QBVT #3 Elliott Heads

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,

QBVT #2 Surfers Paradise

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!

Birthday celebrations of a friend

Last weekend, we were invited to a full day of birthday celebrations of a friend that I met through beach volleyball. I think all of our friends so far are through beach volley. It’s such a friendly community and very easy to meet new people.

Saturday was such a beautiful day, around 25C, no clouds, slight breeze. Just perfect conditions! First, a bunch of us met up down in Coolangatta to hang out by the beach and of course play beach volleyball. I only used sunscreen twice in the morning, and actually got a little bit red on my shoulders, but that was gone by Sunday. The sun is very strong. The UV index has been around 3-4 these past three months, but now it has increased to 7. I have started to wear a hat! I usually hate hats. But I will definitely be a full-blown straw hat person by the time summer arrives. Of course, we also went into the water which was incredible! The ocean was so calm today and the boogie board was of no use. Although people wanted to swim out to the whales with it, but never did.

The morning was perfect in itself. Sun, warmth, ocean, beach volley. But what made it truly magical was the extreme amount of whales swimming so close to shore. I started seeing them as soon as we arrived at 8:30am and they just didn’t go away. At one point, there were a couple who were so active that one of the guys brought out his drone and filmed them from above. And that was just so cool! I have posted the video he sent us on my Instagram highlights (down under) and also added a few screenshots from it at the bottom of this post.

We had lunch at 4 Pines and then drove to Pickleball up in Miami. I’ve never played pickleball and the reason it became popular during covid was that there were specific rules about very specific sports you couldn’t play. And pickleball wasn’t a part of them, even if the court is smaller than tennis and you are two people playing together. Funny how rule works. Anyway, it is like tennis, but you play with rackets that look like they came from the beach game and you also hit a floorball, plastic one with holes in it. My still twisted ankle (after 2,5 months!) didn’t like it. But it was kinda fun. Very specific rules, but I think I got a hang of it eventually.

Last stop of the day, was a BBQ at Daisy and Arthur’s (one of two birthday boys). Our very first Australian BBQ. Super nice!

Really fun day with fun people 😊☀️

These are screenshots from the drone video Jack shot. MAGICAL!

Moon rising

Two nights ago, I saw something I’ve never seen before. A red burning moon rising over the horizon. During social games in Surfers on Wednesday like normal, I had to stop during a game and ask my partner what that dim red thing was on the horizon, it looked like a big red boat, which was weird. She got super excited, almost jumped and screamed: “that’s the moon!!”. And yeah, it was the incredible moon rising and getting brighter by the second as it rose above the horizon. We had to take a time out and take lots of pictures of it. Holy shit! It was magical! It lost most of its red color the higher it got, but it was so beautiful. Apparently it’s not too uncommon here.

The pictures of me about to serve was taken by Shanon, the guy in charge of Volleyball in Paradise.

Kirra

Four weeks down under has gone by so fast and we have made our first move. We left our tiny granny flat in Mermaid Waters this morning and took an Uber down to Kirra in Coolangatta, the most southern part of Gold Coast. It only took 30 min, but when we are standing on the beach here and watch the skyline, it looks so far away.

I got one last beach session in with Cici and Katja at Surfer’s and we all had lead legs for some reason. Might be the cold. It’s really cold right now in the mornings. The sunrise was incredible as usual and I’m not even sad to have alarms set at 4:45am when I get to start my day with 1,5h of beach volley practice while the sun is rising.

Mikael and I cleaned out the AirBnB and had the luxury of checking in at the next place as soon as we arrived. And what a place! We have a room in a two bedroom apartment on the top floor. We are staying here through a friend of a friend of a friend and she matched us up with another friend of hers that plays beach volleyball as well. But she doesn’t seem to come until the end of the month so we have this two story apartment to ourselves for a bit. We can see the ocean from both balconies and it is super cosy with ocean theme.

Bye granny flat!

We packed up and then went out to explore a bit. It is truly beautiful here. Much calmer, not as many and not as high skyscrapers and they are not as tight together. We had lunch at Haig St Cafe and Restaurant and wow, we are definitely going back. Everything on the menu looked incredible!

We walked past the beach volleyball nets, walked all the way down to New South Wales and then a quick shopping on the way back. Right in Coolangatta, there is a state line which means that we walked to NSW today. Pretty cool!

The public restrooms are really nice here! Our first koala! Central Gold Coast looks so far away. QLD and NSW boarder.

The sunset on the way back was amazing! We are a bit further east than the rest of the Gold Coast, so we saw the skyline being lit up by purple and the sun set behind the mountains. Even if the sun sets behind land, it still colors the sky amazingly!

More beach volleyball

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!

Tons of beach volleyball

This cold of mine is not getting better, not even with DayQuil. I definitely would have stayed home from work with this, but since I am in California and don’t want to miss out on anything I am pushing myself through, pretending I am not too sick. It was perhaps a bit stupid to play a lot of beach volleyball today for example. But I had so much fun. And honestly, it was cold sitting by watching. It was very overcast and perfect weather for beach volleyball. One of the Elin’s made a friend the day I was at WSP and we met up with him and a friend of his. This friend had supposedly lived in Sweden for 3 years but when we met him, he had the Stockholm accent and told us he had lived in Sweden since he was three years old and in California the past year. He was born in Iran. He was nice and we had a great day of more than 4 hours of play. I didn’t play all of that time, I took breaks.

