London Pass

Posted on Friday, 16 May 2014, 1:25 by Alexandra

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.

Another long day is over and my legs and feet are so sore right now. A lot of walking today again, and lots and lots of Brittish history. It’s been a really interesting day with audio tours at famous landmarks. The London pass includes a lot of attractions and discounts and so on. We only bought one-day pass which was a good idea. I don’t think I could have handled two of these days in a row.
Our day started a bit earlier than the other days, with a tour inside the Westminster Abbey church, which is a really really old church, I am remembering so many dates and all of them are mixed up. But I think I remember that this one was built in the 11th century. 200 years later it got its gothic style and was completely done in 1600 I think. Every coronation in London since 1066 has been there and the last one was in 1953 with Queen Elisabeth II.

We each got a phone-like thing with buttons. We walked around in the cathedral and whenever there was a sign with a number on it, we put that in our phones and listened. It looked kinda funny when everyone was walking around with phones.

We weren’t allowed to take any photos inside. And I will never be able to describe what it was like. First of all, it is 31m from floor to ceiling and then there are decorations, statues, coffins and such, EVERYWHERE. Not much space in there was just flat stone. It was incredible! So much history in one place. Isaac Newton and Darwin were buried there, and so were a lot of famous authors too, like Jane Austen.

Our next thing with the London pass was a cruise on the Thames. On the way there we took a lot of pictures of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The Thames tour was nice. It felt really good with a breeze in the warm sun. That one took about 30 minutes.

The boat stopped right in front of the Tower Bridge and Tower of London (not the same thing, like I thought…). We had lunch first and I had my very first fish n chips. It wasn’t bad, but not good either. Flavorless. And boring. I think this was the first and last time I had it.

Inside the Tower of London we had another audio tour with phones. This one wasn’t as easy to follow as the other one. And we didn’t listen to everything since it took so long! We listened to the first one though, about the history about the place. The big fortress in the middle is called the White Tower and was built in the 11th century too. At that time it was humungus and completely white. Very hard to miss. It was built by William the Conqueror asa fortification. I don’t remember when, but the White Tower has been open to visitors for many centuries now (3-4?) with weapon and armor exhibitions. Carved wooden horses were inside with armors riding them. A lot of donations from far away were also kept there. And speaking of foregn things. The Tower of London has been a menagerie for exotic animals. The first lion was put there in 1210 and has been since been accompanied by polar bears, elaphants, tigers and so on. In the beginning of 1800 the animals were sent to the London Zoo in Regent’s Park.

Our next stop inside the Tower of London was the exhibition where they keep the Royal Crown Jewels! No photoraphy inside there either. And I have the same descriptive ability as with Westminster Abbey. It was ridiculous and so amazing! All the crowns, maces, silverware (goldware) they use at the weddings, huuuuge diamonds and so much gold I couldn’t believe my eyes. I wonder how much all of that was worth!! They had a golden spoon from 1300 which is used at every coronation. It looked so well-preserved and I can’t believe it is 800 years old! I got the same feeling with the inside of Westminster Abbey. They must maintain it pretty damn well.

When it closed at 6pm we went outside and took some pictures of the Tower Bridge, one of the world’s most famous bridges. The plan was to go up in it, but it had closed by the time we were done at Tower of London. But just pictures were fine with me.

We took the tube to Chinatown where we had dinner again. Today I had sweet and sour shrimp. Really good. Everyone of us were really tired and I can’t believe I stayed out with mom until, yeah, whenever it was. Helena and Gudrun went home earlier.

All of us went to the M&M World store together though, and it was as crazy as the one in Las Vegas. I bought a big green cup since I don’t really have a big teacup at home and I didn’t have room to buy one last year. Then we went to a souvenir shop where we had £5 off each. I had no idea what to buy until I saw that they had Rainbow Loom rubberbands. I took two bags to my cousin Ella. She will love it!

Out on Picadilly Circus I tried taking another 360 degree photo, but it was hard with the bright light of the big commercial screen. But I got it worked out after a few tries. While I was there I got an unknown phonecall, but I answered, and it was Chad calling all the way from Sweden just to talk a bit because he missed me. That really made me so happy! Very sweet of him :). And it was nice to hear some American English. I’m not sure I like the Brittish accent, it sounds snobby…

We took the Tube home and for some reason three hours just went by. I am so extremely tired now, and tomorrow will just be a calm day with some strolling, shopping and so on. That will be nice. I actually did a little bit of shopping today as well. I bought three pair of belts (£1 each!) and sunscreen at the third of the Swedish price at Primark. Tomorrow I am planning on buying a book, Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. I have the three first ones at home and thought it could be fun to buy the last one abroad.

