Lightning

Posted on Sunday, 24 August 2014, 23:32 by Alexandra

This evening has been retarted. Lightning across the sky every 20 seconds, no thunder though, that came later. The sky is being lit up all the time and with the thunder it is a bit scary. But lightning is beautiful! On the way home from work I actually caught a couple of lightning bolts on camera. My first photo and I got it. I tried for a while more on mom’s balcony but I only got the last millisecond of it, which was pretty cool too. After that I tried to study for a while but I didn’t understand the problem so I just quit halfway through the problem and will continue tomorrow. I am so exhausted from the last week.

It’s been a crazy week. I feel like it is time to make it official online. On Monday, August 18th, I broke up with Chad because of some reasons. I don’t want to go in to the details here because that’s no other person’s business. But everything bad between us has escalated so quickly and it has ended with him moving out very sudden and me living on mom’s couch for now. He hates me and I am trying not to think about him with my exam coming up on Wednesday. I need all my attention on that so I can pass this stupid thing.

I am very sad about what happened, I really am… But it was for the best for both of us.

I didn’t go in to work yesterday and today was really tough. I was at Berget and had a lot of different attractions instead of two or three at Balderado. For the first time ever I had to ”break” Höjdskräcken. And at lunch right before that I talked about how I had been on breaks on all the attractions on the mountain except Höjdskräcken (none at Balderado). A break is when the attraction is closed due to technical issues.

Mom picked me up from work and we drove to my place to pick up some more clothes and water my plants.

Now I will go to bed (=couch), watch the second half of a True Blood episode I started watching this morning. I hope I will be able to fall asleep with all this lightning and thunder going on outside! Because I have a long day of studying tomorrow…

Chip was keeping me company late last night when I was studying.A pink/blue sky outside my apartment. So beautiful! My first try at a lightning bolt photo! Success! This is the second best shot. This is at the very end of a lightning bolt. It was behind that cloud. Pretty cool.

Crawfish party

Posted on Wednesday, 20 August 2014, 23:56 by Alexandra

Every year at the end of the season the different departments and areas at Liseberg have crawfish parties. A crawfish party is something very Swedish where you sit down with friends for a night in August, eat crawfish and shrimps and drink. It is a very fun occation!

Last night, at Berget’s crawfish party (kräftskiva in Swedish) I didn’t eat any crawfish though. I haven’t had time to buy anything so I did what a lot of others did, bought pizza. It was very good aswell. I will miss the Swedish pizza.

During the evening awards were handed out. I didn’t even get nominated for anything. But that’s okay, the only thing I felt that I could have won was Pooler of the year. But since I’ve almost only been at Berget people don’t really see my as a Pooler.

The evening was over at 2 and I stayed behind and helped cleaning for a bit. At 2:45am I started walking home and got home at 4. It was a long walk from Majvallen to Svingeln. Now I have blisters on my feet from walking that far in heels/barefoot.

It could have been a more fun evening if it weren’t for the situation I’m in right now, but it was still a nice evening with friends!

Today I’ve been studying a little bit. I only did 1,5 problems though. But all 9 problems I have left are concrete ones. And the tough concrete ones! I got stuck on the second because of way to many minuses and it got me confused. And I also got distracted when dad and Karin invited me to dinner at Öltullen, the bar/restaurant at the corner of my building. It was a nice couple of hours. And when I got home from that I saw that the information about my housing at Cal Poly was available. I will be living in Poly Canyon Village – Gypsum with three American girls. One of them emailed all of us already and told us a bit about herself and asked if maybe we should make a list of things we need in the apartment. It will be so cool living in an apartment with four bedrooms and three other girls. It is way better than what college dorms looks like in the movies. I have a good feeling about this.

I most definitely need to go to bed now, I have to get up early to be in school to study with Linnea and after that I will work. But only for 5 hours.

Rabbit Party

Posted on Monday, 18 August 2014, 23:55 by Alexandra

Last night was the seasons last rabbit party for us Lisebergers. And because of that I decided that I wanted to go. Preparty right after work where I spent my 7th day of the season at Balderado. All the attractions I have there are single manned from now on, so I was all alone the whole day except for 1,5h in the middle where I was at Berget. I closed Kristallsalongen so I sat there for one hour, not doing much except eating candy and mentally preparing for the party. It was actually okay sitting there solving crosswords.