The Swedish guy then accompanied us for the rest of the afternoon and we sat down for lunch together in Huntington. Poke bowls and they were so good! He then showed us a super cool bar called Bungalow which was basically many living rooms put together. Just couches and even fireplaces. Such a cool and cozy bar! And then some shopping in Huntington and we ran into a crowd of Trump -followers who screamed straight out at people with other backgrounds than themselves that they should go to hell and all kinds of horrible things. I got so surprised. Does that seriously happen?? In California? So scary!!

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ur night plans were Cheesecake Factory. The whole gang was gathered all 9,5 of us. Me, the two Elin’s, Miriam, our two hosts, Miriam’s brother and sister and her husband and kid. It was such a nice evening but now my stomach hurts, so bad. So much food! But it was worth it, so delicious!

We spent half an hour in the jacuzzi with some champagne in Panda Express cups. The day couldn’t have ended better! Now I feel feverish and will get some proper good nights sleep. I hope I will feel better tomorrow when me and Elin W is going up to SLO. I am so excited to go back there as well. This whole vacation has been a trip down memory lane. I really like California, this is home.

First swim of the year

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.

Desert Safari and kitten

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.

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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.

IMG_20160123_084335 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…IMG_20160123_202715 IMG_20160123_154332 On our way to Orust through Winter Wonderland to get our new family member.20160123_160720 And here he is!IMG_20160123_161427 20160123_171819 IMG_20160123_172848 At first she followed him around like an extra tail.IMG_20160123_173506 IMG_20160123_182218 IMG_20160123_182238 IMG_20160123_182938 And then she started to get rough and play with him.IMG_20160123_192222 IMG_20160123_204006 IMG_20160123_200624 One nap was okay and they were like siblings lying there. And then there was some more fighting…IMG_20160123_212153 And another nap, closer this time! And then some more fighting.20160123_224346And 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).

Bvball, surfing, Fair, Cinépolis

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Wow, what a weekend. I am exhausted out of my mind, but what a fun and eventful weekend. Yesterday was a long day and it started with 3 hours of beach volleyball at South Mission Beach. I didn’t play well at all in the beginning, but I got better and I had a great time. Next up was surfing at La Jolla Shores, we were in the water for 2 hours. I have definitely surfed better, but I blame the waves this time, they were really bad. But I caught some and stood up for at least a few seconds every now and then. I thought it was fun.

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Third stop of the day was La Jolla Cove. I was hoping to see lots of sea lions like almost exactly two years ago. But we saw just a few. The whole cliff area was changed, and maybe that’s why they left? I hope they were just playing underwater instead, I would be so happy if I could see some while scuba diving this week.

Back to the hotel to shower, then off to San Diego County Fair where we walked around for a couple of hours. It was pretty much exactly the same as two years ago, but it was fun. There were many animals, both small and big, endless with food stands and everything else that has to do with a fair.

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Worth mentioning is that yesterday was my big day of luck when it comes to parking. Four times in a day we were extremely lucky and got one of the best spots on four very busy locations. Fist in Mission Beach, then La Jolla Shores, then La Jolla Cove, and at the Fair. I definitely used all my parking luck in one day, so that won’t ever happen again.

At 11pm we left the fair and drove to Del Mar where we spent two hours watching Jurassic World. A great movie, and a great experience watching it at a luxury cinema. The movie started at midnight and was about two hours long. Got back to the hotel at 2:30am and the alarm went off at 6:30 today. You could say that I was tired. And all I did today was play a beach volleyball tournament in Mission Beach. It was a draw 4 vs 4 tournament and I had so much fun all day with some of the people from bvball at South Mission Beach yesterday. You had a partner throughout the first four games and played with a different coed couple in each game. I played with a guy named Bart, and the first game we lost really bad, but we won the last three. I was the setter and everyone loved my sets, and I have to say that they were pretty damn good today! And very many people I’ve never met before acknowledged that, it made me happy.

I was apparently one of the better players with most points in the whole tournament, so after the group plays, the best players in the epic division (the better one) got a buy (was that how it was called?) which means that I automatically won the first game in the playoff. Then there was the awesome division (the not as good division) and the best people in that one won there too. Unfortunately I had to wait for at least two hours before playing the semifinal with a new bunch of people. I had lost it, we were rotating (instead of me setting the whole game), and we lost with 25-17 (we were playing one set to 25). But I am not too sad about it, I was very tired at the end. Michael drove me up to Carlsbad where he helped me in with my suitcases. We said goodbye and I took a shower. I am embarrassed to say that I very much forgot about sunscreen today. It was so cloudy today (June Gloom) and not very warm. It was fine to play in shorts and a tank top. But anyway, I got so burned! My shoulders and especially my face. That sunglass tan is never going away now. It looks horrible…

I have lots of aloe vera on it, so I hope it will at least be better tomorrow. I don’t know what I will do yet tomorrow, I might go to Victoria’s Secret to buy some underwear, I will definitely sleep in first though. I will need a lot of sleep now. And now, I am in bed, and will watch the season finale of Game of Thrones!