Platja de la Nova Icaria

Posted on Thursday, May 17th 2018, 23:34 by Alexandra

I don’t know any Spanish, but that is not to my disadvantage since everyone here speaks Catalan. It took me several days to realize that. It all sounds the same, but at the same time no. The spellning is definitely weird. May for example is a word I know in Spanish: Mayo (Cinco de Mayo). But here it says Maig everywhere. These people here are not proud Spaniards, they are proud Catalans. And very proud ones at that. I think I have seen perhaps one or two Spanish flags on balconies, the rest 99% have Catalan flags. Yellow ribbons are everywhere as well having something to do with freeing political prisoners. The people here do not want to be a part of Spain. I am not too involved but even to the ignorant me, it is clearly visible.

The word Platja, I assume means beach (the Spanish word is playa, right?).

Most of today was spent at the beach. Mom and I left around noon and just walked straight east from the apartment until we eventually came to the beach. It was around 5 000 steps one way. So 10 000 in total after just laying there for many hours relaxing, getting foot massages and reading. Pretty decent.

It was warm today, not enough to want to go in the water, but still enough to lie on the beach for several hours. The wind was present so it didn’t get too warm either. It was perfect. But I am unused to being in the sun, and therefore forgot to use sunlotion on every inch of my body, so the closest tw centimeters around my bikin got decently red. It hurts a little, but I have been through worse. Nothing else got burned though. Sun protection works!! Use it!

After a quick shower back at the apartment mom and I went back out (Helena wasn’t feeling to well and used the day for resting for tomorrows trip to Parc Güell). We took the Metro to Hard Rock Cafe where mom bought me a late birthday dinner. Very nice and good. Number 19 in the order.

We then walked to Parc de Montjuïc, or the beginning of it, where the Font Màgica de Montjuïc (The Magic Fountain of Montjuïc) was. Tons of people pilgrimaged along with us and it took a little while for us to understand why. Everyone was going to the fountain. It wasn’t even that crazy in Las Vegas or Dubai! It was crazy bananas.

It played both popular music but also some classical. We thought it was about to end three or four times. It kept going for an hour! Crazy! But it was beautiful. Light was incorporated into the fountain and made really awesome effects. With the spray it almost looked like the water was boiling lava when it was red/orange or ice when it was blue. It was really beautiful! But it was long. So mom and I went up the stairs toward the castle behind it to take a photo of the rainbow fountain up there. But literally two seconds before had the chance to pull the photo trigger on both of our cameras, all the fountain lights in the area turned off and we stood there, with our cameras held high in darkness. WHAT?! Now I feel I have to go back just to take that picture, I was robbed of that opportunity, haha! I think it would have been a pretty cool 360 picture from up there as well. With the pretty castle, the rainbow and the columns further down and then the dancing fountain. Too bad.

It got really late today, the fountain didn’t start until 9pm. Tomorrow will be a day in the park with sunny weather.

UPDATE 2018-10-07!

A touristy day

Posted on Saturday, April 8th 2017, 0:08 by Alexandra

My left foot hurts pretty bad, not under, but on top! It hurts all the time, but sometimes it gets really bad and I almost stumble because it feels like the skin on top of my foot is peeled off, except there is nothing visible on the foot. It is super weird and a fairly big bummer. I will survive, and a little pain is not gonna stop me from enjuying this vacation! I untied my shoelace after dinner and then it got kinda okay.

19,600 steps today (accumulative ~58,000), even though we didn’t leave the apartment until 1pm. Since we were gonna stay out longer today for some night time photography, we decided to spare our feet and sleep a little longer today. We made lunch, canneloni, planned the day and went out.

Our first thing was to print the voucher for Colosseum. It took us a long time to find a place to print it and we were redirected from several tourist information centers who just sent us to another one. We finally find a place, the guy inside only spoke Italian, but it worked out and we have now the voucher. It says on the voucher that it MUST be printed, and that it won’t suffice with a mobile device. I have read that before, but I don’t want to take any chances this time.

