Tag Archives: dinner out

Tourist in San Francisco

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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.

Two days are over in San Francisco and I am so tired from all the walking. But we have seen a lot. Yesterday Patrick and I met up with Helena, Nicki and our host Jacob for brunch at a place close to his place on Chestnut Street. Then we all took a walk down to the water, looked at the Golden Gate Bridge (it was not foggy so I could actually see it this time), then went to Palace of Fine Arts and back to his place. So we are couchsurfing now, if I never said that before. My first time doing it and it is nice that we are two girls (three until tonight). It is free and we literally sleeps on a guy’s couch. It’s a new experience.

After that Patrick had to leave and the rest of us hang in the apartment for an hour or so before we decided to explore the city some more. We took an uber to Haight-Ashbury Street. This is where hippies used to live, but then got replaces with vintage boutiques, cafés and restaurants. Still a lot of “hippies” though, lots of weed and smoke stores. We kept on walking from there to The Golden Gate Park. We just walked in a little part of it and then walked all the way to the Painted Ladies six houses painted in different colors. It was not as grandeur as it looks on pictures (that does not happen often, now does it?). We were so exhausted all of us, so we sat down on the grass for a while, watching all the funny tourists taking weird photos in front of the houses.

We then took an uber back to the apartment and got ready to go out to dinner. All of us went to Cheesecake Factory at Union Square for dinner. They were out of my favorite Farfalle with chicken and roasted garlic, so I took my second favorite, the Roasted pear and bleu cheese flatbread. We all shared a Red Velvet Cheesecake afterward. So delicious. Our last stop for the day was a bar called Bacchus Kirk. I played pool against Jacob, won surprisingly! Had a drink, petted the dogs in the bar (SF is a dog city so dogs are everywhere here and apparently allowed in some bars).

 

Today was all about the piers and wharfs and Alcatraz. Pier 39 was fun as usual, watched the sea lions. Then we walked to Pier 33 and picked up our tickets for Alcatraz later in the afternoon and then walked all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf. It was not that far, but many small trips make a long distance. We walked around, went to Ghiradelli Square. It would have been so cool to sit down in the Ghiradelli “restaurant”, but we just walked through. That chocolate is really good.

On our way back to Pier 33 we stopped at Ben & Jerry’s for milkshakes. Yummy!

We were the first to board the boat out to the island and it only took us 12 minutes. We pretty much just did an audio tour, walked around to watch the SF skyline and then back. We then met up with Jacob at Union Square for dinner at Burger Bar. I made my own burger with avocado, bacon, caramelized onions and cranberry sauce. Very good.

Straight back to the apartment and now I am so ready for bed!

PANO_20150321_124109 Golden Gate Bridge.PANO_20150321_125729 Palace of Fine Arts.IMG_20150321_131006 Turtles at PoFA.IMG_20150321_151219 Haight/Ashbury Street.IMG_20150321_160845 Golden Gate Park.IMG_20150321_164032 IMG_20150321_163603 PANO_20150321_165923 Painted Ladies.PANO_20150321_234203 Union Square.IMG_20150321_234740Hearts all over SF (no idea why).IMG_20150322_003236Bacchus Kirk bar.

Snapchat--4904785948224871176The super cute and fluffy dog in the bar. IMG_20150322_014626Palace of Fine Arts at night. IMG_20150322_132514 Pier 39.IMG_20150322_131655 Packed sealions at Pier 39.IMG_20150322_140328 Alcatraz in the arch where they loaded the prisoners.IMG_20150322_140801 Fisherman’s Wharf.IMG_20150322_142137 Ghiradelli Square.IMG_20150322_152917 Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz island.IMG_20150322_153038 Alcatraz.IMG_20150322_165001 Hospital inside Alcatraz.IMG_20150322_155447 Showers inside Alcatraz.IMG_20150322_160302 “Broadway”. So many cells!! There were four aisles (only two with cells on both sides).IMG_20150322_161027 6 confinement cells.IMG_20150322_161231 The library.IMG_20150322_161953 A normal and “decorated” cell.IMG_20150322_163225 There was an escape in March 1963, three inmates dug themselves out with spoons and climbed up a shaft behind this wall up to the roof and supposedly swam somewhere. No bodies where ever found so no one knows if they survived the very treacherous one mile long swim to the main land.PANO_20150322_165947Bay Bridge, San Francisco skyline, and Golden Gate Bridge seen from Alcatraz.

