The present came in the form of a very cosy concert a month later.
My first birthday in Australia has come and gone. And even if it wasn’t optimal with having partner with the cold, it still turned out to be a really great day.
Summer solstice, three days before Christmas Eve?
Yeah, this will take some time to get used to.
Elise’s last day in Australia after visiting us for six weeks came and went so fast. It was not without issues though, but we managed to turn a rather problematic situation into our advantage 😊
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,
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!
What an amazing day it has been! The weather has been flawless, 25C and basically no clouds. Winter’s not too bad, haha! It just started though, I am counting on it getting colder.
This morning started with my alarm going off at 5am. I was hunting sunrises! Me and a couple of girls were gonna do some drills on the beach while the sun rose. Unfortunately, the poles were down at Surfer’s so we had to go down to Kurrawa and actually missed when the sun rose above the horizon. I guess I will have to do this again sometime.
I had such an amazing feeling after this morning, the sun was so warm, I was hungry and read on the beach until Mikael joined up so we could go to Elk Espresso and have a really nice brunch.
After that, I went in the ocean for the first time since getting here, in my new swimsuit. It was incredible! Wow! Mikael definitely missed out.
At 3pm, the next beach session of the day started for me, but this time social 4s and 2s with Beach Volleyball Gold Coast and Mikael got a haircut. I only did 4s today. My foot is really swollen after a mysterious twisting a week ago. It looks really bad and now it has started to hurt even when I’m running in sand, previously it was only hurting when I was walking on flat ground. Oh well.
Dinner at home in front of the latest Star Wars series The Acolyte and now bed. Such a long but magical day! The sun makes you tired and so does two two hour beach sessions, haha!
Goodnight!
What an incredible day! As usual, the California sky fools you in the morning with clouds as far as the eye can see but around noon it clears up and is as beautiful and amazing as always.
We started the day by taking an extreme detour on the freeway, haha! Me and the two Elins (we are staying together in La Habra at some friends to Miriam’s sister) met up with Miriam at a Starbucks and because of the detour (if it hadn’t been for the closed exit off the I5 carpool lane) we didn’t get to the beach until 11am. We got up at 7 just because we wanted to be out early, haha! But that’s okay it was almost a little bit chilly in the morning but out of nowhere, while we were playing, the sun was just there, being totally in the way. But also amazing!
We managed to get 2h and 2 full rounds of Queen (everyone plays with everyone and the one with most wins, win) before Miriam had to go and pick up her sister at work to hang out with her and her family in the afternoon and evening. But me and the Elins had fun anyway. We had delicious fish tacos for lunch and then hung out at the beach, listening to music and even went into the water. It was cold, but so worth it once you were all in. I just love the ocean! We all got burned, some more, me a little bit less.
The day at Huntington Beach ended with the three of us doing some side out, but a girl came up to us and asked if we wanted a fourth. We did, so she joined us for another round of queen. It didn’t go too well for me in the morning, but tonight was my 2 hours. I was on fire. So much fun!
We had dinner on our way back; Panda Express. Another hole in my Americn heart has been filled. We went grocery shopping for our roadtrip tomorrow and then back home. It got too late for the jacuzzi. Perhaps another day.
Such a fun day! And tomorrow will be as well! Stay tuned for updates on our small roadtrip.
I don’t know any Spanish, but that is not to my disadvantage since everyone here speaks Catalan. It took me several days to realize that. It all sounds the same, but at the same time no. The spellning is definitely weird. May for example is a word I know in Spanish: Mayo (Cinco de Mayo). But here it says Maig everywhere. These people here are not proud Spaniards, they are proud Catalans. And very proud ones at that. I think I have seen perhaps one or two Spanish flags on balconies, the rest 99% have Catalan flags. Yellow ribbons are everywhere as well having something to do with freeing political prisoners. The people here do not want to be a part of Spain. I am not too involved but even to the ignorant me, it is clearly visible.
The word Platja, I assume means beach (the Spanish word is playa, right?).