Our next stop for the day was The Museum and Crypt of the Capuchins (Convento dei Frati Cappuccini). Since the Capuchins Monks are a current religious group, the museum kinda felt like a try of conversion. I did not find the museum particuarly interesting, but I learned a few things, that for example Capuchins means small hoods (because the monks and friars had small hoods). The crypt was why we went there. Several rooms with skeletons. We saw the one in Paris and thought it could be cool to have seen something similar in Rome. But no, nothing similar at all. In Paris the catacombs were used as burial sites since diseases were spread in the cematary’s. But here, the bones of previous monks (around 4,000 it said) and Christians were placed in architectural designs. For a crypt, it felt weird that it was aboveground with windows. It also felt really tacky to “glue” skeletal parts on the ceiling and on the walls. It felt disrespectful and honestly a lot crepy! If you compare it to the catacombs in Paris where they just stored the skeletons of, I can’t remember, but MANY, deceased ordinary people. Sure, there were some formations, but it was different. We were not allowed to take photos in there. But use Google, you will find something on how it looked!

We then walked on to the Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti). Like with the Trevi Fountain, there were too many people there. And our last stop in the daylight was Hard Rock Cafe. We had burgers, Jesper ordered a couple of drinks, we shared a desert and got our 18th glass. I can’t believe I have been to 18 Hard Rock Cafés around the world. Crazy.

It then got dark, and Jesper wanted to try his photographing skills. We first walked to Fontana di Trevi. There were as many people there in the dark as during the day. It was pretty though, and I got some good photos. Jesper was too tired to look at his more closely.

We then walked to Forum Romanum, took some pictures there and lastly walked to Colosseum. It is hard to take good pictures in the dark. But it was pretty there. I am really excited for the tour we are doing there tomorrow.

Kite Beach and Hard Rock Cafe #17

Posted on Tuesday, January 19th 2016, 20:41 by Alexandra

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

There is not much to say about today, we spent most of the day at the beach. Kite Beach was a big beach kinda close to our hotel. It was very few people, a big white beach, and there were real serious beach volleyball courts and a Jamba Juice. I feel proud every time I see one since the founder of it went to Cal Poly.

The water felt cold, but that could have been because the sun was burning today, even if it was a bit windy. We went in several times though, even if not all the way. It was just nice to stand in the blue water.

When it got a little too cold, we started looking for a taxi to get to Festival City Mall, which is mostly under development. IKEA is there and also Hard Rock Café. This was number 17, haha! We bought some more painkillers for Jesper. It is still pretty swollen, but I think it might be getting better, but it is hard for me to tell.

Tomorrow a similar day awaits us!

Festival City Mall. Dubai Skyline during sunset

Hard Rock Cafe #16

Posted on Tuesday, September 15th 2015, 0:38 by Alexandra

This day was only half because of this stupid UTI. It started kinda okay, but like yesterday we always had to keep our eyes open for restrooms. It is not fun to be on vacation and the only thing you are looking for are toilettes. We did go to Louvre, but the line to get in was probably 2-3 hours so we decided that we would do that big ass museum on Wednesday instead (it is closed on Tuesdays). We walked to the Latin district, went inside Pantheon where Madam Curie is buried. After that I had enough, broke down and went to a health center. They said there were no appointments today but I could get one tomorrow. I started crying and said that it was an emergency, and they said a doctor would see me in one minute. We talked for a short while and he said to sit down and wait for ten minutes and then he would help me. I am surprised, French people aren’t usually very nice. But that was really good service. After only an hour I had taken the first antibiotic pill out of three, one a day for three days. There was an option to get one shot, but for some reason the doctor thought that I wanted to drag the treatment out. I so wish I had that instead. Because those pills made me feel so bad! I have never experienced any side effects from medicine before, but I got almost all of it. I got dizzy, stabbing pains in the back, pretty bad muscle pain, and hard to breathe. Tomorrow I will take the pill when we get home so I don’t have to waste the day because we have a lot of stuff planned tomorrow. The pain went away as soon as we sat down for lunch right after, but that was the end of that day’s adventure. Jesper and I went home and watched a movie while the side effects wore off.

I was feeling much better after three hours and we were ready to go out. First we went to the Eiffel Tower, it is ridiculously close to here, only 10 minutes of walking. We didn’t go up, the line was long and we needed to eat. We walked through Le Jardin du Trocadéro and took the subway to Hard Rock Café. Number 16. Neither of us were very hungry so a pulled chicken sandwich was definitely enough.

Tomorrow we are going up in the Eiffel Tower, down in the catacombs and then up to Sacre-Coeur, the big church. Maybe some shopping to if there is time. It will be a fun day!