Last final of spring quarter

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I am done done with all of the work this quarter. Last final done today and I was a bit worried to be honest. We were watching a movie in German (Annie Scholl: Die Letzte Tage) and then discussed it in class afterwards. I am so bad at analyzing movies, but I had one input afterwards and I hope that means I will get an A. I don’t know how this type of final will be graded. The movie was a very sad one and a lot of people were crying, including the teacher. It was intense. After the final was done, I went home and watched the new episode of The Flash. It’s been on a break for the past three weeks and this episode was so full of things happening all the time! The Flash can travel in time? And lots of other stuff, but I am not gonna spoil anything. For dinner we went to Firestone and I was so stoked about that. But they were out of pulled pork so now I feel like I filled up on unnecessary calories and wasted money. Good thing I will maybe walk it off tomorrow morning when we are hiking up the highest peak here in SLO to watch the sunrise. I can’t believe it took me six months to actually do that hike, haha. Since I have to get up at 5am I should probably go to bed now. Or at least try, it’s never quiet here with so many people over.

First day of finals week

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This quarter’s finals week started off good. I got some stuff done, like finished my part of the group project about the bus routes here in SLO. That felt good. I sent some emails, finished writing the definitions of some concepts for my Urban Planning final tomorrow. And that is it. I missed the beautiful day, but I was in a weird mood today anyway.

So, tomorrow I have the final in Introduction to Urban Planning, but it is not exactly a final since it is not cumulative. It’s gonna be 50 questions, mostly multiple choice. I already have an A in that class so I am not too worried about this. And on Wednesday I have the German final, but I can’t study for that one. We are gonna watch a movie and then have group discussions about it afterward. I am so thankful for these past two weeks that was very relaxed and with not too much work. Even if it’s been super chill, I can’t wait for spring break. Traveling again will be so much fun.

I made an appointment to cut my hair on Thursday after a sunrise hike up Bishops Peak, we are having dinner at Firestone, and will go to Slodoco. This week Kelsey, our former roommate from Iowa is visiting for her spring break with three of her friends. The place is packed. I am just glad I don’t have too much to do. It is so nice to have Kelsey back, I really missed her! But it is a weird situation to have her here with her friends from back home and “sharing” her. I am still very glad to have her here, today we went to dinner downtown and last night we hung out in our living room for ever with some of our neighbors. That was fun.

I think I will hang out in my room tonight, watch a movie or read and then go to bed early.

San Diego <3

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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.

I am sorry readers, I will get better at updating this thing again. I promise I will try at least!

This weekend is a long weekend (President’s Day on Monday) and I decided it was long overdue to go down to Carlsbad and visit my former hostfamily. As soon as I got here I realized I needed this getaway very badly. I got so happy when I started to recognize everything, and when I came to the house, saw my old room looking exactly like it did when I lived there, my hostmom, and the day after the kids. I am happy here and I am so glad I came down this weekend!

 

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Yesterday I woke up at 8am to have breakfast with my hostmom and the kids (my host dad was on a business trip up until today) and then went to San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I never went when I was here in 2013 (which was stupid when I had a membership). But I got 50% off, so it was not big deal. And it was a very nice day with the family. The weather was amazing, probably 85F, it was still a little bit breezy and we saw a lot of animals. Seeing animals make me happy. We saw a baby rhino that was born on November 27th last year, it weighed 159lbs then. It was super cute. We saw a lot of other “safari” animals like cute lemurs, all the savannah animals, one of the last five White Rhino’s in the world, tigers, and bats. And of course a lot of other animals too. It was a great day! Too bad the boy rolled in some kind of nettles and got rashes all over his body. Poor kid, but he was a champ and didn’t complain at all. He got a cream and it made it all go away very fast.