Time to go to bed now. Goodnight!

Westminster Abbey west entrance. Westminster Abbey north entrance. Houses of Parliament. Big Ben. Houses of Parliament.There are so much cool architecture on the banks of the river Thames. Tower of London. Audio tour inside Tower of London. A room of torture. White Tower. Armor on display in White Tower. I have no idea why this guy as a thing on his armor but it looks so stupid.Wooden carved horses with armors. The Royal Crown Jewels are inside these walls. Cool architecture.Lots of ravens at Tower of London. They say that when the ravens leave, the kingdom will fall. Tower Bridge. Panoramic photo of M&M World London, taken with Gudrun’s iPhone. I have to say that her phone captured the moving colors in the dispay of the store much better than mine. This is probably the only time I will say that an iPhone might be better than an Android…

South Banks London

Posted on Thursday, 15 May 2014, 0:52 by Alexandra

Another eventful day is over. 20,000 steps in nice spring weather. Not completely blue sky, and not very warm, but it wasn’t cold either. It was a nice spring day. Today was all about walking along the South Bank by the river Thames. We saw a lot of landmarks and I discovered an amazing feature on my phone, the ability to take panorama photos. I’ve had so much fun with my new Nexus 5 today!

So, we live pretty much next to the Channel Four house. And we walked across the river and walked on the south bank all the way down to Shakespeare’s Globe. On the way we saw the Parliament, London Eye, Gabriel’s Wharf, the Millenium Bridge (the one who gets destroyed in the beginning of one of the later Harry Potter movies, Tate Modern Museum and Shakespeare’s Globe.

The Parliament is a very cool and old and big building. Big Ben is part of it. The London Eye is the big ferris wheel for the ones who didn’t know that. Too expensive to go up in it, but it was still cool to see ut from the ground. We had to take a break at Gabriel’s Wharf where we sat down for a while. It is exhausting walking around. It was a cute little square with food shops and handicraft shops. We didn’t go in to the Tate Modern Museum, art museums are really boring. But we were there and took pictures of the building from the outside. Our last stop on the South Bank was the Shakespeare Globe. We went on a tour and it was actually interesting and fun. The tour guide was funny.

We walked across the Millenium Bridge and saw Paul’s Cathedral, which is a very famous cathedral, but I have no idea why. At the info center we bought London passes for tomorrow so we have free entrance to a lot of stuff. And then took the subway to Chinatown to eat dinner. We took the first chinese restaurant we saw, and it was a nice one with good food. I made the mistake of ordering Pad Thai, when I could have taken sweet and sour chicken, which tasted way better. It was still good though.

We then took a tiny two minute walk to Soho and I have to say that I was surprised. I don’t know much about London, but I thought Soho was supposed to be a nice area, but no. Not where we went anyway. Strip clubs, sex stores and gay bars. It was weird. So we went straight to Picadilly Circus instead. That was a cool place. And that’s where I tried to take a 360 degree picture of the square. It actually turned out awesome!! In my phone I can use a tool to watch it in 3d or how to call it. But in my computer it is just a very wide photo which you can’t really see should be connected in the ends. It is still a very cool feature though and I took a lot of photos with just a tiny bit of panorama.

At Picadilly Circus we went into a sport store and then walked through St. James’ Park back home. The park was beautiful with lots of ducks and squirrels. One of them actually came up and touched my hand because he thought I had food for him.

Back home my plan was to study some, but something came in the way. I saw on Facebook that Carlsbad, where I lived just four months ago, is burning really bad! I have been watching live streamings from it and it is scary to see what is happening to my second hometown. Fortunately it’s not quite where my host family lives, but it is very very close, about ~1 mile / 1.7km away. I don’t know if they are evacuated, but the news says that no ones been hurt so I think they are okay. But it is still scary and I hope the fires burns out when the sun goes down like the fire department over there says. A few houses have been completely destroyed and about 30 damaged so far (when I am writing this the fire has been going on for about five hours in Carlsbad). Yesterday one of my close friends south of me in San Diego was evacuated. Stupid California where it doesn’t rain! This is apparently very unusual though. I don’t remember what they said about the Santa Ana wind and the time of the year, but this doesn’t happen very often.