Louvre. Le Jardin du Luxemburg. Saint Sulpice. PANO_20150914_123250 Pantheon. The crypt beneath Panteon. It was surprisingly big. I think I will have spaghetti legs at the top tomorrow! Le Jardin du Tracadéro.

Churches, the ocean, Hard Rock Cafe

Posted on Monday, August 10th 2015, 23:29 by Alexandra

This day was very touristy, we started the day bying a ticket for a “hop on, hop off” bus and it was a great thing to do. We could sit outside in the sun, we could get off wherever we wanted and go in it as many times today as we wanted. So first we went to Basilique (I call it basilisque) Notre Dame de la Garde which is the big church on the mountain in the city. We have a great view over it from the apartment we are staying in. It was really cool! And the view over Marseille from up there was amazing. But it is a rather boring city. All the buildings look exactly the same, a beige color and brick roofs. It looks very boring. Our next stop was Cathedrale de la Major. It was a cool church too, but not as cool inside. Before the church we had dinner at a place right under it and it was really good. I had a meat plate with lots of cold cuts. We then walked to the museum at the end of that pier. But it was 8 euro admission fee so we skipped that and walked around Fort Saint Jean. On the way back we walked through the market that had opened up in the Old Port and bought several nice things. Not gonna write what, since people actually read my blog, haha!

We also bought tickets for the Parc National des Calanques tomorrow afternoon. I am so excited for that trip. 29 euros for 3.5h of boat trip to beautiful nature scenery. In the morning I am actually going there as well, but to dive. I am really really excited for that too! And it will be an adventure going there in the morning. I am gonna take the bus and switch bus one time. Haha, wish me luck everyone!

We took the bus home to the apartment, changed into swimwear and walked to the beach close by to go for a swim. It was so nice, 24C/75F. Amazing! But we didn’t stay in the water too long, we were paranoid over the stuff we left on the beach. It was very cloudy today, still very warm (and it would have been unbearable if it was sunny), so we didn’t stay at the beach but walked back home and took showers. There is a shower in the bedroom. And the toilet is in a small and very tiny room, the sink in another one with another shower. French people are weird. They also refuse to speak English and all the text and information around here is in French. It is an adventure.

Anyway, this afternoon I got an offer on an apartment in Kvillebäcken on Hisingen. I got super excited, called mom and asked if she could go to the viewing of it with Jesper on Wednesday when I am on the airplane on my way back. It is a perfect apartment, 57 square meters, 7115 KR/month, balcony, dishwasher, place for a washing machine and it is very close to downtown. I want it!! I told both mom and Jesper to tell the lady that I want it. I really really hope I get it. If I do, then I think my brother will stop hating me for wanting my student apartment back. The move-in date for this one is September 1^st, so very very soon! And I am so very very excited!!

After we were done with showering we went down to Old Port again to have dinner at Hard Rock Café, but first I bought breakfast and lunch for tomorrow, two bagels. I wasn’t very hungry so I had a salad for dinner, but it was really good. Arugula with grilled chicken, orange, dried cranberries, pecans, feta cheese, and a lemon dressing. I also had a pina colada. I love pina coladas!

Then we walked back home and I should probably go to bed now, the bus leaves at 7:24 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow will be so much fun! I hope the sun is out so I will get a little tanner again, I am honestly getting pale…Ponnykarusellen 2.0 On the bus to Notre Dame. Extremly narrow roads to the church. Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde. It was very pretty inside. The harbor. And the tower by the water to the left of the harbor is where we live. Cathedrale de la Major. Not as fancy as Notre Dame. Yes, he has a pigeon on his head. Palais de Pharo. Modern museum. Fort Saint Nicholas and Notre Dame from Fort Saint-Jean. The market. A narrow street with lots of restaurants.Hard Rock Cafe #15.

Hard Rock Cafe Punta Cana

Posted on Monday, December 15th 2014, 21:19 by Alexandra

I am pretty sure this was my 13th visit to a Hard Rock Cafe, my second one alone. I really don’t mind eating by myself and I had a nice time there by myself. I had a pulled pork chicken sandwhich and a cosmopolitan drink. I learned later that I could get free refills, so I ordered a pomegranate martini too. The last one was really good! I couldn’t do more after that, Hard Rock Café is very generous when it comes to alcohol in their drinks. And there was something else that I really liked about this HRC visit. A waitress walked around with an iPad where the guests could request music. I didn’t need to think that through, Three Days Grace of course! That was new since a month and I hope all the restaurants worldwide does that. It was great!

