Due to the ever changing weather in SEQ QLD, we decided to take a last minute mini camping vacation up north to Noosa Heads where we hadn’t been before. It was both the perfect and worst day for it.
Continue readingDue to the ever changing weather in SEQ QLD, we decided to take a last minute mini camping vacation up north to Noosa Heads where we hadn’t been before. It was both the perfect and worst day for it.
Continue readingThis 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,
One night of planned camping spontaneously turned into two nights because we were too spontaneous and didn’t look up availability for the whale watching we wanted to do. All good though, we got a really good weekend out of it down in Byron Bay. It can be divided into four parts and there will be an equal amount of posts because one will be way too long:
After the market, it was still early, so we drove down to Killen Falls in the Country of Widjabul. It was an easy trek to the top of the fall, but a little bit rougher to go down to the bottom of the fall. Not impossible, but steep and lots of roots and rocks. Apparently there could be platypi, but we didn’t see any.
I had almost forgotten about my favorite animal when I was a kid, the platypus! We (I !) was looking really hard for them in the water, but we saw none. I have been too focused on the most obvious animals since moving here, the roos and koalas. 
Rainforest is so beautiful! 
Our setup for the night at Broken Head Holiday Park. Such a pretty caravan park. Very clean, super close to the beach. Only $53 per night. Really good spot. Falling asleep to the sound of crashing waves was nice. It was cold though, haha! But as soon as you get the heat up inside our queen-sized sleeping bag, it’s really comfy! 
It’s so dark here. So little street lighting which makes the stars super visible at night.
One night of planned camping spontaneously turned into two nights because we were too spontaneous and didn’t look up availability for the whale watching we wanted to do. All good though, we got a really good weekend out of it down in Byron Bay. It can be divided into four parts and there will be an equal amount of posts because one will be way too long:
Our first stop for this tiny road trip was the Brunswick Heads Market in Brunswick. We were lucky to find a parking spot reasonably close. People were crazy and even if they nicely waited in line for a spot, there were not as nice people rushing in to take their spot before them. It was crazy!
At the market, they had live music, lots of food stalls and anything you can imagine would be at a monthly farmer’s market in Brunswick which is very similar to Byron Bay vibe-wise. People were walking barefoot, dogs everywhere and it was just a cosy feeling. For lunch, Mikael had a German bratwurst and I had a falafel pocket. Very yummy!
After the market, we went to Torakina Beach, which was where we parked and out on the pier by the Brunswick River inlet. The waves there were insane and there were several signs saying how dangerous the water was there. Still, people were surfing there.
After the market, I got a magpie friend. It was looking at me from ALL angles and finally got himself a little treat from my banana lotti desert from the middle eastern food stall. 
Torakina Beach to the left and the inlet to the right. Two stone laid piers were on each side.
The beach to the south and Byron Bay. The lighthouse is way back there. 
24 February 21:02
It feels great to be back on solid ground and in an airconditioned hotel room. But doing this small excursion to remote islands was really great!
The whole trip was of course organized but due to low tide and other things, it felt like they were winging most of it, haha. We were delayed from Malapascua for 1,5h but I don’t think that would have made a huge difference with the tides. The tides are honestly not something I understand, I thought I did, but apparently they are not on cycles.
We got the impression that this trip was all about having a nice time, spending the night at the beach, stargazing, watching the full moon, sit by the bonfire, listen to live music and watch fire dancers. But both Mikael and I got a bit wary at the briefing when a few people only had two questions; will there be beer and will it be cold. You see where this is going, right? Basically the whole trip there was people being drunk and loud.
There were drums on the boat which was very cool. They were so good and it was effectful to leave Bounty Beach to the sound of drums.
Before really leaving Malapascua, we stopped at the north end of the island to go snorkeling for a bit. Mikael gave up when his mask kept fogging up. But my mask managed better and I stayed in for a bit. The snorkeling at Lapus Lapus was really great! The bottom was full of mostly soft corals and so many fishes!
