Dive #6 – La Jolla Cove Outer Reef

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.

Last day in California with no sureness of when my return will be. That’s not good, and it makes this leaving harder than the last. Even if I look forward to go back home, I am still very sad to leave. Mixed feelings to say the least.

My last day started with a dive in the kelp forest. Today there was a third guy with us, he was from Germany. First we snorkeled for half an hour out to the forest, descended and started swimming to the more densely forested area. It was cold, and I was already shivering on the surface and it was even colder at the bottom. Bottom temperature today was only 53F (13C) and that made the whole dive not very enjoyable. But it was still cool to dive through the kelp. Total bottom time today was 59 minutes, but we were in the water for longer because of the snorkeling tour out. It took a long while before I could feel my feet again and even longer before I was warm.

We didn’t see any sharks today unfortunately. But we did see a banded ray, a giant black sea bass (only 40lbs though), lots of the orange fishes, the tuna crabs, and the other fish I can’t remember the names of, sea lions and I also saw a blue starfish. I am too tired to go through all the videos to try and find a good screenshot of the ray, sea bass and starfish. I will post them another day if I remember it.

I bought a chai latte on the way home, and once there I pretty much just took the poolcard and hung out at the pool for about four hours. I read some, I think I napped some, and then at 5pm Anna came. I haven’t seen her since I left a year and a half ago. We talked for an hour before we both had to leave.

Dinner with the family, then packing, all my suitcases are less than 23kgs, everything except my computer is packed and I am all ready to go. I looked through the pictures from today too, and all of them were okay today. I just didn’t look through the videos yet. Today the pictures got better, maybe I was trying to hold it more steadily while under water.

I am definitely going to bed now. 4 hours of sleep, awesome!

DCIM100GOPROGOPR0003. Lots of tuna crabs.DCIM100GOPROG0010017. A seagull from under the surface.DCIM100GOPROGOPR0004. Two freeloaders on the instructor, haha!DCIM100GOPROG0030108. Most of the pictures looked similar.DCIM100GOPROG0030135. DCIM100GOPROG0040228. DCIM100GOPROG0040233. DCIM100GOPROG0060437. DCIM100GOPROG0060464. It was a completely different dive today, and it was really cool!DCIM100GOPROG0060496. DCIM100GOPROG0060497. Snapshot - 100 Snapshot - 103 Snapshot - 106 Snapshot - 108 Snapshot - 109-112Sea lion playing in the seagrass when we were heading out of the water. The water in there were so much warmer.

Goodbye SLO

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 the day when I said goodbye to my life up in San Luis Obispo. I can’t believe 9 months have passed already. But it has been a great year, I’ve met so many amazing people, done so many cool things, and learned important things. So even if the last few weeks have been pretty bad and I have been homesick, it has been a very sad day today. I am gonna admit that I have cried, especially when saying goodbye to some people. But I am also excited for a week in San Diego, and at the same time I kinda just wanna be done with this rollercoaster of feelings and be home already.

Michael and I started driving down to San Diego at 10:30am, picked up Björn and dropped him off at the LAX airport. So much traffic, and we didn’t reach La Jolla until 8pm. That was a long day. A very unhealthy one too. Slodoco for breakfast, In n Out for lunch and Cheesecake Factory for dinner. After tomorrow I will try to be done with all this unhealthiness.

On tomorrow’s agenda is first beach volleyball at Mission Beach, then surfing at La Jolla Shores, then San Diego County Fair, and then Jurassic World at Cinépolis. It will be a good day!

IMG_20150612_234953IMG_20150612_225121 After dinner we went to take a look at the beautiful San Diego skyline from Coronado Island. This is where I started my adventure in California more than 2.5 years ago, my second night in California was spent here.PANO_20150612_225636

And here are the pictures Rosie took of me in the studio a couple of weeks ago.IMG_1339 IMG_1371 IMG_1404 IMG_1415

Goodbye San Diego

My sheets are in the washing machine. My room is empty from all my stuff. Well, except for all my suitcases with all my stuff in them. Evertything is packed except my computer so now I’m totallt ready to go! But I am a little bit worried about my travel partner. I asked for her phonenumber on Facebook two days ago since I don’t have any Internet on my phone. And she still didn’t answer. Didn’t even read it… Well well, I’m sure it will turn out fine!

I am tired, I slept less than 5h last night so I guess I will sleep on the plane. That will be nice. I think the excitement will partly replace the tiredness as soon as I’m on the airport to check in!

Goodbye San Diego! See you for a few hours in 18 days! ❤

Goodbye dinner @ Famous Dave’s

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.

More goodbyes, but they weren’t so hard today since almost all of them are from Sweden. One is planning on moving there and one is from Germany. It will be worse in three weeks when I have to say goodbye to my hostfamily and Chad.

My day was very mellow. I spent the whole day in bed reading and sleeping. Don’t know why I’m so tired all the time. Maybe it’s more exhausting than I thought mentally preparing for departure and saying goodbye to people… I’m almost done with The Red Pyramid now, 50 more pages. I’ll probably finish that tomorrow.

In the afternoon I had a request which got granted. I wanted to go to the beach and watch the sunset one last time here in California. Chad has a final coming up this week so it was very nice of him to take me to Ponto Beach one last time. The sunset was beautiful tonight. All red and it wasn’t cold. No dolphins but that’s okay.

After that I picked up Johanna and we drove to Famous Dave’s BBQ. I went there my first weekend here and I went there my last weekend here. I love that restaurant. We were seven people, me, Chad, Lovisa, Johanna, Kristel, Cati and Fanny who is a friend of Lovisa visiting from San Francisco this weekend. We shared the All American BBQ Feast and it was so delicious. And it was perfect splitting it between seven people.  I’m lagom matt and it was only $12 per person.

Now I also have all my rides to/from the airport figured out. On Wednesday my hostdad will be so kind and drive me to the airport. Lovisa will pick me up when I land after Hawaii and Chad will drive me to my flight to Sweden. It’s a relief having those minor problems solved. In the next three weeks I have 8 flights. That is crazy! San Diego-Oahu-Maui-Big Island-Oahu-San Diego-Chicago-Frankfurt-Gothenburg.

I got home pretty early and now I have some stuff to do, like add comments to all the pictures in the calendar I got the family and pick out ebooks to the girl. Then I will probably read for a while before passing out…

I can’t believe I only have two more days here in San Diego….

Last CA sunset Last CA sunsetFamous Dave's

Goodbye Ponto

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.

Last time I played beach volleyball on Ponto. It was a sad morning. But I enjoyed it and played pretty well. Six games in total, and two of them were with Johanna. She is too Swedish to ask a random person to ask still. I said goodbye to a lot of people, got a lot of hugs and sweet words. I’m gonna miss them! As soon as I’m back I will play with them again!

I saw one dolphin today. But that is better than none. Hopefully I will see a lot of them at least on the whale watching tour on Maui.

Now I will try to throw some clothes away and then we’ll see what the rest of the day offers. I’m hoping for a trip to the beach to watch the sunset!

Bvball @ Ponto