Before that I hung out at the beach for a few hours. Only since noon though since it was really bad weather in the morning and I decided to take a nap until the dark rain clouds cleared. They did eventually, but it was still cloudy all day. But when the sun was out I truly enjoyed it. I think I even might have gotten a little bit of color. Especially in my face. No burn!

I can’t really say that it was all just pleasantries at the beach today. There was a guy a little bit away from me and I saw that he was staring. Eventually he came closer and sat down on the sand 3m (10feet) away from me. After maybe ten minutes he came up to me and told me I was beautiful and that he was going to the bar, and wondered if I wanted something. I said I could take Piña Colada and I was hoping he would be gone after he gave it to me. Why did I even think that? I should have said no. Anyway, he came back and sat down, very very close to me, and started telling me several times again that I was very beautiful, that I was sent here by god, that he thought my eReader was a mirror and that I was admiring myself in it, AND that he loved me. I know that it is a cultural thing for men here to approach women and be straight up honest with them about their looks, but if they (this was a Dominican guy, but he lives in Cancun normally and was here on vacation) are at an international resort he should know that he can’t act like that. It was the creepiest thing ever! And clearly he didn’t get that I was uncomfortable and just wanted to be alone. I told him I had a boyfriend (and he answered that he just wanted to be friends, but seriously, who says stuff like the things he said and “just wanna be friends”??) and that I was here to relax after a tough quarter, but he didn’t understand. Even the family close to us saw it and gave me sympathetic looks. And I had no idea what to say, I am so bad at telling people to leave me alone. If I am not brave enough tomorrow I will just stay at the pool, in a different bikini (oh yeah, the creepiest thing was that he told me that he had kept his eyes on me since yesterday morning!), with my hair in a bun. I just wanna be alone and relax, that’s why I am here. I don’t wanna be bothered by guys who thinks I am beautiful just because I have blond hair and fair skin. Guys here seriously stop in the middle of the street, stare at me, and tell me that I am beautiful. Oh, and at the bar today a guy totally checked me up from head to toe several times while I was ordering a drink. What’s wrong with people here? I am not that beautiful!

Anyway, now that I have that out of my system, it was a good day except for that creepy dude. I read a lot (only 30 pages left now in The Maze Runner), and I got to be on a gorgeous beach in 28C. It was windy, but it just made it bearable. The sun here is really hot. But I am hoping for a cloudless day tomorrow. With today’s weather it’s too cold to go in the water (the water is fine, but it’s cold in the air).

Just look at the contrasts between the dark sky and the turquoise ocean. Hard Rock Cafe Punta Cana inside a shopping mall. Free refills on drinks, yay! I know I have free drinks at the hotel, but these were so much better.Three Days Grace – Break! ❤

Hard Rock Cafe Gothenburg

Posted on Thursday, August 7th 2014, 0:30 by Alexandra

Finally! My hometown was number 12. The California burger was good, but not as good as it normally is, it was a bit dry and heavy and 189kr for that was a bit much. But the atmosphere in there was the same as in all of the other Hard Rock Cafes I’ve ever been to. It was nice. 12 glasses is now showing on my shelf!

Today at work was my Friday, I had a long day, almost 10 hours of work. But it wasn’t too bad actually. After lunch just disappeared. First I had 2.5 hours straight of work, then 30 minutes break, 1 hour of work, 30 minutes break and 30 minutes of work before I got off at 9:30pm. The best ending on a day there is, perfect! And the day started with supervisors from two different areas fighting over me. There had been a misunderstanding and I was supposed to be on Balderado for the first couple of hours and then on Berget. But I ended up on Berget anyway. They were literally standing over me while I was sitting down, handing me papers on two different attractions and fighting for me.

Right after work I went to Hard Rock Café to meet up with Chad, Nicole and Nicolai. Nicole is a German friend from San Diego who is doing a roadtrip in Scandinavia with her boyfriend and they are staying here with me in Gothenburg for a couple of nights. Today they went adventuring in the city alone while I was working and tomorrow we will go to Liseberg for a while before I have to leave them there to go pull out a tooth. They arrived late last night.

Yesterday at work was a crazy crazy day! So many people for no apparent reason. Huge lines everywhere. The day before that was the complete opposite. No lines at all. The line ran out at Helix even! And when I closed Höjdskräcken I did 7 rides during the whole hour. Normally you can do 18-19 in an hour.

