Tag Archives: food

Forgotten

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Wow, I have seriously completely forgotten that I have a blog and used to update it every day. I have a reason and I blame the computer game Guild Wars 2!
This week has been eventful, but I just didn’t remember to put it here, so I will now when I have a little time to kill. First of all I got my digital TV box on Monday, so now I have way over 100 TV channels. I don’t watch TV though…
I have also been working out quite a bit this week. My muscles are so sore right now and it will be very interesting walking in high heels tonight. The fancy dinnerparty with VIRUS is tonight. I have makeup on and my hair is full of cork screws. Wine, good food and good company, I think it will be a nice evening!
Me and my thesis partner have had a huge breakthrough this week with our thesis. We found a form online, and that form is pretty much the only thing we are gonna do. Of course customize it for Veidekke so we’ve also had a meeting with them and talked about what to add and remove. They also told us at that meeting that they think that we should skip the data and the whole LCA thing completely which will make the project so much easier!
I have been shopping which wasn’t too good. I bought a pair of chinos which is perfect in this warm spring weather. It’s been amazing these past two days, no jacket needed, the trees are getting green and flowers are everywhere. I love this season!
And lastly, but not least, I went to the liquorice and chocolate fair. So many samples I didn’t need dinner last night! I bought Chai Latte as a powder so I easily can drink it at home. I don’t have to spend a fortune at Espresso House (which I don’t do because I am kinda broke).
Last night after the fair I spent the evening with Chad and some of his friends. It was a very nice evening. I tried taking it easy since I have a big party tonight, but I didn’t get home until like 2:30am… Not so drunk though, and I could sleep in until 11 today.

I’m sorry for not updating, I am alive, just busy doing other things ^^

Chocolate pralines

Cousins in Hjo

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Home again in my apartment after a long but very nice day. I finally met my cousins and grandparents on mom’s side again. Before we came to Hjo we picked up Malin at her gymnastic practice and she didn’t recognize me from far away, but when I came closer she gave me a really big hug!

When we came to my uncle’s new house I got more big hugs. At 3pm grandma and grandpa came and we started our afternoon with mudpie. Weird to have desert before the meal, but I’ve had opposite-themed parties at Chalmers so it’s nothing I’ve never done before.

Before dinner I played Assholes with my brother, Malin and Lovisa. We only had time for two rounds before dinner, pulled pork. It was really good! I will try that one day, for sure!

After dinner we just sat and talked. Malin got impatient and wanted to open my very late Christmas gifts for them. I got one too, a thermometer to have outside my window. I didn’t even knew I needed one but my mom apparently did and told my uncle. She have noticed that I always complain that it looks warmer than it is and always choose the wrong clothes. My sweet mom who knows me better than I do sometimes!

My cousins loved their gifts. They each got a Hollister t-shirt and a key chain with their initial from Hollywood and a used card deck from Las Vegas. I am glad they liked it :).

I’ve decided with my cousins to try to redo this whole thing with them visiting me on their own for a weekend in Gothenburg. I think Malin will start on the weekend of March 29th, Lovisa April 26th and then we’ll see about Linnea. I look forward to those weekends!

Tomorrow is my last day before the seriousness begins. My classes start on Monday. On Tuesday I will pull one or two wisdom teeth. On Wednesday I will start with my thesis and on Friday I will take the train up to my grandparents and cousins on dad’s side for a weekend with them.

I hope this week goes fast and that I won’t have any complications with the teeth pulling!

Spring

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This is why I love Sweden, the first warming sun of the year. It will be better though, when it starts to get green! I seriously can’t wait!

I had a very lazy day today. I woke up at noon, watched an episode of Arrow and then went outside for a walk. I walked for an hour through the neighborhood I grew up in and at the same time as it looked exactly the same, it was completely different. New buildings, all the old stores were switched. Except for Lejonet & Björnen, the ice cream cafe. I am so going there when it’s a little bit warmer!