I am glad this didn’t happen while I was there, that would have been terrifying, and I would have been really scared… I hope my hostkids are fine!

It seems like the wind is blowing to the west, so they should be fine.

Like I said, an eventful day. And the next few days will be too (hopefully no fires!!). Tomorrow we are going to Westminster Abbey, a boat tour on the river Thames, Tower of London, Tower Bridge and then some shopping at M&M World among other things. On Friday we are going to Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace and Hard Rock Cafe. And after that I am not sure. It will be fun though and I look forward to seeing more parts of London!

The panorama feature works perfect!
London Eye Me, Helena and Gudrun in front of the Parliament. Millenium Bridge with St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background. Shakespeare’s Globe. Chinatown in London. 360 degree photo of Picadilly Circus. A squirrel in St. James’ Park eating from my hand. And here is another one of the hundreds in the park, posing on a fence. St. James’ Park. These policemen were escorting some important people. I wonder who.Even if the buildings in London are pretty modern, they pubs still look the same. Almost all of them actually look like this. This is what I see when I think of England. A cute street.

Brittish Museum & We Will Rock You

Posted on Wednesday, 14 May 2014, 1:09 by Alexandra

The weather today has been so extremly London-ish. First kinda sunny, then rainy, then thunder, then sunny and rainy at the same time, the rainy, pouring, and lastly sunny. What we’ve understood is that today was supposed to be the worst day and from now on it will be better and better. I hope that is true. It would be so much better with blue sky and warmth.

Today’s plan, because of the bad weather, was the Brittish Museum and then a musical in the evening. I think it took us about two hours to find the museum. We went back and forth on one of the big streets for a long while in the drizzle. We finally found the museum and when we came we realized how big it was and didn’t do anything for probably 30 minutes. Just trying to figure out what we wanted to see. We finally decided to go to the Egyptian part where we saw the Rosetta Stone. In a triology I recently read it was kinda of like Pandora’s box, and released all the ancient Egyptian gods into the world (The Kane Chronicles). It was fun to see the part of the museum where some of the books actually took place.

Our next stop in the museum was the Chinese and Japanese exhibit. I don’t know anything about that history, but I think it is beautiful and interesting. Maybe I should take a class about it someday?

After that it was the second Egypt exhibit, the one about the mummies. It was cool! They even had mummified animals, especially cats and kittens.

After three or four hours in there our feet and backs were sore from walking around (and we didn’t even see the ancient Greece and Rome and Anglo-Saxon thing and everything else. That museum is huuuuge! We wanted to see the Viking exhibit, but I think we would have had to pay for that. The rest of the museum was free. Amazing!

Once again we went out in the street and got lost. This city is hard to find in, and the Tube… Oh, don’t get me started on that! First we had a tiny break at a Starbucks (oh, I’ve missed my non-fat chai latte’s) and after that it didn’t take us long to find the Dominion Theatre where we picked up our tickets for tonights show. The next one and a half hour were spent in another bar where we had dinner. I wasn’t that hungry, so a tomato soup with garlic bread was enough.

After dinner we went across the street to the theatre to watch the Queen musical “We Will Rock You”. I have to say that I was surprised at how awesome it was! I never thought I would enjoy a musical, but this was seriously WOW! The story was set in the future where everyone lives online and a few people can hear words and tunes in their heads, and they are supposed to bring the rock back. A lot of fun song title references (I didn’t understand all of them) and the music is really good. I am not a huge Queen fan, but I recognized most of the songs and could really enjoy it.

The only problem was that I couldn’t understand what some of the actors/singers were saying. Brittish English is so hard to understand!! That was a bummer…

We took the Tube (it’s what these people call their subway) home and I am really impressed by how well it works. I am jealous. Trains coming in every five minutes (in total today we only had to wait for one train, the rest were just to jump right on), even at a very late hour on a weekday. Amazing! And it goes fast. It is a bit scary though that it all happens underground.