Yesterday was fun because of a challenge the supervisors gave us. We were supposed to find guests who travelled from far away. And the person who found the guests from the furthest away got an extra break on the schedule someday in the future. You had four tries to ask guests and I got so lucky on my first on; Los Angeles. I felt confident after that. I also got China, Germany and Spain. When I handed in my paper to the supervisors they said they had Philippines and Brazil as well, and I could see my extra break be removed from the time table.

I am so tired now, so I will be boring and go to bed actually. Me, Nicole and Nicolai will go to Liseberg pretty early tomorrow so I need my rest I guess. Or I probably will just sleep for the rest of the day when I get back from the dentist. As the two times before, mom will be there to be my support! ❤

US Embassy in Stockholm

Posted on Wednesday, June 11th 2014, 23:38 by Alexandra

My Saturday was spent in Stockholm after four hours of sleep. I tried sleeping on the 6am train this morning but just couldn’t. I read a lot instead. The train was almost 30 minutes late which meant I got to the centralstation in Stockholm at 9:10. My interview began at 9:30 and I had no idea from where the bus went. I asked around and finally found the right bus stop. It came almost directly and I actually were at the Embassy 9:35. It’s not extremely important to be on time because a lot of people have the same time and then there’s a line inside. What was frustrating though was that I was the last one to leave the Embassy even if other people had showed up after me. Not fair! I think it might be because I already had a visa for last year or something. I was done by 11am and took the bus back to the train station. My train back home didn’t leave until 4pm so I decided to have lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. I googled the location and walked there to kill time. I could have taken a bus, but I had five hours all alone in the capital. What to do? So I had lunch by myself in the summer sun. I didn’t take a burger, they were expensive, so I ordered a chicken/goatcheese/dried cranberries sandwhich on the lunch menu. It was really good! The staff there spoke English too me, it was weird, but HRC is an international restaurant chain so people from all over work there. My waitress was from Australia and the guy who sold me the pint glass was from California, but he spoke Swedish. It was cool.

After lunch I went to a park nearby and sat down for like two or three hours and read. After a couple of hours I was so tired I could barely sit straight up, I almost fell asleep right there and then. But fortunately an old and grumpy lady woke me up by screaming at me to take down my feet from the bench. It was a wooden bench and it was extremely uncomfortable with short shorts so I moved around a lot and decided that it was comfortable to have my feet up somehow on the bench. She yelled at me really loud but I just pretended I didn’t understand Swedish and she walked away continuing being pissed off. What is it with old ladies?? It’s a wooden bench out in the open, it will get dirty even if I don’t have my clean shoe on it. And it will get off when it rains. It’s another thing on buses to put your feet up on the cushioned seat in front of you, but a bench made out of wood in a park under a bunch of trees that drop tons of seeds? Stupid lady! But, she woke me up so I could stay awake for like thirty more minutes before my butt got a little bit too much wood flavor. So I slowly walked back to the train station where I waited for 40 minutes until the train came and took me home.

On the way back I tried to sleep and did that most of the three hour ride. There was a guy two rows behind me though that just couldn’t keep his mouth. He had some mental disability, but when you only had four hours of sleep and need to sleep it doesn’t matter if he is really happy and only says nice and happy things. It was irritating. I read some though, and I finished Throne of Glass and started on the 6th and last Mortal Instruments book City of Heavenly Fire. Throne of Glass was really good. It is about a young and world famous assassin whogets caught and ends up in a slave camp for a year. One day the Crown Prince comes along and wants here to participate in a competition to become the kings Champion. Really exciting and I really wanted to start the second book right away, but I have so many books that I really want to read so it’s hard to decide…

I got home, started doing laundry right away and I am almost done with it. I watched the latest Game of Throne episode during and the whole episode was just on the Wall! I thought I knew what was gonna happen at the end, but I guess that will be the next episode which also happens to be the season finale!
I also edited the thesis report and sent in it again. The second final version. I hope this gets approved! If it doesn’t very soon I won’t be able to get any CSN next year because of lack of study results. I got a letter from CSN yesterday that told me that I needed to fix my grades from this semester if I want a study grant next year. I can’t help that my thesis has been dragged out for this long! Cross your fingers for us that it will get approved this time!!
As soon as the laundry is done I will go to bed, read a couple of pages and sleep until I wake up tomorrow!