I was actually sweating and it felt so good being out in the sun. It must have been over 10C (50F)! My tan is getting paler every week and I really don’t like that…

When I came home again I decided to stay outside for a bit more, so I sat down by the water and read for half an hour. But it got cold so I headed inside, took a nice and warm shower and watched a couple of more episodes of Arrow.

I cooked dinner for the second time since I moved in, spaghetti with meatsauce and bacon. It was really really good! I am glad my cooking skills are still there.

Tomorrow night is my second Cultural Care information meeting and this time I will give my presentation and tell the future au pairs about my year and then as usual do some interviews. It will be fun!

Dinner at dad’s

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I had a very nice afternoon/evening out in Sjövik at my dad and his girlfriend’s place. I came out there at 3:30pm and we had a very late lunch consisting of barbecued hotdogs. We sat outside in the beautiful spring sun (it was blue sky today again!!). Pretty chilly, but still very nice. I can’t when the tree’s start getting leaves, that’s the part of the year I like most.

When it got cold we got inside and Karin prepared the dinner, lamb and root crops. It was very delicious! For dessert we had that apple pie with marzipan Karin made the last time I was there, just for me this time because I was coming over. She is sweet! I got a piece with me home.

Monday tomorrow, means another Saturday for me. No alarm and no plans whatsoever! I will probably read a lot. Or maybe take a trip downtown to buy some new glasses. One more week of Saturdays and then my life will get serious again…

Yoga, pancakes and packing

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And a sick mom. This day just disappeared. I slept until 10am and went to the gym for one hour of yoga. It wasn’t a good class and I really felt that I was wasting my time. The instructor didn’t have any music and she took it way too serious. In the position Downward Facing Dog (standing on all four with the butt up in the air, looking like a triangle) she came up to me and tried to push me down on my heels. I told her I couldn’t do it and she kept going and told me that I could. But I really can’t stretch out my calf that much because of that genetic defect I have.

I want to do yoga to relax and stretch out my muscles and that class didn’t give me much of either. Waste of time.

At home I was supposed tomake pancakes for lunch, but mom was still in bed and we decided to have it for dinner instead. So in the afternoon I out together my power point presentation for the Cultural Care information meetings. It turned out to be pretty good! Now I just have to write down what to say with each picture.

I cooked an early dinner and then started packing all my stuff. It wasn’t that much, just the clothes I unpacked when I got back three weeks ago. And then my mom have used some of my things the last year. She also gave me a lot of food, so very nice of her!

Then we went up the attic and went through what I want to bring to my apartment. I left like four boxes, but the rest I wanted with me. It’s a lot of stuff, but it could be worse. I don’t have any furniture to move this time.

Oh, yeah, right. I’m moving to my own apartment tomorrow! Could be worth mentioning, haha. I am really excited. My mom was supposed to help me, but she gets exhausted from getting out of bed and walking to the couch in the living room. So I managed to get another help, Chad.

Bake a little cake

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This morning I decided to have a long sleep in, it was so nice. I started the day with watching some Doctor Who but got bored and baked a white chocolate mudpie. I really don’t like mom’s gas oven. The sides ofthe cake got almost dry and the middle was still batter. It was delicious, but I have to give it another try when I’m back in my own apartment with a normal oven.

Soon I will head downtown for my first Cultural Care Au Pair meeting. This first meeting I will pretty much just observe and learn, maybe do one interview. I am excited.

White mudpie Chip in the bathtub Chip is weird. As soon as I’ve gone into the bathroom and locked the door he scratches on it from the outside and wants to get in. He jumps in the bathtub and wants to drink…Stuff in her box Stuff isn’t much better. She loves sitting in this box. She is completely still and just sits there!Chip in the bathtubLike I said, I have very normal cats!

IKEA

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This morning I woke up at 8am. It’s Sunday and it sucks big time. I also woke up twice during the night at 3 and 5 but could go back to sleep after like ten minutes. It’s like the jetlag had a few days delay.