As yesterday night, I don’t know what is planned for tomorrow. It feels good to just follow around after a lot of trips planned by me last year. This is really like a vacation for me! (Except that I will do some studying tomorrow…)

Westminster Abbey. Big Ben.Westminster underground station. I guess Londoners are used to being so much underground and use this crazy system with trains going in all directions on different levels and use the creepy walking tunnels between platforms…Surprisingly neat down there! The world famous Brittish Museum! Inside the Brittish Museum. Not to count the many many rooms, the main hall of the museum was huuuuuge! The Rosetta Stone which was used to translate Egyptian to Greek and something else or something something. A cool sarcophagus in the Egyptian exhibit. Part of the Chinese exhibit. A samurai armor in the Japanese exhibit. Sarcophagi in the Egyptian mummy exhibit. I think they had a total of 8 mummies in that exhibit. Kinda creppy when you think about it. Real people are inside these cocoons! I understand why there were millions of people at the museum (maybe not early in the afternoon on a Tuesday though), it was a great museum, and it was free!! Thus This is another of the mummies in the exhibit. They have scanned the mummies and made huge discoveries. This mummy for example has a solidified liquid in hos head. I have no idea why. If someone knows, I would love to hear the story. Here are the poor cat mummies. I think I read on that sign that they were brutually killed and had broken necks to be able to be mummified like this. Poor cats. And poor kitten in the tiny mummy! Dominion Theatre with the show We Will Rock You. It’s been showing since 2006!! I wonder why it must end at the end of the month…

Hello London!

Posted on Monday, 12 May 2014, 23:31 by Alexandra

Another interesting day has passed. And a very long one. Up with the roaster to go to a structural engineering class and then three hours of work with the thesis. My mom was so kind and helped me with the technical language and it helped a lot. I am not sure it is enough for our picky examinator, but that’s a problem coming up on Friday.

Back home I had lunch, I packed the rest of my things and then played some Guild Wars 2. I found a place there today where you could read old history scrolls and the story behind this game is actually very interesting. So I moved up the Guild Wars book triology on my to-read list and will start with them after I finish Fifty Shades Darker. Which by the way is a boring book. The “porn” is the same in every scene. The scenario is different, but the same words are used, and it gets very boring in the long run. It is also extremely unrealistic. But I can’t stop reading in the middle of it, so I feel that I have to finish it…

At four my mom and brother picked me up and then we went to the airport. We checked in and everything and then each of us had a pulled pork wrap. Really good! The Victoria’s Secret store at Landvetter airport sucks by the way. No clothes, just things. Boring. Since I’ve lost weight I almost feel that I have to buy more underwear now… I and Gudrun are thinking about taking a shopping tour one day. I also want to buy a new pair of jeans.

At 6pm the flight took off and two hours later we were here. I had to drag my suitcase and carry-on for a while until we found the apartment and that is not a mistake that I will be doing when we are going home. The only reason I took a carry-on was because that was the only place I could fit all my structural engineering books. The exam is in two weeks, so I really have to start study now. Tourist during the day, student in the evening.

There is free wifi in the apartment which is awesome. The best part about it was that as soon as I logged in I got an email from Cal Poly giving me my last Permission Course Number. I enrolled as soon as I started up my computer and now I am enrolled in all my courses for the fall semester! Such a relief!

Right when we got to the apartment we went out again to find a place to eat. A pub close to us, The Barley Mow, was pretty nice. Everyone in our company laughed at me for ordering a Kobbarberg Cider (a Swedish cider).

We did a little grocery shopping and now we are back in the apartment and ready to go to bed. I’m not sure what we are gonna do tomorrow, but I am sure it will be fun!

Outdoor beach volleyball

Posted on Sunday, 11 May 2014, 21:10 by Alexandra

Yesterday I played beach volleyball again. And outside this time. First in Sweden! I was afraid that it was gonna be cold, but it was blue sky and perfect temperature for playing outside. I and Dzejna didn’t play very well, but we had fun, and that’s what matters.

After two hours of play we stayed on the sun deck tanning for 1,5 hours. It was amazing! But I was a bit read in my face when I came home. It is mostly gone by now, but it is clearly visible that I was wearing sunglasses yesterday.

One of the girls we were playing, Maria, asked me about my upcoming exchange year. I just told her that I am going to California. She said she had also been an exchange student in California. I didn’t ask where, I assumed it was in Santa Barbara or something where most go. But then she asked me if I had heard of a place called San Luis Obispo, when I said yes, she asked me CalPoly? It turned out that she was an exchange student there ten years ago from Chalmers. She’s not a building and civil engineer though, but a mechanical engineer. She told me I have an amazing year ahead of me and was happy for me for going to such a great school. The world is so small!