When we came home I took a nap for a couple of hours while they went to a beach party for one of the girl’s friends’ birthday. Then the plan was to study, but I just couldn’t find the motivation.

 

Beach and surf and sun

Today was all about the beach and an old au pair friend from my year here in Carlsbad. We met up at La Jolla Shores Beach, so many people, so it was hard to find parking. My old car (my silver Volvo V70) was here and for me to use this weekend. Very nice of my hostparents to let me use it. SD is bigger than SLO, and without a car here you can’t do anything. I met three of Johanna’s Swedish friends and they were all very nice and we had a nice day together at the beach.  We went in the water pretty early on, it couldn’t have been much more than 60F, but with the 90F (or something) in the air it was not hard at all going all the way in. It was refreshing. I love the ocean! And it is February! I love California! I love the sun! In the afternoon four of us put on wetsuits and went out to surf for a while with one of the guys in charge of the tent renting out wetsuits and surfboards for free and giving free lessons. It was the best surf session I have ever had. I caught almost every wave I try to catch and even if I didn’t stand up every time I still feel very satisfied and proud of myself. A few times I actually managed to stand up all the way in to the shore, which has never happened before! I don’t think I have ever stood up for more than 3 seconds before and today I did so much better than that almost every time I stood up. I am pretty sure I stood up more today in the hour I was out than in my whole life up until this point. So exhilarating! The last wave of the day was the best one and I drove home smiling like never before. In my old car, good music on the radio, singing, smiling, with the sunset in the west. It was a good, normal day (I don’t like Valentine’s Day, and it has nothing to do with relationship status, it is just a stupid commercial holiday when companies want to earn money, I learned today that Bulgarians celebrate wine on this particular day, I will start doing that too, wine is good).

 

Au-pairing again

My hostparents went out on a date tonight while I stayed in with the kids. Just like old times and I really enjoyed it! We started the evening with watching a movie called Step Dogs, the girl braided my hair in a very cool way, she also baked chocolate chip cookies (some kind of dessert on this “special” day felt needed), the boy played with the 7 month old Portugese Waterdog puppy they have. Then the three of us played the game I got them for Christmas, Totally Gross. It was a fun game where kids learn fun and interesting science facts. And when you earned points you stretched your slime clump from your characters nose, haha! The kids loved the booger/slime.

It is after 1am and I still haven’t started studying. I suck so bad! I am embarrassed by myself for being this bad at studying. But it is hard to find motivation when you are not sure what it is you have to do. Tomorrow evening! I will turn off all my social media devices and just study when the kids have gone to bed!!

If I will be able to wake up at 8 tomorrow I should probably go to bed now. I am not catching up on sleep at all this weekend, haha! Goodnight! And I promise to start this spiderweb of a blog up again!