Today I went to IKEA with mom. I got a new pillow, the one I have had the last six days has been so extremely flat. Mom also bought a new frying pan and diod lamps for her closet. We had lunch and I think I have to say that the meatballs and mashed potatoes were better in San Diego. More flavor. But it is way better that you can choose how much food you want here. 8 meatballs is still a lot, but better than 15. We bought some jam and then drove back home.

The rest of the day we didn’t do anything. Well, mom installed the lamps but I’ve been so extremely tired so I’ve just been in my bed watching How I Met Your Mother. Stupid jetlag. I so wanted to go to bed at 6pm, but if I did I probably would have woken up at 4am tomorrow. And tomorrow is an important day, I have to be at my best for the job interview at Liseberg! I have a good feeling about it, but of course I’m still nervous, it is a job interview.

Wish me luck!

No jetlag

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I slept through last night like normal. I woke up a few times but could fall asleep again. I was a bit worried when I woke up at 3am, but there was no problem falling asleep again. I woke up at 8am and was well rested, 10 hours of sleep tends to do that.

Chip, one of my cats, slept with me through almost the whole night. I fell asleep petting him. When I woke up at 3am and had to use the restroom he wasn’t in my bed, but he was sleeping in the bathtub. Crazy cat. And then he followed me back to bed. I’ve missed having those to fluffy hairballs around!

My day after that was weird. I was so bored and restless and at the same time kind of tired so I didn’t want to do anything. I guess I suffer from some jetlag. But I did some good. I emailed my university and asked them to add me to the program again. I emailed Cultural Care telling them I am back in Sweden and that they can call me whenever about that part time job. I uploaded all my pictures from Hawaii on Facebook and then eventually unpacked my suitcases. It will be nice not living in them for a while. But I so look forward to moving into my own apartment in like three weeks. Unpack everything, have my own stuff and more clothes to chose from. Even if it’s not worth unpacking it all since I’m moving in six months again.

I cooked korv stroganoff tonight and it was heavenly!  It is a traditional Swedish dish, sausage tomato puree and soy stew.

Now I will try the new Sims 3 Into the Future.

34 hours of travelling

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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’m in Sweden and have been for a while now. I’ve already had time to do a little grocery shopping, a Swedish lunch with mom, a nice talk with my brother and a lot of hugging my cats. I’m starting to feel a bit crappy, I have been awake for about 48 hours with a few one-hour naps on the planes.

The trip went surprisingly fast and I can’t really complain about it. Some parts of it were pleasant and I had lots of luck. But not to confuse my readers I will write about everything in chronological order, starting what happened right after my latest blog post (in the bar at the hotel on Big Island).

I didn’t want to go to bed even if I had a long couple of days coming. So I shut down my computer and sat down on the stone wall by the rocks and the ocean. The bar had a big light out on the splashing waves. It looked really cool when it was lit up. So I sat there for a long while trying to take good pictures. I also saw fireflies! I was so excited and when one of the bartenders came up to me to talk to me I asked about it. It was just regular flies in the light of the lamp. I’ve never seen fireflies. But it was still beautiful.

Waves in the night Last night on Hawaii

I got an offer to go look at manta rays (he knew a very good spot to see them apparently) when he got off his shift 30 minutes later. I was very tempted, but I had to be boring and go to bed. It would have been cool though!

My alarm went off at 7am on Sunday morning and my trip home started at 11am. My first flight was to Honolulu and on the way there I saw whales from the plane when we were closing in on Oahu. It was cool to see from above, I could just see the splash of water, but still.

Kona AirportThe world’s smallest airport…

My second flight was to San Diego and it was nicer than the one I had to Hawaii three weeks ago. I saw the sunset from above and it was really beautiful. It was also very beautiful seeing the starry sky. We have either too many clouds or lights here in Gothenburg to be able to see the stars…

Sunset over the PacificSunrise above the Pacific Ocean.San DiegoSan Diego! I love this airport, you’re going down right next to the skyscrapers.