Me, Sarka, Maria and Dzejna.

I took a nap and in the evening I went out to dinner with Chad and met up with my dad and his girlfriends and some friends at a bar watching the Eurovision Song Contest. I wasn’t paying that much attention to the competition. But it was a nice evening.

Today was all about changing bed. The one I had was making way too much noise and was so old it was falling apart. So mom and I got the extra one from mom’s apartment, drove it here, and threw away the old one. It took a while but now it is done! I should buy a new mattress pretty soon. The one I have is almost falling apart…

Mom dropped me off after a quick grocery shopping. I felt like cooking blue cheese chicken casserole with grapes on it. It was well worth it, so delicious! It’s extremely easy, just melt the blue cheese with some cooking cream, put it in an oven safe thing for 10 minutes and then put grape halves on it and 5 more minutes in the oven. This time I completely forgot about what to have with it, I was gonna try the new tricolore quinoa I bought, but it would have taken too much time so I just made some couscous instead. A very nice dinner for a Sunday!

I never got my Course Permission Number for the EDES 406 class. It’s not okay to say that you will send the number within an hour and then don’t do it. It looks like the class is still not full in the student center, but still! It’s not okay to put this stress to international students. It’s hard to figure everything out without these kinds of problems… I hope I get an email tomorrow night, when she is back at work.

Okay, so tomorrow I am leaving this country again. The London trip is finally here! I packed today and it is surprisingly few things. What takes the most space is probably my school books. I am really excited and think it will be a fun week with mom and two of her friends.

Course registration

Posted on Friday, 9 May 2014, 23:03 by Alexandra

What a day. I hardly can keep my eyes open but I am waiting for a very important email from Cal Poly with my last Permission Course Number. I called the responsible person for the course and she said she would do it in an hour (this was one hour before the registration opened at 10pm), but I still haven’t gotten it yet. My other three courses are showing the status: enrolled and that feels good. But I’m not gonna be relaxed until I have the last one in that list too. I have heard that transfer students are prioritized when it comes to course registration, so I think it will work out perfectly fine anyway.

My other big Cal Poly Preparation today was that I went to the bank to make the Initial Housing Payment. I got help with the whole thing from a very nice lady. And the waiting line was zero at 11am a Friday morning. According to her everything was filled out correctly, but it still feels unsafe. I mean, I trust the internet bank, but when it’s about a lot of money ($1125 / 7500SEK) and used with a payment method I’ve never used before…. I can’t help but get a bit nervous. But I am sure it is correctly done and that I can put it behind me!

It is so nice to have this and the course registration done. The only thing left now is to get the visa (which I can’t get now anyway, I don’t have the DS-2019 paper yet) and then decide when I want to go to the US. I can move in on September 14th. But two weeks travelling before? Hawaii with a friend from San Diego? Hanging out with my host family? Or just stay in Sweden and work two extra weeks and earn more money? Tough decisions.

The whole morning was spent in school with three hours of class. Super boring! I have to pull myself together pretty soon if I am gonna pass this stupid exam in 2.5 weeks.

In school I also made two phone calls to the two other job had had gotten offers on. Well, one not yet, but she was willing to give me it, I could hear that in her very dissapointing voice when I said I got another job. I felt really bad, they both sounded like fun jobs and I feel like I gave them false hope by going to interviews and tell them how interested I was. Well I was. But I still feel bad for turning them down. This is an experience I’ve never had to deal with before. Turning down jobs…

At four I went to my first after work in, probably ever. There is a German girl here in Gothenburg who are going to San Diego for three months to be an au pair. A few other of her friends were also joining and we talked for two hours about San Diego, au pairs, studies and a lot of other things. And that was very nice. She is going home to Germany soon though but we will try to have at least one more after work at another place. After that I went to my second after work at another place with Chad and Mike. That was also very nice! I don’t feel too bad about paying 40kr per cider either. It could be much worse.

No, I can’t stay up any longer. I hope I wake up to good news in my email! And let’s hope I will get a little more than 4 hours of sleep tonight…

Job @ Liseberg!!