I changed into my beautiful Abercrombie dress, brushed my hair and then went will all the others to Hisingen where Victor lives. The preparty went by so fast. It was fun! And at 11:30 we went to Valand, the nightclub where the rabbit parties are. I could skip the line and paid 125 as cover and wardrobe and then I was in.The music was good, but I’m not much of a dancer. I spent most of the evening on the outdoor patio talking. It was nice! At 1am the Helix song went on and we were all inside dancing to it, but that was all the dancing I did. I talked to a lot of people and actually felt that I connected with a lot of them. Alcohol makes people honest and sharing.

I was there until it closed at 3am and then walked home. Took me 45 minutes.

Today I woke up at 10am, I didn’t feel bad at all, a little, but not much. Took a shower and then went to Kosmetisk Kirurgi to do an IPL treatment for hair removal under my arms. In total it was my 7th time I think and it is definitely working. Almost all of it is gone, but I still have a little left, so after this today I will go there once more after my year in California. Then I will probably be done, but I’m not sure all the hair will be gone forever. Anyway, it hurt really bad. I forgot how painful it is. At the end of the second armpit it hurt so much that I started wincing. Normally the burning pain is there for a millisecond, but after a while it hurt all the time. Not a nice feeling. I am still a bit sore, but it’s not too bad.

Today I also enrolled in the EDES 406 class. Open enrollment started today and I now have it on my schedule. So fucking awesome to have that done! I also tried registering to the semester at Chalmers but I couldn’t since I’m not enrolled in any classes at Chalmers. But I need to be registered for CSN to see that I am doing some classes. I sent Chalmers an email and will probably get an answer tomorrow. I will call them otherwise. I was gonna call my landlord also to tell them my fridge is kinda broken. There is always a pool of water at the bottom of it. But I forgot. That’s for tomorrow.

After that I spent the afternoon studying and talking to mom. The problem I’ve been trying to solve for two days makes sense to me now. The mistake I made was that the ”d” in the formulas wasn’t the diameter which it normally is, but it was the distance from the top of the beam to the center of the rebars in the bottom. After I realized that I actually understood the problem. Yay! I love breakthroughs. Tomorrow I will start with wood again, and I might have time for another steel problem as well. But I have a feeling I won’t be in a study mood, but we’ll see.

In the evening anyway there is Berget’s crawfish party. I’ve been looking forward to it the whole summer, it’s gonna be legen… wait for it… dary!

Crown of Midnight

Posted on Sunday, 17 August 2014, 0:30 by Alexandra

Last night I finished Crown of Midnight which was the second Throne of Glass book. So amazingly awesome! The ending was so unsuspected and I so look forward to the next book which will be published on September 2nd. Until then I will be reading the prequel The Assassin’s Blade

This series, written by Sarah J. Maas, is about a young orphaned girl who was taken in by the league of assassins and she is the best in the land at what she does. She is betrayed though and ends up in a slave camp and the first book begins when the king’s men get her out of there so she can fight in a tournament to become the King’s Champion and then get her freedom. A lot of other things happen to around all this. Magic, demons, love triangles. If anyone is looking for a book to read, I highly recommend Throne of Glass.

Today was my Sunday and I tried to study for a while. I managed to solve two problems today before I found myself infront of a contrete problem. I decided to take a tiny break, but I ended up taking a break for the rest of the day. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is too fun. But I don’t feel bad, I did 5 problems yesterday! And I will get up early tomorrow and solve this concrete problem before work. And then I have three days off when I can study.

While I was studying yesterday I was also cooking dinner. I tried pulled pork for the very first time and it turned out great. I flavored it with honey barbecue sauce and garlic. It was served with mashed sweet potatoes. Yummy in my tummy!

Tomorrow’s 6 hours of work and then Rabbit Party! It’s the last for the season so I thought I would go. But right now I’mnot so sure. I am going to the pregame but I’m not sure about the real party at Valand. It is 100kr and I don’t even like nightclubs. We’ll see. I have to feel okay on Monday too to study.

Now I will go to bed, read, and mentally prepare for an early morning with concrete and rebars and then work and party!

Sangria and taco night

Posted on Friday, 15 August 2014, 1:53 by Alexandra

I had such a lovely evening with my girls Andrea, Emma and Julia. We were at Andrea’s place eating tacos (and I thought them that it is possible to put pineapple in it) and drinking homemade sangrias. We talked about everything and nothing for several hours and later in the evening Andrea’s boyfriend and friend joined us. They told us they were having a blast. Two guys who could participate in girls’ talk was apparently fun.

Andrea had her last day of work today and on Saturday she is going to Greece for a week. After that we decided to have another girl’s night where we will go out after a typical girl’s preparty. I look forward to that!