Oh, right, might be worth to mention that my visa got approved and I will get it back along with my passport within a week. Yay! 🙂

This is a photo I took of the backside of Liseberg one evening when I walked home. My 12th Hard Rock Cafe visit. Next will be Gothenburg!

Shopping

Posted on Saturday, May 17th 2014, 0:51 by Alexandra

My body is pretty much dead right now. My feet hurt and so does my back and thighs. This much walking can’t be good for you. Around 16 000 steps. It is needed though, the food we are eating isn’t the best one and I am swollen like a dead pig… I miss Sweden!

We slept a little longer today and didn’t leave the apartment until 11am. We took the Tube up to Oxford Circus and started to walk along Oxford Street which is one of the biggest shopping streets in London. I actually wasn’t in a shopping mode, at least not for clothes, so I didn’t buy much. In the first store, a bag store of the brand Carpisa, I bought a new wallet. I didn’t really need one, but it was onlt £8 and so cute. Always good to have two of everything in case the first thing breaks. Or something. It was worth buying anyway!

I don’t remeber all the stores we went in to, and I guess it doesn’t matter. We walked to a tea shop called Postcard Teas, but that was nothing for me. Too expensive and not my cup of tea. We then walked to Selfridges & CO, a huuuuge shopping mall. I usually never have troubles with too much perfumes in one place, but the ground floor of this mall was too much. It was awful! The reason we went there was to eat lunch. The food court was big. A lot of things to choose from. I had a mushroom soup because my throat is hurting today. It helped a bit. I am afraid I’m getting sick. I hope that’s not true, I have a test coming up in a little more than a week…

After that we split up, Gudrun went t-shirt hunting and the rest of us went to Victoria’s Secret. Wow, that store was amazing! So luxurious and fancy! Several levels, black walls, crystal candelabras and banisters. It was nice. I bought three pair of panties.

Then we walked along Bond Street which also is a big shopping street but more suitable for rich people. Lots of jewelery stores and expensive brands. It was fun to see. The next store we walked into was Abercrombie & Fitch. And that was also wow! First of all, we were greeted by a half naked guy with a very nice six-pack. The store was also very fancy with lots of small rooms, and a second floor from which you could see the first floor. Glass cases with clothes in them and of course, the moose head. Super expensive though, so I didn’t buy anything. But I enjoyed the smell and got a little piece of home :).

Next store was a secret store. In case that person reads. And then we went to Europe’s biggest bookstore. I was planning on on buying Inheritance, but this country only have big pocket books, and I want small. So I didn’t buy anything else than a cup of hot white chocolate in the cafe in there. The store had 8 floors, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t so tired.

We split up even more after that so it was just me and mom for the rest of the evening. First we walked up to Oxford Street again and on the way say the Hollister store. I just had to go in. It was also very fancy and cool or how to describe it. It was more small rooms inside the store, with half-stairs going down to them. It was like a very cool apartment turned into a store. Three levels which were connected by a stair. On one of the four walls was a big ass flat screen and on it were waves from California with surfers. The three others were mirrors, so it looked like the surfers where all around you and it felt like I was back in California again. It felt like home. I didn’t buy anything there either.

We went back to the Carpisa store because I found a carry-on bag for only £35! It had a cute turtle on it and I really couldn’t resits. I don’t have a carry-on so it wasn’t an unnecessary thing to buy.

Down in the Underground tube again and this time we went to Hyde Park Corner where Hard Rock Cafe was located. The waiting was 45-60 minutes, but then I showed the guy a Priority Seating ticket I’ve earned. We got the nxt available table. They said 25 minutes, but it didn’t take more than five or maybe ten. I had a hard time deciding what to eat, the local didn’t sound very appetizing and they didn’t have the California Burger with guacamole on it. Eventually I decided to have a Magical Mojito (elderflower and lime in it) and a Mushroom/Swiss Burger. It was good, but not as good as the other ones I’ve tried (like the Local Legendary on Maui with Pulled Pork and grilled pineapple!). The food only took like 15 minutes and we were done with the dinner after an hour since we got there. Perfect.

We were really full and decided to walk it off. We took a walk all the way back to the apartment, which wasn’t that far, but took forever since Buckingham Palace was on the way. We took some photos and I have come to the conclusion that the Palace isn’t straight horisontally. It’s an optical illusion. Because how many times I tried to take a panoramic photo of it, it didnt’t turn out straight!! Extremely frustrating.