Posted on Thursday, 8 May 2014, 21:10 by Alexandra

This is insane! Six months after I sent in my application to Liseberg I finally got the good news. I can’t explain how relieved and happy I am. I got a little worried when they didn’t call during the day, but at 5pm I got the call. I was prepared for the worst, but instead he told me I got the job!! I almost laughed when he told me. This is what I’ve always wanted to do, and now it is finally happening! And I start working in less than three weeks already. Right after I get home from London I will sign the contract and get an introduction evening. I will have two days off in the first week of June and that is when we will give the thesis presentation so that worked out perfect as well.

This job means that I will be working at several different attractions, in two areas instead of one that is normal. I will be like an extra who works where I will be needed. I will still have my 40 hours a week though and a schedule for the whole summer. And I also got the good news today that I will work until August 31st instead of 17th. And it is possible to work longer too if I decide to fly straight to San Luis Obispo instead of travel around for two weeks before school. I actually think that is what I will do. I will have plenty of time to travel anyway.

I am so incredibly excited about this job, it will be the best summer job I’ve ever had!

In school today we finished the first draft of the thesis report. It felt really good, but we will still have a lot to do. Our supervisor at Chalmers is strict and has opinions about everything. I really hope we will be done with it before the summer. I don’t want this dragging behind.

I took a three hour nap today and that was needed. I will try to get to bed early today. Tomorrow I have to be in school at 8am for at least four hours of structural engineering. I don’t look forward to it, but I need it so bad! I am nervous about the exam coming up in 2,5 weeks… I will study as much as I can next week. Touristing during the day and studying in the evening.

The pie yesterday was thought to be a celebration pie, but it was completely eaten by the time I got the great news. So I felt that I had to make the dinner a little bit special tonight again. I had tomato soup, like I’ve had so many times. But I also baked corn muffins. I found a mix at Ica Maxi a week ago and just couldn’t resist to buy it. It wasn’t as good as the ones I had in the US, but it was still very good. A luxurious breakfast awaits me tomorrow!

Tonight I’ve also paid the initial payment for an on campus room. Or I didn’t pay, I have to go to the bank tomorrow and do that. I now regret that I chose to save 200kr, when I could have paid right now, online. Well well, it’s not like I have other things to do tomorrow afternoon.

I have also been doing some research about what has to happen tomorrow evening. The course registration opens and I think I am pretty much as prepared as I can be. So at 10pm I will just login to my Cal Poly account and enroll in courses with my permission course numbers. Except that I am still missing one of them. I’ve emailed a new person today and I hope I will get an answer pretty soon. The environmental development course is the only one I really really need to take! It is mandatory at Chalmers. All the other courses can be whatever as long as it is within my area. I hope this works out, like everything else 🙂

Rhubarb/raspberry pie

Posted on Thursday, 8 May 2014, 0:05 by Alexandra

So much going on that I can’t even remember everything I wanted to write about. I should probably make a note in my phone whenever I think of something to put here.

“A space has been reserved for you in Cal Poly’s campus apartments for the 2014-2015 Academic Year!” But I have been sending a lot of emails back and forth to Cal Poly about my payments. Apparently CSN doesn’t count as financial aid and that means I pay out of my own pocket and will have to pay the initial payment of $1125. I will do that tomorrow…

I have talked to both Luka and Johanna (who are the other two going to Cal Poly with me) about housing and courses these past few days. Course registration is closing in fast and I still don’t have my Course Permission Number for a course I need to take. I emailed the person just now and I hope she answers tomorrow so all of this will be done and over! There are two more semesters though…

This morning was spent at Chalmers writing the last parts of the thesis. After two hours we decided we were done for the day and we had actually done quite a lot. We work fast! Tomorrow will probably be the same, read it through once more and write the abstract in English, that will be a toughie.

I had my third “interview” with Liseberg. I was nervous but it wasn’t that bad. They told me what it was all about and showed me schedules and everything. They wanted to know who I was so I talked a bit about myself. They thought it sounded very cool with a master/teacher degree. They will call me tomorrow and give me my verdict. Please cross your fingers for me! I really really want this job.

Tonight I baked a pie for the first time in almost a year. I invited Chad to be a guinea pig and I think it passed, he had seconds. It really was delicious! With vanilla sauce! Yummy! Awesome breakfast tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be the last day we will work on the thesis for a while. We only have the abstract left to write and that will be done in like an hour tomorrow. That means a lot of time for napping! It’s weird that I am this tired. I got my test results from the doctor today and they said everything was perfectly fine. Great! I think. I don’t really buy it though, one of my two doctors are lying, one said I will have a B12 deficiency for the rest of my life, and the other one said everything was fine. A deficiency like that doesn’t just go away like that… I will have to call the new doctor and ask her to get my old journals and compare them, something’s not right!