Most of today was spent at the beach. Mom and I left around noon and just walked straight east from the apartment until we eventually came to the beach. It was around 5 000 steps one way. So 10 000 in total after just laying there for many hours relaxing, getting foot massages and reading. Pretty decent.
It was warm today, not enough to want to go in the water, but still enough to lie on the beach for several hours. The wind was present so it didn’t get too warm either. It was perfect. But I am unused to being in the sun, and therefore forgot to use sunlotion on every inch of my body, so the closest tw centimeters around my bikin got decently red. It hurts a little, but I have been through worse. Nothing else got burned though. Sun protection works!! Use it!
After a quick shower back at the apartment mom and I went back out (Helena wasn’t feeling to well and used the day for resting for tomorrows trip to Parc Güell). We took the Metro to Hard Rock Cafe where mom bought me a late birthday dinner. Very nice and good. Number 19 in the order.
We then walked to Parc de Montjuïc, or the beginning of it, where the Font Màgica de Montjuïc (The Magic Fountain of Montjuïc) was. Tons of people pilgrimaged along with us and it took a little while for us to understand why. Everyone was going to the fountain. It wasn’t even that crazy in Las Vegas or Dubai! It was crazy bananas.
It played both popular music but also some classical. We thought it was about to end three or four times. It kept going for an hour! Crazy! But it was beautiful. Light was incorporated into the fountain and made really awesome effects. With the spray it almost looked like the water was boiling lava when it was red/orange or ice when it was blue. It was really beautiful! But it was long. So mom and I went up the stairs toward the castle behind it to take a photo of the rainbow fountain up there. But literally two seconds before had the chance to pull the photo trigger on both of our cameras, all the fountain lights in the area turned off and we stood there, with our cameras held high in darkness. WHAT?! Now I feel I have to go back just to take that picture, I was robbed of that opportunity, haha! I think it would have been a pretty cool 360 picture from up there as well. With the pretty castle, the rainbow and the columns further down and then the dancing fountain. Too bad.
It got really late today, the fountain didn’t start until 9pm. Tomorrow will be a day in the park with sunny weather.
UPDATE 2018-10-07!
Back in Sweden after a very long week. But it still was over so fast. I am now older than when I left (which I could have said even if it wasn’t my birthday today, but it is a cliché, and sometimes clichés are fun), but I don’t feel too much different.
The day started with a nice surprise at breakfast at the hotel in Rome. The personnel gave me a pastry with a candle in it and wished me a happy birthday! That was so sweet of them. The green juice is green apple juice, really tasty.
We packed, and then drove out to the beach in Ostia, we just picked the closest one, Mamma Mia Beach. It was not as warm today, only around 19C, and a bit windy, so no swimming in the ocean for me. But I felt the water, it was cold (it wouldn’t have been impossible to go in, but I preferred to sit in the warm sand and enjoying the sun rather than shivering in the wind). We were there for about 45 minutes and then we had to leave for the airport which was only 15 minutes away. We had lunch, did a little shopping, boarded the plane and flew home to cold Gothenburg.
It is nice to be home, but I miss the sun and the warmth. You would think that it would be warmer than 6C here now in April…
Mom picked us up at the airport, drove us home and we went shopping. Late dinner in front of the movie Trolls, consisting of entrecote, potato gratin and pepper sauce. No cake for dessert since they didn’t have any at the store, but some Easter candy and a Budapest pastry.
It honestly didn’t really feel like my birthday today, but it really hasn’t the past few ones either. Downsides of getting older, eh?
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.
Our last day in Dubai was amazing and was over so fast. We started the day at Kite Beach. It was a beautiful and warm day, we spent some time in the water and it was just awesome! We got back to the hotel at 1pm and we actually had time to take a taxi to Deira City Center and crossed our fingers that that Max hadn’t closed down as well. And it hadn’t. We ordered a normal Frisco meal with fries. They said they had Crispy Fries but it was not the same as in Sweden. The Burger wasn’t the same either. But it was still worth it.