IMG_20150211_152548 After my infection/cold or whatever it was, my left wrist got filled with liquid and started hurting like never before in the beginning of this week. When it was at its worse I couldn’t move it the tiniest bit. The doctor told me to rest it and that it could take up to 2 months for it to go away. But luckily it is almost 100% restored today, four-five days later. It still hurts when I flex it to the max, but I could surf today without any problems. I have to go back in two weeks for a check up though. Hope it is all good then!IMG_20150211_193005 On Wednesday I went out to the restaurant on Avila Pier with Jason and after dinner we watched the big fat sea lions under the pier. They are way bigger than they appear to be. This one was withing touching limit and probably as big as a three seat couch. A little bit scary. There were also normal grey seals and an otter swimming in the water. A starry night at the ocean was very nice.IMG_20150213_115220 IMG_20150213_120359 Baby rhino!IMG_20150213_122207 Bats are actually kinda cute.IMG_20150213_131743 Lemurs are adorably cute!IMG_20150213_132950 IMG_20150213_134853 One of the five last White Rhino’s in the world. One was at another zoo somewhere and the last three in a reserve in Africa and have armed guards 24/7. So sad! And all except one are too old to reproduce. This one was 40 years old.IMG_20150213_143212 Baby rhino again! (rhinosaurus)IMG_20150213_145537 We timed the feeding of one of the tigers perfectly. These animals are so beautiful and majesticIMG_20150213_145713 IMG_20150213_145840 IMG_20150213_150149 A cool waterfall on the Tiger Trail. Pretty good camera my phone has, which can capture the drips in a waterfall.IMG_20150214_104500 I did get my share of Valentine Day chocolate. From one of my roommates and my wonderful hostfamily. My not-eating-candy rule this year has a few exception days :). I haven’t had any candy in more than two months and this was divine today!IMG_20150214_120244 I have missed southern California’s beaches so much!! This is La Jolla Shores where I actually only went one time last year, and that was to take a surf class. It was a packed beach on this wonderful summer day in February, but I loved every second of it. This is where I belong, on a sunny beach!PANO_20150214_162304 Snapchat-1987100777812013018 I definitely got color today, yay! Nothing burned, just a pretty tan :).IMG_20150214_214531 This is what the girl did to my hair. I hope it will survive the night so I can showoff on the beach tomorrow!PANO_20150213_003105My room looks exactly the same. I was so happy when I saw this on Thursday late night. I really needed this weekend to get away from everything up in SLO for a bit to get perspective on life again!

Sick again

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Why does this keep happening to me? How can I be sick again?? It was like the cold took vacation with me in the Caribbean and now it’s like: Hey, guess who’s back?!

My sinuses are all messed up, my nose is runny and I’ve been feverish this whole day. And tomorrow will be a busy day and also the day I say goodbye to Toby. He leaves SLO tomorrow and I still can’t really believe it. But I know for sure though that I will see him in the summer and fall again. Sweden and Germany are very close to each other. It will be very empty when he is gone.

Except realizing the truth about my health today I went to two classes. I got my quiz back in German, I was several points above average and only one point away from max score. Go me! Public Transportation is not as interesting as I thought it would be. The teacher is hard to follow (he is Indian and speaks very fast with an accent). Maybe it will get better.

In the evening we were a bunch of people going to Firestone for Toby’s goodbye dinner. I just love their pulled pork sandwich. The best! And today I saved half for tomorrow. Then we had a little bit of froyo and the rest of the evening we all hung out in Toby’s room playing Cards Against Humanity. Even sober, that game is hilarious! I came third, not too bad.

Now it is really late, I don’t feel too well, so I should probably go to bed so I can wake up early and say goodbye to my best friend here. I am gonna miss him so much!!

Home sweet home

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I am finally home in SLO, exhausted like I don’t know. I had to spend 6 hours at Phoenix airport today because there was no chance of me getting on the standby flight at 11am (the aircraft was changed to a smaller one so 20 people were without seat, and ahead of me on the waitlist). I was at the airport at 9 am, and left at 3pm. Long day.

But it started pretty good. I had difficulty falling asleep last night, but when I did, I slept like a rock. The bed was so soft and awesome. I got up at 7am, took a hot shower, put on the hotel complimentary body lotion and felt awesome (the dryness was back when I was at the airport three hours later, it was nice as long as it lasted). I got free breakfast buffet. It was definitely an okay breakfast and I had a lot because I knew it was gonna be a long day either if I got the earlier flight or no.

For lunch I had Starbucks, I helped my dad get Snapchat, texted with Matt and my mom and just tried to keep myself busy the whole day. I was bored, but 6 hours was actually over pretty fast.