Galaxy
The next stop was the very local island of Carnaza where we would spend the night on one of the beaches. Due to the low tide, the big boat couldn’t get all the way in to the shore, so we had dinner on the boat after watching the sunset. It was a bit cloudy so the sunset wasn’t extraordinary. On the complete opposite side of the boat was the full moon already visible. That was kinda cool!
Carneza Island
Dinner was traditional Filipino style, served on big banana leaves and eaten with your hands. Very strange to eat with your hands, I’m sure it takes some technique to get that right also.
The low tide wasn’t going anywhere so eventually we got two local fishing boats acting as taxis for all of us 18 passengers, taking two at a time. These boats are super tiny and only supposed to carry one person. So when me and Mikael both went on, there were very few cm left of the boat above the surface. Scary stuff! Also it was really dark. Exciting! Some people swam to shore.
After all of us came to land, the big boat was light enough to cruise over the corals and dock on the beach so we could get everything on land. We set up tents, started the fire, and the owner of the restaurant who organized this trip gathered everyone who wanted to join for a shaman ceremony on the beach. I joined on the side by meditating/sleeping on the coral-y sand. That calmed everyone down! That took about an hour and after that it was live music and firedancing. Not long after that, these two introverts went to their tiny, tiny tent to sleep. But first we watched some bioluminescense further down on the beach. It was not much but it was there!
Normally, that tent would have been too small for me, I couldn’t lie straight in it. But we both managed to fit somehow. We were not prepared just getting a tent from the organizers, so we had nothing to lie on except two beach towels. The sand was full of corals and very hard, but we still managed to sleep pretty well, even if it was a game of human tetris when we needed to switch.
The full moon was incredible! I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a full moon like this before. It was so bright, we cast very distinct shadows, almost like in daylight. I tried taking pictures but it was hard. Full moon with basically no light pollution was something truly magical.
The next morning, today, we woke up with the sunlight. Breakfast was served by the water, sandwiches, ginger tea and incredible local fruit such as mango and banana. So good! But best was the homemade peanut butter. The local peanuts are much sweeter than what we are used to.
The tide was super low this morning so the boat had gone out during the night. We spent some time at the beach, I was reading a bit, sitting in the water. Such a nice morning! While Mikael was meditating, he got a local friend in the size of a child with a toy gun who just sat next to him when he was breathing, haha! I have to say (maybe again), but wow, the kids here are adorable! They are so happy to see tourists, so friendly, curious, polite, asking for our names and welcoming us to the island and so on. I love it! When we eventually left, there were so many kids saying bye and waving us off. Just amazing!
The village on Carneza
The beach we slept on.
The next stop of the trip was the extremely small island of Lamanok which apparently doesn’t even exist according to Google Maps. The owner’s friend lives on it. There were some people fishing right outside the island when we arrived, they were surrounding fish and scaring them into the net. It looked very interesting but probably worth it.
We also saw a caravan of small fishing boats on the way and we stopped in the middle of the ocean to buy some extremely local octopus from them. So funny!
The island is basically just two rocks with a coral beach in between. Really beautiful but I really don’t like these beaches that are made up of dead corals. It’s like walking on Lego, but worse. We went into the water quick, took some pictures and then we had a lunch similar to dinner last night on the boat again. It was so good!
Lamanok Island
The trip back to Malapascua took around two hours. Everyone was so tired and most people slept. I read! Mikael slept and had a company in the form of the owner’s big wolf-like dog, Galaxy. It was so cute when they were sitting together.
Back at the hotel, we took a well-needed shower, got dressed and walked over to Tepanee resort to watch the sunset before heading to Villa Potenciana for dinner on the beach. Magical noodles with homemade bread was incredible!
Two very long days and we are so tired now again. Tomorrow is our last full day on the island! I hope we get to max it out before leaving on Monday morning. I am ready to go home, we both miss the cats a lot. But at the same time, I’m so inspired by everyone I’ve talked to on this trip who just travels the world right now. I’m jealous. Our two weeks felt puny compared to their 3, 6, 8 months trips around Asia mostly. Why didn’t I do that when I was younger?