At the airport 9pm Lovisa picked me up and drove me home. Very nice of her! She even gave me food for the road, Rolo and Reese’s Peanut Butter Bars.  The kids came running down the stairs when I came inside. I got big hugs from everyone and since it was so late, 10pm, I had to start saying goodbye to the kids so they could go to sleep. They both were so sweet and it didn’t feel like a goodbye, just a normal goodnight. No tears shed and the girl told me that they are going to Sweden again this year in June. Maybe that’s why we didn’t cry, because we are gonna see each other so soon. And that’s not enough, I will go to San Diego in Aug/Sep to visit them also! More on that later!

I talked to my hostparents downstairs for a while about my trip, the year and how glad I was to have spent it with them. At 11pm I started to pack. It was hard, but after some reorganizing they were both close to 50lbs. I think they actually showed 50lbs on the scale but I took a risk and went to the airport like that. I spent the remaining 3 hours with Chad. I couldn’t sleep even if I tried. At 3am we left for the airport. I put on a lot of clothes, leggings, sweatpants, a tank top, t-shirt, hoodie and a big jacket. I forgot my white Converse at my hostfamily’s house so I had to travel in my workout shoes which aren’t very comfortable. But my other ones were on vacuum bags so I didn’t have much choice.

My first big worry turned into my first luck. My suitcases were 49.8 and 49.6 lbs. Haha! It took me like 15 minutes to say goodbye to Chad and I have to be honest and say that it wasn’t so hard. Like with my hostfamily I just couldn’t understand that it was happening for real. My sadness came later…

My second big worry was my carry-on and personal item. They say that the personal item should be like a laptop or purse. I had a big tote bag full of papers, computer and my purse. I was afraid that they weren’t gonna allow that, but they did! I went through security without any trouble. But then I realized that the people at the gate decides that. Crap, I had to go through that nervousness two more times?

Both my personal item and carry-on were really heavy and I was dreading to carry it around airports. But there was that thing called luck again! The flight to Chicago was so full that all of ours carry-ons wouldn’t fit. So we could check them free of charge to the final destination. Perfect!! So I only had my super heavy tote. My right arm is sore from carrying it, but it’s still better than two heavy bags.

To be honest I don’t remember anything from the San Diego-Chicago flight more than that Chicago was really beautiful with the snow, the ice covered Lake Michigan and the blue sky.

Chicago Beautiful Chicago. I missed the skyline by the lake unfortunately.Three seats

After the 2 hour layover I had the best flight ever. I had a window seat again, in the back of the plane with no one sitting next to me. So I had three seats all to myself with a screen in the chair in front of me, with a lot of new movies. I had time to see three, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Thor: The Dark World, Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. I tried to sleep some, but didn’t work very well…

The last flight was the worst. I was a little less than two hours away from home, the airplane was small and uncomfortable (but the sunrise outside above the clouds was amazing). And I was sad after realizing that I was on my way home. But when we arrived I felt a little better, it was cloudy, but light, a little snow and I got my bags right away. My mom wasn’t expecting me to come out just ten minutes after we landed so she didn’t see me when I walked up to her. It felt really good seeing her again and we hugged for a long time. Dad was stuck in traffic but came like ten minutes later. We talked for an hour and then me and mom went home.

Sunrise above Gothenburg Sunrise above Gothenburg.GothenburgGothenburg under the clouds.

On the way we stopped at Ica Maxi, I needed to buy a toothbrush and a deo. And then I bought a bag of bulk candy. Hehe!

Back home I had two gifts on my bed. A Bräutigams marzipan pig and a pair of turtle earrings. My mom definitely knows me! I had a Swedish shrimp salad sandwich and mom went to work. I talked some with my brother, apparently he wants to go to Chalmers University and asked me about the different programs. We talked about my trip, his trips and my job interview on Monday.