This flight was also delayed. The crew was not there on time. I couldn’t believe it! Once they arrived everything went smoothly and we took off ten minutes later than planned. The flight was a very comfortable one. You couldn’t even tell you were on an airplane, it was so smooth. I read two chapters, listened to a few songs, and then it was time to land. It was only 1.5 hours.

I landed and my baggage didn’t come to baggage claim. Great! It took almost 30 minutes for the security guard to tell us that our bags had arrived with the early flight (even if the lady at the gate told me she rerouted it to my later flight). I was relieved. This horrible trip was over!

Matt picked me up and drove me home. I was tired, but started unpacking and talked to my neighbors. At 7pm Måns from Sweden told me he was at Slodoco, so I managed to get a ride there and we went back to my place. Stayed for a few minutes and then headed to Firestone with Lauren, Rachel, Toby, and Pelle. It was a great way to end a long day.

Back home and I did laundry and finished unpacking. I looked at my schedule and made one for my door. I have a pretty great schedule this quarter too. Not as nice, but it is still okay.

Oh, how could I forget? We didn’t get a new roommate! So it is just gonna be the three of us this quarter. Kinda boring actually, the closed door ruins our corridor. But now we are all over 21 so we can have alcohol in our room, yay.

I have to go to bed now, my first day of class is tomorrow!

Last day in paradise

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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.

The weather today was the best it has been since I got to Jamaica. The sky clear blue, a few lonely clouds here and there, but it never got in the way of the sun. It was hot, very very hot! Don’t know how many degrees, but the sun was burning like I’ve never felt before. I even got a tiny bit of sun rash on my thighs if I stayed out of the water for too long during the midday hours. I was in the water a lot!

I was at the beach with the guy I talked to yesterday. It was nice with some company on my last day. I still read a lot. I finished Graceling yesterday and read a fourth of the second book, Fire. This one is so far better than the first and what’s awesome is that they aren’t connected. It is the same land, but two different stories. Maybe they will intertwine eventually, I don’t know.

I enjoyed every last second of the sun and watched the sunset and then went back to my new hotel. This morning I walked the 400m to my new hotel with my suitcase and checked in and actually got my room right away. Not the best room ever, and the AC is not working, nor is the toilet. But whatever. It is only for the night. But I should probably complain about the toilet, maybe I will get a little bit back?

For dinner I went to a place called Marguerites. It was a very nice seafood restaurant and the food was amazing! We saw a huge shooting star (I am not completely convinced it was a shooting star, but it is the most reasonable explanation). There will be a big meteor shower tonight according to I Fucking Love Science on Facebook. If I wasn’t this tired I would sit on the balcony (with an almost amazing view as Polkerris) and lookout for them. But I should probably go to bed not too late. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. My flight leaves at noon, and I will land at 9:45pm in SLO (the time difference makes it 13 hours). I can’t wait to be back home! I hope it will go as fast as the trip here did. Two layovers, first in Charlotte, NC, then Phoenix, AZ.

It’s been the best trip ever! I’ve seen so much and I’ve had so much fun (even if I most of the times were all by myself, but I enjoy my own company sometimes and I needed to be alone for a while). Now I am ready to go home and start my second quarter at Cal Poly.

This is the link to the video Michael did of his four days here. Everything we did (including my cliff jump) is on there with some good music: http://vimeo.com/115875177

Last breakfast at Polkerris  One cloud The sky looked like this all day!Coconut water Coconut waterBaptizing Baptizing on a beach in Jamaica, why not?!Last Caribbean sunset Last sunset TAN Yep, I’ve proven it, a Swedish girl can get tan after 23 days in sunny Caribbean! 😉

Waterfalls and cliff jumping

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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.

Today was an incredible day! Up before sunrise and back “home” way after sunset. We got breakfast at 6 am and were on the road at 6:30. We watched the sunrise from the car and it was really pretty. Michael’s GoPro was on the outside of the car.