I need to go to bed now, I’m seeing double again…

Kent

Posted on Monday, 5 May 2014, 20:23 by Alexandra

Ever since their latest album was released last week I haven’t listened to anything else. That whole album is amazing!! I kinda decided that I wanted to go to the concert on June 1st. But it looks like I am on a four-day training for Liseberg then. But I am not complaining.

Since I am not completely sure that I have the job at Liseberg I went to a job interview for home service today. It took more than an hour and it sounded really interesting. I think it could be a fun job for the summer. But Liseberg has always been a dream, so that’s my priority. The only thing home services wanted was a couple of references, so I need to get that first before they will offer me the job. The interviewer told me several times during that I seemed very nice and interesting and would do well there. That’s always fun to hear.

This morning I was in school with my partner writing on the report. I don’t like this part of the thesis. I love to write, but about stuff I like and with a “talking language”. Writing technical is so hard!!

The last thing I will write before I go to bed is that I am seriously thinking about a Master’s degree. Chalmers offers a program called Leadership and Learning which would make me a “civilingenjör” in Swedish (in English I think it is just called a Master of Science degree) and a high school teacher at the same time. The more I think about it the more I want to do it! And that also means that I can keep my apartment for two more years, which will give me a total of three years extra queue time on boplats.se. With more than six years of queueing I will have to get a nice apartment in an area I want to live in! With three, like I have now, it is impossible to get anything. The housing situation in Gothenburg is the worst ever!!

I had a way too big dinner, and my 57kg is a lot more now. But my spaghetti with meatsauce was delicious, so it was worth it. But I have to remember to make smaller lunch boxes. I watched Game of Thrones while I ate and I was surprised there was no nudity at all in this episode. Weird!

90 year birthday party

Posted on Monday, 5 May 2014, 0:49 by Alexandra

Yesterday I went to Hjo with mom and Chad for a tripple birthday party. The usual people were there, my uncle, my three cousins Linnea (and her boyfriend), Lovisa and Malin, my grandma, grandpa and his wife. It was a very nice day with lots of awesome food and several different desserts, perfect!

We had BBQ with different types of meat, BBQ sauces, potato au gratin and salads. I had so much food but didn’t feel very bad about and now, the day after when the scale only showed 57.5kg (that’s a total weightloss of 7kg since I started trying to lose weight), I am gonna start to not feel bad about good food I’m eating once in a while.

As dessert we had a cake that Malin baked with the number 90 printed in M&Ms on it. The total age of me, Linnea and mom was 90.

And as second dessert we made s’mores. I actually only had one. We watched a little “Gladiatorerna” and then I drove us home to Gothenburg again.

Today I woke up at 1pm, had lunch and played Guild Wars 2 for the rest of the day. There are so many things to do, but my first goal is to explore the whole world and then try some PvP. I have a little more than 50% explored after 150 hours of gameplay. Taking a break to focus on school was just a joke…

I also got a very fun phone call today. It seems like I get all these job calls on Sundays. Anyways, this was from Liseberg!! They need someone at the attraction department at the end of this month. Since I’ve already been through two interviews so they just want me to come in on Wednesday and give me all the details about the job and confirm the dates I can work. I interpret that as I will get the job if I want it. And that is so awesome!! It turns out that everything works out in the end, even if it takes a lot of time sometimes 🙂

I am not completely sure what it means, but I guess everything about the attractions, like taking tickets, checking kids’ lengths, check the safety belts and such. I am so excited!

But I will still go to the interview at home service tomorrow. I haven’t signed a contract yet so I still need backup plans.

I found out today that I don’t have to pay the initial payment of $1125 to Cal Poly Housing. So awesome!! I think this application online in my Cal Poly account means that I will get the room, but I am not sure. In the email I got a few weeks ago it said that Cal Poly was glad to offer me a room on campus. It sounds like I have it 🙂

In the evening Chad came over and we cooked a gourmet dinner of meatballs and mashed potatoes/sweet potatoes with gravy and lingonberries. It is a very simple meal but oh, it was soo good! We shared a bottle of wine and talked the whole evening. A perfect Sunday evening! ❤