Anyway, I think the Queen was home, the flag was up. The Beefeaters were outside guarding and many people outside the gates taking picture, even at 10pm.

Back home I sat down, had a cup of tea and some candy and just relaxed. My whole body is so sore and I don’t know how I will manage almost three more of these days!

Oxford Street. A display window of the Selfridge & CO mall. Another one. Inside the Victoria’s Secret in London. Three floors. Abercrombie & Fitch in London. Only two floors, but by far the most exclusive A&F store I’ve ever been in!! Waterstones. Europe’s biggest bookstore, with 8 floors. Hollister in London. Also by far the fanciest Hollister store I’ve ever been in. Hard Rock Cafe London, #11 My 11th Hard Rock Cafe visit! 🙂 Before this I have 4 drink glasses and 6 shot glasses. Today I bought a pint glass.Buckingham Palace from afar. The panoramic picture of Buckingham Palace. What happened?? I did exactly like I did with all the other photos, and they are fine… Two days of shopping. Might be more in the end :).

Lahaina

Posted on Wednesday, January 22nd 2014, 22:56 by Alexandra

We didn’t do the tour today. We were on the waiting list but since it was pouring down this whole morning we didn’t think snorkeling would be such a good idea so we just took the bus by ourselves to Lahaina to walk around. The tour was partly in that city too. So we would rather go by ourselves so we could put our name first on the list for the real turtle snorkeling tomorrow. It was very frustrating with the buses again. We were told that bus 20 went straight from outside the hostel to Lahaina so we sat there and waited for an hour before we realized that probably wasn’t true. So we took the normal bus to the big shopping mall and from there the 20 went. It took us three hours to get to Lahaina. So stupid!

When we came there it was really windy. But the city was so pretty! It was the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii but then King Kamehameha III moved it to Honolulu in the middle of the 19^th century. We walked around, looking in souvenir shops. I bought my refrigerator magnet and I couldn’t resist buying another bracelet. It said it was Cat’s Eye Fortune Bracelet/Anklets. Each color represented different things. I chose the light blue because it was the prettiest one and it will bring me romance apperantly.

We walked along a nice beach where big houses had the beach as backyard. Those houses must cost millions of dollars! I wouldn’t mind living there! At the end of the beach were a Buddhist temple and this morning when I were waiting for the bus I read in a Maui brochure that out there was the biggest Buddah statue outside Asia. And we actually saw it and remembered the text when we saw it.

On the way back we stopped at Hard Rock Café Maui to have dinner. We got a seat right next to the glassless windows with a beautiful view over the ocean and sunset. We shared the local burger which was so good! Pineapple chunks, teriyaki sauce and pulled pork. First time I ever tried that. It was good! For dessert we stopped by a Gelato place. I had pineapple and it was really good. Tasted like real pineapple. I’ve never had that before either, so two new things I’ve tried today again. In the gift store at HRC I bought a shotglass and a t-shirt. It was expensive, but I really wanted that t-shirt. I mean, how many people in the world have a Hard Rock Café Maui t-shirt?

On the long way back to the hostel we froze. We had our towels wrapped around us and we will probably sleep with hoodies or at least an extra blanket or something. It was really cold tonight! Probably that arctic chills going over the mainland right now… So it will probably be really cold, maybe even snow, when we are doing the volcano hike at 10,000 feet height on Saturday.

When we got back to the hostel we asked one of our roomies about the trip today (we actually saw the vans in Lahaina earlier and our guide from yesterday recognized us and waved when we were crossing the street). And the wind and waves were making the water all foggy (like sand you can’t see through), so they didn’t do any snorkeling and she was disappointed. So I’m glad I didn’t go. I and Caroline had a nice time together in Lahaina without any stress on when to get to the van.

I don’t know what happened over night, if it was all the moisture that came with the rain or what (apperantly there was a big storm over the whole of Maui last night), but when I woke up I had so many mosquito bites! Especially on my legs. And one big on one of my knuckles. Mosquitos love me and I hate them! I hope they don’t carry any deceases with them.

I really hope the water has calmed down tomorrow so I can see some turtles! And I will get a tiny sleep-in because the tour doesn’t leave until 10:30 am. Awesome!

This river was completely dry yesterday! This is what a big part of Maui looks like. It’s just desolate… Is it my 10th visit maybe? 🙂