We arrived in Ocho Rios at 8am, 30 min too early. Se we sat and waited in the car until the park opened. We were surprised to see that it was a park, and not just a place to see cool waterfalls. The place was called Dunn’s River Falls and if you are on Jamaica, you have to check it out. It is so freaking cool! We were there early, before everyone else so we managed to get a lot of nice photos without people in it. We climbed the whole thing to the top, took photos on the way and on the top we went down on the road and decided to climb it again. But this time filming the whole climb. I had a GoPro on my head and Michael used the pole. Most of the pictures were blurry, but I think the videos turned out better.

We left the place at 10:30 am and went into Ocho Rios for lunch. We found a nice place called Reggae Ally and I had coconut shrimp and fried plantain. Really good. Then we went up in the mountain to drive for a while. It was amazing up there! But an hour was plenty enough and we went down to the main road to drive all the way to Negril, on the west side of the island (Ocho Rios is east of Montego bay which is halfway in between the two places. I fell asleep in the car, I was so exhausted!

Michael was driving the whole time, I just refused to drive a car on the wrong side of the road. I am adventurous, not ready to die. But going through downtown Mobay was scary! People were honking all the time, driving like crazy persons and we lost 40 minutes trying to find our way back to the main road. We got to Rick’s Café at 4:30. Rick’s Café has been voted one of top ten best bars in the world and I totally get why. It is a place right on the cliffs, the sun is setting right out in the water, there are cliff you can jump from and they had live reggae music. It was just perfect. The sunset was amazing, the food was good (but took forever to get), the music was great, and the cliffs were pretty cool too. Michael jumped a few times before we had dinner, I had told myself I was gonna skip it. But then, during dinner (after one of the most incredible sunsets I’ve ever seen), I decided that I was gonna do it anyway. So I changed into my bikini and went to the 25 feet platform, hesitated for 2.5 minutes and then just jumped. It felt so amazing!! Michael filmed the whole thing and I was so happy when I came up. I got courage from an eleven year old girl who did it earlier. If she could, then I could too, and I did! And most importantly, I survived it. 25 feet is only 7.6m, but it is higher than I have jumped before. During the jump I lost my grip on my nose and got so much salt water up my nose! I still feel weird and probably have lots of water up there. It is gross. And it hurts a little bit.

We drove back home and I got so tired. We had plans on going out, but we have to do that tomorrow instead, I was just too tired. I should be asleep, but the Internet is so slow and I still have 6 more photos to upload to my blog. I guess I could fall asleep for an hour and then post this, haha!

Michael is working on the movie of this trip. We both got a lot of good footage so far.

Tomorrow is all about relaxing at the beach. I look forward to it!

IMG_20141229_085016 IMG_20141229_085219 DCIM100GOPROGOPR1139. DCIM100GOPROGOPR1144. DCIM100GOPROGOPR1162. DCIM100GOPROGOPR1166. DCIM100GOPROGOPR1185. DCIM100GOPROGOPR1205. DCIM100GOPROGOPR1218.Mountain roads 2The mountains!DCIM100GOPROGOPR1481.Jamaican countryside.IMG_20141229_170205“Jamaicin me crazy” drink.IMG_20141229_172007IMG_20141229_173549Cliff jumpingBetter resolution will come, some day. The video of it too! Just be patient, when you least expect it.IMG_20141229_185923

Dominican Republic!!

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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.

I am here, I am in paradise! It is warm, there are palm trees everywhere, the beach is amazing, the water has an amazing color, and it just feels like paradise in the air. I have that stickiness all over my body but I love it! It is tropical heat.

It has been hella day tho. It started yesterday morning with the final, then the super excitement for what was coming. Until I (FOR ONCE) checked the flight status online and I saw to my horror that my flight from SLO was canceled due to the big storm. I almost started crying! After trying to find a ride to San Francisco where my next flight was and without success I called United Airlines and they managed to get me on a flight ten minutes earlier than the one I was supposed to. And I flew to LA instead of SF, then to Washington DC and on the same plane I was originally going on. I didn’t lose any time at all here on Dominican Republic and that was a huge relief. I went with Matt to Avila where we had a glass of wine, while watching the extreme waves. That also made me very happy. Too bad that 1.5 hours can go by that fast. But it makes sense, because I really enjoy spending time with him and when you have fun, time flies.