We got back to the hotel and had time to pack everything before we got picked up for the desert safari. A humongous Toyota Land Cruiser. It was the two of us and another Indian family of four. The first stop was at a Dune Buggy place, it wasn’t included in the package and none of us went. Then we went straight out in the desert, the road just ended and there were so many cars! We all went in a long line and it was a bumpy ride. I guess I should have known, but I was surprised at how bumpy it was, I felt sick. We then stopped for some pictures in the desert, the sun was setting and it was beautiful. It was windy and we had sand everywhere, but it was nice. We then took normal roads (and at the end in the dunes) to reach a camp that was set up in the desert. It looked like a small small circular city where there were small stalls where we could pick up starters, coffe, tea, sodas and then later a buffet table. The food was okay and I guess the closest to the Arabian culture. We sat on pillows on the ground and in the middle of the whole camp was a stage where people danced. Right outside of the camp there were two camels that we could ride as well. That was scary, especially when it rose and lied down.
We got back to the hotel at around 9:30 pm and the taxi came and picked us up at 11pm to go to the airport. The flight would take off at 2 am, but it was delayed and we didn’t take off until 3am. And also because of winds the plane had to take a detour over Poland and make a landing to refuel. And that meant that we lost a lot of time and therefore missed our connection flight in Stockholm. We landed when it took off at 8:30am. The next Norwegian flight that we didn’t have to pay anything for was at 5:45 pm. We could book with SAS, but that would have been expensive, so we stayed at the airport the whole day instead of being home with Cleo and chilling. In total we stayed up for 40 hours with a few hours of bad sleep in the plane from Dubai to Stockholm. It was brutal. I am still tired, even if I got a good amount of sleep last night. I guess it can also be because I spent two hours this morning playing beach volleyball. We were only 4 people there so it was a lot of practice time. I was dead afterward.
I am still not 100% recovered, but I have a full day of just doing nothing at home tomorrow which is good, but then on Monday, school starts again.
Today was a big day. After practice I met up with Jesper downtown and we picked up the scratch map we left for framing before we left, we then bought a frame for the pictures we bought in Dubai, and our last stop was Webhallen where I bought a new eReader. My old one was drenched when my water bottle leaked last Thursday on my way to practice. Too bad, that was a good eReader and they are not sold anymore. So instead of a Sony, I now have a Kobo Glo HD which has light in the screen which is a huge plus! It actually seems like a really cool eReader and much more complex than my old one. I think I will like it.
And then we made an even bigger purchase, we got Cleo a Friend! He looks almost exactly like her, but he is fluffier and a boy and 1.5 months younger. He is adorable, and didn’t complain at all when we drove him home. He was curious and then fell asleep. When we got home Cleo was super curious about this new little guy. But she is very rough with him, playing all the time, refusing to leave him alone and he is much smaller than she and can’t defend himself. I guess she is making sure that he knows that she is in charge here, but she is kinda overdoing it. I know that she is very playful, but I hope she will calm down and not be so rough with him, he is just a baby! But I guess in a month or so he will be as big and will be able to hit her back. They have slept together twice, but as soon as nap time is over they are fighting again. I really hope this will calm down soon and that Cleo won’t hate us because we brought a smaller cat here. All of last week she was with mom and her two cats and apparently she was all over them there. She would never leave the two oldies alone so we thought a friend for her at home would be nice too. But I don’t think she realizes that the cat she played with most at mom’s was 8kg, while she was only 1.7kg and this new one can’t be more than 1.2kg. We will let the small one sleep with us tonight with a closed door and Cleo on her climbing tree and hope she will behave better tomorrow.
We don’t have a name yet, so if you have any suggestions for a fluffy red boy, let me know.
It is so beautiful in Gothenburg right now! It is kinda sad that we missed this last week when it was this much snow. Unfortunately tomorrow it will be above freezing and therefore everything will melt…
On our way to Orust through Winter Wonderland to get our new family member.
And here he is!
At first she followed him around like an extra tail.
And then she started to get rough and play with him.
One nap was okay and they were like siblings lying there. And then there was some more fighting…
And another nap, closer this time! And then some more fighting.
And lastly before they went their seperate ways to sleep in different locations, Cleo washed him. Cute! I think this will work out, we just have to give them time (especially for him to grow more).
Bemm 