The Swedish summer has finally arrived. Just in time for everyone to have gotten back to work again. It sucks a little bit, but better late than never, I guess. My first week back at work was great. Not too many people, I had things to do and had a relaxing and quiet start. The weekend offered amazing weather and Mikael and I were invited to a cozy little house by the lake of Hjälmaren that his family had rented for the week.
Three and a half hour drive after getting up super early on Saturday, we arrived in Örebro where his grandma and grandpa’s widow had no idea we were coming or what we were doing that day. Surprises are fun. We spent three hours on a cute boat going around the canal of Örebro and then had lunch out on open water in Hjälmaren (is it called open water when the average depth is 1.5 meters?). It was hot! Sweat was inevitable but it didn’t matter. It was such a nice little trip. And I am so surprised about Örebro. What a nice city! The water, old architecture, the castle. I had no idea! And the lake, the water might not have been very nice, but what a beautiful lake with rocky shores and green trees right on the shores.
Swimming was the main attraction as soon as we could after the boat trip. There was a nice little pier out into the lake where we were staying. The water was muddy and I didn’t even let my feet down to touch the bottom, but I was told that you sunk knee deep if you stood up. Ugh. We also had a friendly snake swimming with us. Harmless, but nonetheless scary when it swam straight for us and cut us off from the ladder that would take us to safety.
It was such a lovely day. It was great meeting so many members of his family. His aunt and her husband with their dog had driven their camper up from Germany now that Sweden finally was open to visit for them, his mom and sister were there as well as was his grandma and the widow of his grandpa. Who are getting along really well. His family is interesting :). And very friendly and easy-going. I got lucky there as well.
His family from Germany slept in the camper, the rest occupied the whole (and very tiny century-old house) so we set up our tent right next to the water on the farmer’s property. He had sheep and hens but we still managed to sleep a good eight hours without being woken up. How? It was very cold during the night though. We were frozen, the one’s in the house had the opposite problem. Don’t know who had it worse, haha!
On our way home to Gothenburg the next day, we stopped at a limestone quarry, Kvinnersta Kalkbrott, to go for a swim. We visited it quickly after the boat tour but we didn’t dive in and saved it for Sunday. I thought the quarries up in Sala were cool. They are. But this one was so even, the edges very straight. The water was super clear and had a comfortable temperature. It was perfect. (Also as it was in Sala two summers ago)
It was a great weekend, I have savored every moment of it! ❤
The end of this year’s summer vacation is over and I can without a doubt say that it had been the worst summer ever, weather-wise. It has not been above 20 C for four weeks. Maybe a couple degrees a few days. But not nearly for long enough to go out swimming. I have not been in the ocean this vacation! It saddens me a lot to not feel that I have gotten enough vitamin D and ocean salt that will last me this upcoming long fall. It has however, been a really really nice vacation anyway. I’ve gotten my rest after this springs very unusual and stressful spring. I have spent almost every day, in some way, with my boyfriend who made this summer the best yet.
This last weekend actually offered a couple of really nice days, so we seized the moment and packed his car and went out camping. We’ve been trying twice before this July but first encountered a newly bought tent with missing pegs and second didn’t find a site where we could raise the tent. Third time’s the charm. And what a charming trip it was. Mikael received a recommendation from a coworker and it turned out to be a gem. We were all alone, perfect spot by a lake and it was so beautiful.
We raised the tent, took a short swim in the lake, cooked dinner over the gas kitchen and then slept through a night of no sounds whatsoever. It was so quiet and peaceful! Except that time when I woke up at 5am to hear a very weird sound. A lynx wandering on the other side of the lake, walking away from us. It was so amazing!
I really hope we’ll get the opportunity to do this again soon! I loved every second of it <3.
WordPress has done something new, adding a gallery to a post, so I thought I should try it out. Click the images down below to see them all and in full.
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.