I packed after he dropped me off at home, but I forgot my computer charger which I realized on the flight from LA to DC. And fortunately (even with the 30 minutes delay) I had two hours at the DC airport and could buy a charger. I had to go to another terminal with a shuttle, but I still made it to my flight.

The first flight, from SLO to LA was the worst flight I’ve ever been on. First of all, it was a propeller plane so it made a ton of noise, and second, because of that storm it was very bumpy. I am normally not afraid when I am flying because I do it so often, but I actually was this time. A lot of G-forces were applied to my poor stomach as well, so for me it was like sitting on a scary medium rollercoaster for an hour and I have to say that I felt really sick after that.

The second flight was okay, I “slept” most of the 5 hours. Except me sleeping on a plane isn’t really sleeping because I wake up every time my head falls down, or because of noise or whatever. It was still nice to get some sleep.

The third flight was just weird, I was tired, so I couldn’t read, but I couldn’t sleep either. It was annoying. Luckily it was only 3 hours long.

And then I was here. And of course I forgot the $10 for the tourist visa so I had to go through a lot of work when I tried to exchange money and had to go through backways and stuff. First I had to withdraw Dominican Pesos. $300 = 11 000 Pesos, my wallet is so thick right now! And then I had to take 500 from that and exchange to $10 so I could pay for my tourist visa. I got a new stamp by the way, now I have three.

I took a cab to the hostel, which isn’t a hostel. It is an apartment in a residential area, and the woman living there made a room into a hostel dorm. On the website it said there were several different rooms, both privates and doubles and 6 beds. And it doesn’t look at all like the pictures. I am disappointed. It got even worse when I tried to talk to the receptionist (the woman who lives here and doesn’t speak a word English). Why have a hostel operation when you can’t speak with the guests?

I stayed in my room for a bit while my phone charged. Then I started walking to the beach (50 minutes away instead of 10 like it said on the website). On the way a bus stopped next to me and asked me where I was going. Adventurous as I am, I jumped on and told him Playa el Cortecito. The two guys on the bus were really nice and gave me their number if I ever needed a ride or anything. That’s the second guy since I arrived who were overly nice to me. The first guy was the guy who took my payment for the visa. He desperately wanted to meet up later. That was awkward so I just left.

Anyway, I came to the beach, and it was very pretty. Much more seaweed than what Google shows, but it was still amazing. It was pretty windy and big waves (not California big, but big enough for a red flag), the sand was white and very fine. Pink in some places even. I walked a long while on it in both directions. I felt a little bit out of place when everyone else was holding hands with their significant other, but I still enjoyed it very much. It was very much too bad that the sun didn’t set in the ocean, but behind the island. That means I will have to be up early to catch as much sun as possible the rest of the week I am staying here.

Then there was another guy who hung out or worked (I don’t know to be honest) at a cute restaurant, so I stayed there for dinner. A French-speaking guy from Canada also joined and it was an okay evening until the Haiti-guy started almost screaming at the other guy when they had a conversation about spirituality and whatever it was. I didn’t wanna be rude and just leave, so I sat  there and was freezing my butt off (even if it was probably 75F, the wind and my sleep deprivation made me cold). But eventually I couldn’t listen to that conversation so I stood up and then the Canadian did that too. We shared a private taxi home and it was ridiculously overpriced, 2000 pesos is what I paid from the airport to the hostel. Stupid native people who try to scam tourists…

When I came back to the hostel I realized what kind of place this was and started to feel uncomfortable. I don’t wanna go through a lot of trouble just to go to the beach when this week is about just relaxing and calming down after dead week and finals week. So I asked the receptionist with google translate if I could get a refund if I checked out tomorrow. She said yes, but that we would have to deal with it tomorrow morning. Great! Instead, I booked an all-inclusive resort right by the most beautiful part of the beach (not where I was today). It will be $800 more, but it will be so much more worth it. I was expecting to have the normal hostel experience with a lot of international young people. Instead I am alone here with a middle age Dominican who I can’t even talk to. No, this was totally worth it! I can’t wait to go there tomorrow morning.