I tried taking a nap but couldn’t fall asleep even if I’m so tired I feel drunk. I can’t believe I’m still functioning. I’ve been away for two days with like 3 hours of sleep. Maybe I’m just excited about being at home again. I’ve been away for a long while and even if I always write how much I didn’t want to go home, of course a big part of me wanted to do it. And it feels better now that I’m here.

For dinner we had Swedish pizza and it was as delicious as I remembered. Yummy!

Okay, so here comes some big news! Six hours after I landed I got an email from my university telling me that I, with two other girls, will be sent to CalPoly this fall to study! CalPoly wanted to send three students to us, so we could send three too. I can’t believe that I found out, six hours after I landed, that I’m gonna go back to California in just six months! I don’t think my mom liked those news. She was so happy to see me, and then finds out that I’m leaving again. I mean, she was aware that it maybe would happen. But this was so sudden. I am excited and I am gonna go! It will be some work with it though. Get a new visa, get a place to stay, get money from CSN and so on. But it will fun and I will have a long winter break so I can celebrate Christmas at home. And it’s not even gonna be a whole year, just Sep-Jun.

Okay, I think I need to go to bed now. I’m getting drunker every minute… It’s a new experience being this tired. I’ve stayed up for one day before, but two. It’s not very nice… I wonder how long I could stay awake if I tried?

Last day in San Diego

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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 can’t believe I’m writing this. This was my last day in San Diego. The day I’ve been dreading for so long has finally come. This whole day has actually been really awesome. I didn’t spend so much time with the kids since their school started today, but when we did in the afternoon, it was just so nice. The boy couldn’t stop hugging me and the girl kept saying that she didn’t want me to go. I don’t want to go either. I love this family! I love this place! I love the people!

But I’m grownup enough to know that everything has to come to its end eventually… And this is the end of a fantastic adventure. I’ve had the best year ever with no regrets. I just wish time didn’t fly by as fast as it did.

I cooked dinner for the whole family and I made tacos with the girl’s help. She cut all the vegetables. And she put away all the groceries before that without me asking for it. She is so sweet! It was a very nice dinner but it felt like a normal dinner. Because even if I’ve been waiting for tomorrow for so long now, it still doesn’t feel real. Normally I’m excited like crazy at this time but now I can’t feel it. It’s probably the sadness dulling everything.

I actually look forward to go home so I can get rid of all these mixed feelings, it’s driving me crazy. And I also want to get rid of the nervousness about my trip home. I’ve packed everything now and it barely fit. I have to extend one of the suitcases and I’m not sure how good that is… But I don’t have any options. That one is 49.5lbs and max is 50. What if the scale here doesn’t work and I have to pay $200 for overweight? The other suitcase is 48lbs I think so I can’t really put anything in there either. I wonder how strict United Airlines are? I hope they will have some mercy when they see me crying.

 

This morning I went to Moda Hair Salon to finally get my hair cut. I haven’t cut it since December 2012. I put in some highlights too and it got really nice. A lot of hair disappeared, almost 2dm, but I like it. We’ll see how much the sun is gonna bleach it during the next couple of weeks.

New haircut

Tomorrow my alarm will go off at 5:30am. My hostdad will drive me to the airport at 6:45am. So very nice of him! And the flight takes off at 9:20am. In the morning I will wash my bed sheets and mentally prepare for the trip. It’s actually a pretty long flight, almost 6h. Hawaii is very far away from everything but I have my eReader. Today I finished the latest Bane Chronicle Novella: The Last Stand of the New York Institute and it were as good as the rest of the 8 100pages novellas. I think that that imaginary world (The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices and The Bane Chronicles) is my favorite. I loved all of those books! And Cassandra Clare is gonna write a sequel triology to be released in 2015: The Dark Artifices. The 6th and last book in The Mortal Instruments series: City of Heavenly Fire will be released in May and the 10th and last Bane Chronicle book will be release in the end of February. Can’t wait!
This means that I started on The Throne of Fire, the second Kane Chronicle book today. I will probably read a lot in it tomorrow.

 

I’m going to Hawaii tomorrow!! 😀