This whole weekend has been amazing. Lots and lots of things happened. And Poly Escapes gave me what it promised, a weekend away from Cal Poly, a weekend with no worries about school. But the weekend started way before that. Friday was full of fun things, like my errand trip with Kelsey. We returned a pair of Kelsey’s shoes, bought “costumes” for the frat party (Kelsey bought a Jane-like dress and I bought face paint), I got a gel manicure, we went to the post office so I could send a little something to one of my hostkids who turn 11 in five days and a thing for my brother, we picked up our Poly Escapes rentals, and went to the Health Center to leave my proof of vaccination (which isn’t even necessary since I won’t be here more than one academic year, but I still did it since they asked). It was a long run, many stops, but not more than four hours in total. We also did some snacks shopping for the trip. I always bring too much to trips, but better safe than sorry.
This is what my nails look like after two days of surfing. Good job “@Nails”.
Back home I made two mudpies (=kladdkaka), one normal chocolate but also a white chocolate one. Apparently it was the Swedish national mudpie day. So I made two and they were delicious and very popular.
My plan after that was to study some, but that didn’t work out. I had to take a quick shower and then get ready for the party. I went to Phi Psi’s pledge party (the pledges organized the whole party) with a jungle theme. It was a great party, the decorations were awesome. The costumes not as much. I think I went most all-in with my tiger face paint. Other people just wore clothes with animal fur designs. The guys were Tarzan or just any other jungle dude. I got a lot of compliments but the hot house smudged it out later… I had a great evening but a little bit too much to drink. We were planning on taking it easy since we were going on the surf trip early the day after. And we stayed way late, but it was so much fun! I like that frat.
I was just invited to another frat party tomorrow night, the one Luka, the Swedish guy from Chalmers, joined. It would be fun, but I think I have too much studying to do… We’ll see.
I slept for I think two or three hours before going on the trip yesterday morning. Not the best thing I could have done, but it was worth it. We left Cal Poly at 9 am, got to Mondo’s Beach north of Ventura at 11am and started surfing right away. I felt a bit nauseous, but I still managed to catch one or two waves. It was hard, the waves just died under all of us. I didn’t manage to stand up, only half stand one time. But it was still very fun. We had lunch break and I ate my whole footlong Subway sandwhich. Then we went out again. So much fun. But the small hangover mixed with waves and salt water wasn’t the best and I did feel a bit crappy, but it was still very enjoyable. I got some nice pictures with my GoPro as well. We played a game where we put all of our surfboards together so they formed like a boardwalk. Then one at a time ran across them all and jumped in at the end. It was hard! Then it was time to go to the camp site which was up in Carpinteria, like 20 minutes away. It was a nice camp site very close to the water. We made a fire, the leaders made amazing dinner for all of us, chicken wok with pineapple and rice. Very very fancy and good camp food! We even got desert, homemade brownie and homemade ice cream. So delicious! Before we ate though, we took a walk on the beach in the sunset. It was so beautiful. The beach was really wet so the sunset was reflected in both the water and the sand and made the sunset enormous. So very very pretty! But this was at 5:30pm so it was both dark and chilly for many hours before bedtime.
Most of our group. We were 4 leaders and 8 trip-takers. 
Johanna. 
Success with my GoPro. This will be so much fun in the Caribbean. 
Julianne and me at Carpinteria Beach. 
I love this picture of Kelsey! 
The sunset was truly amazing! 
The kitchen we had at the pitch-dark camp site.
After the desert, we played games and sang campfire songs with a guitar. So nice. But I was so tired so I couldn’t stop thinking about going to bed, which we did at 10pm, not too late which was good.