Work today went on fast. I only had 6 hours of work. I had a couple of hours at Höjdskräcken, a couple at Helix and one hour at the end at Balderado. So far I’ve been at Balderado five full days, one half day and three hours spread out over three different days. I chose Ponnykarusellen and Kristallsalongen for my last hour. So awesome!

At my one break there were cookies and candy in the break room because three different people had their last day today. It is always a bit nice when people have their last day and put out cookies and stuff but it is also very sad. I am gonna bake chocolate muffins when I have my last day in two weeks.

10 hour day

Posted on Thursday, 14 August 2014, 0:09 by Alexandra

This morning when I got in to work I got a special assignment from one of my supervisors. I got ten minutes of extra pay for going around to all the attractions at Balderado handing out new schedules. It was hard finding the right way to both Balder and Kållerado, but I managed. So my first few hours of the day, until lunch I was at Balderado, and after lunch I was at Berget. It was perfect with that combination on such a long day.

I have been extremely tired today. Five days in a row of working late and closing attractions is getting to me. And this day’s ending was even worse than the rest. I was at Helix and the OP forgot to tell me that I could go home at 11. Everyone else got off at 11:20. That meant that I missed my tram home and got home at midnight instead of half past eleven. That sucked. We also had to close down Helix very sudden because one of the mechanics called and told us to absolutely not send another train on the tracks. It was weird.

Now I need to go to bed. I have to get up early tomorrow, work until 6pm and then have a cozy taco evening with Emma and Andrea :). I really look forward to that!

1 month left

Posted on Wednesday, 13 August 2014, 1:11 by Alexandra

I can’t believe I only have one month left in this country. In exactly a month (1am on September 13th) I will be a few hours away from Los Angeles. This summer went by so fast. Well, to be honest, the past couple of years just disappeared. I have mixed feelings about going back to Cali. It will be a great experience being an exchange student at an American university, and my English will improve so much. But I have more to miss in Sweden now compared to last time. So many new friends, a boyfriend.

The EDES 406 class worked out. I tried to enroll in a new class last night but it didn’t work. So I emailed the person I’ve been on contact with for the past months about everything, and she said that as long as I’ve talked to the professor of the class everything will be fine. I’ve chosen to believe her. No point in being worried.

At the end of this week I will decide how I will go to SLO from LA, probably with a rental car. And then I will need to book a bed at a hostel in SLO for my first two nights. And that is it, except for packing which I will start doing in September. I want to live normally for as long as possible.

Yesterday the weather was craxy here in Gothenburg. I think it is the fall that is coming. One moment we had sun, the next it was pouring down, and all the time it was extremely windy. Almost too windy to operate the attractions up on the mountain. The sky was dark and it looked like a thunderstorm would start at any moment. But it never came. It was gone before anything happened.

I had a pretty rough schedule with just hourly passes. One hour at Höjdskräcken, one hour at Helix and so on. SOme half hours are nice. During my last 1,5 hours at Helix a guy asked me to take a selfie of them while they were sitting on the Helix train. I should have taken a selfie of myself. But the point is that he used to word selfie instead of photo which was weird. A selfie is when you take a photo of yourself, while taking a photo of someone else is just taking a photo. Today’s youth!

Five out of six days this week I work until closing. It takes a lot of energy and not getting enough sleep is getting to me. I’ve been so exhausted today! I should probably go to bed now, but I think Chad’s parents wanted to Skype, that would be the first time. Exciting, but I could probably be a betterm e when I’m not this tired.

Tomorrow I have a 10 hour working day. Noon to 11pm.That will be a tough day. I don’t think I will get up earlier to study like I have all the other days this week. I think I need the sleep! But I have felt really good about myself for solving one problem each day before work. On Friday I will sit down most of the day while the pulled pork will be cooking in the oven. The same on Saturday. And Sunday morning, and all the other days until August 27th.

Sunday

Posted on Sunday, 10 August 2014, 23:56 by Alexandra

Yesterday I had my 5th day of this summer season at Balderado. I had Spinrock the whole day but that was great. Spinrock is fun to work at and especially when you are two people. The day went by super fast and I was home before I knew it.

Today I was at Berget again where I only had one hour passes which is kinda slow if you have it the whole day. One hour at one attraction is a lot of time. Half hours go by so much faster and the variation makes it easier to keep the mood up.

I was in a very good mood today, but my tiredness made it tough to keep it up. I did have a nice day in general though.

My tooth, or the lack of tooth more correctly, is okay. It hurts a tiny bit, but I could eat almost without any problems at all. But being careless probably made it worse by the evening. Now it hurts when I swallow and it feels like I have a sore throat. But I know better, it is the hole. I should probably be more careful, even if it feels alright, because it probably isn’t alright just yet. It has just been three days!

