer wheel, their logo on fire. Oh yes, did I mention that they had a bunch of pyrotechnics?

I have to admit that I only started listening to them when I met Mikael and he introduced me to them five years ago so I mostly only listened to their last two albums and probably could have had goosebumps at more occasions then just with the new songs. For example, they did a long medley of all their heavy songs from their first album. Pretty impressive but nothing I recognized unfortunately.

Another really interesting thing about this concert was the people attending it. Mostly, they were around our age. But we also so really old people. And really young! The girl in front of us was probably around 10-12. But several rows before us, there was this tiny curly haired girl, probably not more than 4. Completely digging it, fist bumping and doing the 🤘 signs with her tiny hands from the lap of her father. How cute isn’t that?

This was the small middle stage where they played Prey early on.

The main stage with steel beams. Not sure what the setting was supposed to be like. But I got the impression that it was supposed to be a dystopian future.

This guy, Jeff Ling, really made this whole evening and experience more real. Since we met him in Byron Bay on the Community Market a month and a half ago, seeing him with his two young ones and he was just so down to earth and friendly. Having met him and seeing him on stage, doing his epic thing was just so amazing! It made the whole thing real, yet at the same time not.

During one song, Winston just popped up in the middle of the crowd.

And he picked up a young boy on his shoulders and did the song like that while encouraging everyone around them to run in a circle. That kid must have had the best night of his life!

QBVT #2 Surfers Paradise

Posted on by
Reply

The second stop of the Queensland Beach Volleyball Tour took place this weekend at Surfers Paradise. I so would have wanted to play the first stop in Cairns a couple of weekends ago, but it was just too expensive with flights. So I had to make do with my premiere on the QBVT at the second tour stop.

Australia is similar to Sweden regarding beach volleyball in many ways but so different in many more ways. In Sweden, the Challenger division is the higher one, as here it is the lower, below Premiere division. Everything is based off your ranking/seeding, there is no open division as it is back home where the first 16 teams to sign up gets to play no matter how many ranking points they got. Both divisions are pretty much always played at each tourstop and since there aren’t too many people playing this incredible sport down here, in the country literally consisting of thousands and thousands of beautiful beaches, even with 0 ranking, you will get to play at least Challenger. Some tour stops even have a third and lowest one called Aspiring. Like with the Swedish summer, you collect points from all the tournaments but only the top 3 matters when it comes to the grand finale in April next year. That is reassuring considering how it went this weekend.

Since I am new here, with no ranking, my partner and I ended up in Challenger. All good though. First tournament. Don’t want to lose too big on my first competition here. We started strong in the pool, won the first two games on the best court on the set. And by best, I mean that we got the most wind to play around with, we had the best and closest view of the ocean and all the whales that were present, and we also got to enjoy a slightly leaning court, taking the game to a whole new level. We did win though. The wind was consistent but strong (which it hasn’t been for the past three months, so I haven’t really gotten used to the mindset that is needed to play well in wind, I do remember that I usually live the wind though, so I am confident I will find that soon enough) and definitely interfered in our game. The third game we lost. And that sucked. But it happens! Two wins still felt totally acceptable for us as a brand new team on court.

The quarterfinals were played on Saturday evening (this was a loooong day with two pools sharing each court and all games going to 21 – which is much better than 15 as we usually play in Sweden during pool and quarter). The sun had set, the lights were on but only reached our court halfway. We were blinded, sometimes didn’t even see the ball, had ko reference of how big the court was. It was hard. Yet, we still managed to win the second set really strong. And then we failed miserabely in the third set. We have to learn how to replicate that feeling of focus that we had in the second set somehow because that felt incredible!

Since the semifinals and finals was the day after, we got to sleep in, which was definitely something we needed. I was really tired, but glad that my shoulder managed to go through 4 games without any issues 😊

The event was arranged by Vball in Paradise and I really liked it! It really was a full event, sponsors were there selling things and I got an incredible shirt from NudiCover that I can play in, even when it’s hot and it will cover me from the sun. Amazing!

All in all, I am of course bummed that we didn’t make it past the quarterfinals, but at least the ones we lost against won the whole thing in the end. Really excited to give it a new go in two weeks up in Bundaberg!

Funny thing, our names are Alexandra and Alessandra. I go by Alex and she by Sandra, haha!

Spring down under

Posted on by
Reply

We sprang into spring so fast that apparently we skipped spring altogether and went straight from winter into summer. Honestly, I don’t mind. But it was a bit weird going from twenty, kinda still using the electric heater during the nights to 30C, sweaty nights and uncertainty regarding what layers to bring when you leave the house.

This weekend, we have had over 30C, while we both have had colds. Mikael since last Saturday and I since Tuesday evening. It hasn’t been the worst cold we’ve ever had, but it is so stubborn and manifests differently every day. Today, it was all about itchy throats that made us both cough a lot. Yesterday, I was heavy in my sinuses, runny nose and feverish and a couple of days before that, it was just my sinuses burning and another day feverish joints. Super weird.

Today was officially the first day of spring, our second season down under. I’m sure it’s not just gonna be constantly 30C from now on, so I’m looking forward to some “lagom” spring warmth. Although, I really don’t mind 30C. I love this!

Even if we don’t feel our best at the moment, we still walked down to the beach today to look a little at the Lifesaving world championship. Unfortunately, we got there a bit late due to other more urgent errands today, but we managed to see the Roundup of open ocean relay. Or something? Honestly, it is just so interesting to see something I have never even heard of before. This looked like they were several in a team, running laps on sand and then leaving some surf ski rowing to another team mate. On Friday, I was there for a few more hours and watched them run in the sand after some sticks and one person was eliminated every race. And also ocean board race and surf ski and swim rescue.

Sweden is here competing. Which is weird, we don’t really have any lifeguards, do we? And Czechia? They don’t even have any oceans? Anyway, Australia and South Africa seem to be the countries winning the most.

Sunsets here are beautiful, even if the sun doesn’t set over the ocean here on the east coast.
This was Friday’s swim rescue. First, one guy swam out to a buoy, once they reached it, another guy started running from the sand with a pair of fins and a floating device (put on the fins while swimming out there). Then swimming back with the first guy. And were then met up by two rescuers from land who dragged the rescuee (the first one) up on shore. Intense!
Last night’s sunset was also beautiful!
This morning, we had a new neighbor just outside! A stingray in the canal! How cool isn’t that? It was massive! I wonder if we will ever see any bull sharks.
From today’s competition.