The games we played were so much fun. One of them was called Interview. One person left the group, the others decided on a person and an action that the person who left were supposed to be. When the person who left came back we all asked questions, the guy answered the questions without knowing the answers and was gonna try and figure out who he/she was. Tigger flossing his teeth made some very funny questions. Does it hurt? Do you bleed when you do it? Do you do it in the morning, or evening? Does things stuck? What do you do best? Haha, so much fun. Another game we played was a game of questions. One person asked another one a random question and the other person answered with the first thing that came to mind. And then that answer would be the answer to all the questions asked after. Everyone could ask anything. And I mean anything. The person had to answer with that same answer but without laughing. When the person laughed that person asked a random question to someone else and it started over. Like if someone had the word Tortilla. What do you put in your burrito? Tortilla. What turns you on? Tortillas. With what do you brush your teeth? Tortillas. And so on. Hilarious!! Another very funny game we played was rapid questions. We sat in a circle and one person started by asking the next person a random question, it could be exactly anything. Then the next person is supposed to ask another question to the next person, without answering, laughing, hesitating or repeating a question. If you do, you’re out and the game goes on until there is only one left. Also very funny and a lot of laughs!
I decided to sleep in a tent tonight. Four people in each tent and I slept like a baby through the whole night. Some people, like Kelsey, slept under the stars. It would have been cool, but I wanted a good night’s sleep. I woke up a few times from the very noisy train, but fell asleep fast again. We got up at 7am, got served breakfast; scrambled eggs, bananas, sausage patties, Canadian bacon and tea. Yummy!
Back to the beach where we started our day with a yoga session on the beach. Very needed! Then 1.5 hour in the water before going to lunch in Ventura. We went to a tacos places in East Ventura and the shrimp/crab/avocado burrito I had was the best burrito I’ve ever had. Oh my gosh!! Ventura by the way is so pretty. I was in love with North Country San Diego before seeing Ventura. But now I totally feel like I want to move to Ventura in the future. Then the two hour trip started back home. I fell asleep for a little while but it was hard staying asleep. I will go to bed as soon as I am done with this super long post and get around 8 hours of sleep before a full day of studying tomorrow. I think I am gonna have to survive on caffeine pills this week if I am gonna have time to do everything on my to do list for the midterms on Thursday.
I got home, had some mudpie, talked to my roommates, looked at the GoPro pictures and uploaded the best to Facebook and now I just found myself a travel companion for Jamaica. Yay! It is a guy I got to know in Los Angeles last year, who now lives in San Francisco. That will be fun.
Now I just have to convince my mom to come to Puerto Rico and someone else to Dominican Republic, or maybe mom there too. The flight between DR and PR is very cheap and so is the accommodation costs (which will be my Christmas gift to her, and maybe some of the flight cost too). I am crossing my fingers. But I know that I will have a great time anyway.
I don’t look forward to this week, it will be horrible. But this upcoming weekend will probably be as good as the last one after the midterms. No worries, just fun activities like Six Flags and skydiving! Yay!
Two long days are at its end and I could probably fall asleep standing if I just let myself. Yesterday after work me and Chad went to Landvetter to camp for a night. We found a nice spot right next to a lake, put up the tent and everything and then went in the water before the sun set. It wasn’t cold at all in the water but I didn’t want to stay in for too long, it would have been very cold when the sun was gone. We had dinner after that, some cold cuts and a tuna/bacon/pasta salad which were both really good. And when you are camping you have to make a fire, so we did that too and sat by it until we ran out of firewood. Spent a short while on the beach after that and watched the starry sky. We even saw a few shooting stars. Very romantic!
I slept until 9am and I couldn’t go back to sleep so I read for an hour until Chad woke up. We slept very comfortable on two air matresses tightly put together and with a sheet on top of it it looked like a real bed. Surprisingly comfy.
This was the view over the sunset from our tent. Sweden is so beautiful!
After that our big mission was to get all of his stuff to my place. So first we packed the last of his things, rented a van and drove all of it to my place. It didn’t take that long but it was rough. And especially in this heat and with his heavy couch that we put in my basement. I am gonna be so sore in my arms and hands tomorrow.
The whole evening we have been unpacking and I have packed most of my clothes. I am just gonna stay in Sweden for a little more than a month so I might as well pack most of it now when he needs somewhere to put his clothes too.
We aren’t completely done yet, but we’re getting there. It probably will be done tomorrow, at least I hope so. I think I will go to bed now, I am starting to see double…
Bemm 