I closed Höjdskräcken today again. So awesome. No stress, you get closer to the guests who actually come and you can relax before going home. Love it!

I found out a couple of days ago that I need to enroll in a new course at Cal Poly because I am currently on the waiting list for the environmental class that is mandatory. I was certain that I would get that class because of an email from the professor a while back. But I am second on the wait list and to meet the requirements of my visa status I need to enroll and get accepted to 3 more credits. I’ve found another class that might be similar, Sustainable Environmental Engineering. But I will also enroll in German 1. I have to get one of those three classes and will have more options. I really hope I get Sustainable Environments, my first choice, but if I don’t I will have to take that class when I am back in Sweden which will suck, but it would work. So tomorrow night at 11pm I will enroll in new classes. Cross your fingers for me that I get my first choice!

A third tooth pulled

Posted on Saturday, 9 August 2014, 11:36 by Alexandra

This weekend went by without my realization. It wasn’t a very good weekend, but I won’t go into the boring details about that. Instead I can tell you that my third wisdom tooth is now gone. I got it pulled two days ago. It only took 15 minutes, and I got an anesthetic cream on my gum before the syringes which was great. But when the dentist was pulling it out with some kind of pliers, it pushed against my lower jaw where I could feel everything and that hurt so much I almost started crying or asking them to stop.

My mom was there with me the whole time and I am so glad she was. Even if I’m a veteran when it comes to pulling teeth out right now it is still scary. She drove me home after we went ice cream shopping. Not that I needed it. I took a couple of painkillers on the day it happened but when I woke up the day after, yesterday, it didn’t hurt. I mean I could feel that something was different and I had a hard time chewing and opening my mouth, but I didn’t need any painkillers.

It doesn’t hurt today either. Last time I was in pain for four weeks! Great improvement.

Now I will eat some breakfast and then study until I have to go to work. I am at Balderado today with a very nice schedule. Sure, I have 4 hours at Spinrock out of my 5 working hours today, but I also have two 30minutes breaks which is not normal for a short day like this. I am not complaining.

Hard Rock Cafe Gothenburg

Posted on Thursday, 7 August 2014, 0:30 by Alexandra

Finally! My hometown was number 12. The California burger was good, but not as good as it normally is, it was a bit dry and heavy and 189kr for that was a bit much. But the atmosphere in there was the same as in all of the other Hard Rock Cafes I’ve ever been to. It was nice. 12 glasses is now showing on my shelf!

Today at work was my Friday, I had a long day, almost 10 hours of work. But it wasn’t too bad actually. After lunch just disappeared. First I had 2.5 hours straight of work, then 30 minutes break, 1 hour of work, 30 minutes break and 30 minutes of work before I got off at 9:30pm. The best ending on a day there is, perfect! And the day started with supervisors from two different areas fighting over me. There had been a misunderstanding and I was supposed to be on Balderado for the first couple of hours and then on Berget. But I ended up on Berget anyway. They were literally standing over me while I was sitting down, handing me papers on two different attractions and fighting for me.

Right after work I went to Hard Rock Café to meet up with Chad, Nicole and Nicolai. Nicole is a German friend from San Diego who is doing a roadtrip in Scandinavia with her boyfriend and they are staying here with me in Gothenburg for a couple of nights. Today they went adventuring in the city alone while I was working and tomorrow we will go to Liseberg for a while before I have to leave them there to go pull out a tooth. They arrived late last night.

Yesterday at work was a crazy crazy day! So many people for no apparent reason. Huge lines everywhere. The day before that was the complete opposite. No lines at all. The line ran out at Helix even! And when I closed Höjdskräcken I did 7 rides during the whole hour. Normally you can do 18-19 in an hour.

Yesterday was fun because of a challenge the supervisors gave us. We were supposed to find guests who travelled from far away. And the person who found the guests from the furthest away got an extra break on the schedule someday in the future. You had four tries to ask guests and I got so lucky on my first on; Los Angeles. I felt confident after that. I also got China, Germany and Spain. When I handed in my paper to the supervisors they said they had Philippines and Brazil as well, and I could see my extra break be removed from the time table.

I am so tired now, so I will be boring and go to bed actually. Me, Nicole and Nicolai will go to Liseberg pretty early tomorrow so I need my rest I guess. Or I probably will just sleep for the rest of the day when I get back from the dentist. As the two times before, mom will be there to be my support! ❤