What else happened today? Probably not much. I am very tired and have a headache. Not enough water. But I haven’t seen any stores where I can buy, and the tap water here is apparently a big no no. I am not even supposed to rinse my toothbrush in that water. At the hotel I will have complementary water bottles in my 47 square meter room (that is slightly bigger than my apartment in Sweden!). I am so excited for tomorrow!!

Punta Cana A small part of Punta Cana.Playa el Cortecito Playa el Cortecito.Playa el Cortecito Playa el Cortecito.Sunset at Playa el Cortecito Sunset behind the tall palm trees.Blue toenails in the sand The blue nail polish did look good in the white sand.Playa el Cortecito Playa el Cortecito Onno beach front restaurantOnno, the beach front restaurant where I had dinner.

Quarter #1 is over

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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.

I just finished my third final and I feel so free! I love this feeling. The test today went okay, I think it is a pass. I know that I’ve had a lot of difficulties with the Byzantine time period, when Christianity became big in the world and all the churches and basilicas and whatever were built, so I probably messed up on all of those questions. I just can’t see the difference of those churches. But except for that I felt that I had studied a lagom amount of time and recognized everything on the test. The Asian names where difficult tho and I mixed them all up.

The test last night went okay too I guess. I didn’t really try since I already had passed the class, this test would just lower my A to a C worst case scenario. But I answered a lot of questions, skipped a lot. But I think if I get a C on this test, then I will still get an A in the rest of the class.

I am still waiting for my result for the extra credit assignment, but I am not worried about that class anymore. And I don’t have to worry about classes next quarter either. Today I got an email telling me that I got one of the classes I was waitlisted for (Introduction to Urban Planning). Yay! I am not dropping Introduction to Environmental Engineering until I know for sure if I can take Public Transportation (which has Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering as a prerequisite). I guess I could take 16 units (4 classes) next quarter, and take another environmental engineering class in the spring quarter, but I don’t know if it is worth it.

Why am I writing about this? I don’t wanna think of school at all right now, and for the next three weeks. (except for reviewing some German to be prepared for next quarter)

 

After my final last night (which by the way, was the Sustainable Environments) my roommates picked me up and we went to Olive Garden to have one last dinner together. I have to admit that the food I got wasn’t that good. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for eating that late. But it was a nice dinner nonetheless.

When we came home we had a little Christmas and opened gifts. I got suitcase tags from Rachel, a Jamba Juice giftcard from Lauren and a photoframe from Kelsey. In there are four different pictures of us, and when I saw it I started crying. I think I realized at that point that Kelsey is actually leaving. She also wrote me a super sweet card. I am gonna miss her so much!!

After that I walked around in the building handing out Christmas cards and they were all very appreciated. We hung out in our apartment for a while and I started studying at 1:30am. Fell asleep at 3 am, got up at 6 to sit through three hours of presentations in Transportation Engineering. It wasn’t too bad, I studied for the final and listened to the most fun ones. Some of the videos made were very funny!

Now I am planning on doing nothing until 2:30pm when Matt is picking me up :).

And at 8:35pm tonight the plane takes off and I will be on my way to Dominican Republic!! I can’t wait!!! I am planning on updating my blog as often as I can. I won’t have too much to do during the evenings, so if I have access to Internet then maybe even every day. So excited I can’t even!

Roommate date Mani-pedi This color will look great in the sand tomorrow :). It’s stupid how much prettier a manicure and pedicure can make you feel.I survived!I survived the two hell weeks! Basketball gameKelsey and I at the basketball game last weekend.