End of week 3

Sorry blog, I will try to be better from now on! Time goes to fast, and before I know it another whole week has passed since I updated.

This weekend was very very chill. Friday and Saturday I spent all day at the pool reading. On Friday I finished the second Artemis Fowl book, started reading the second Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy, and also finished it since it was only 100 pages. And then I finally started Ghosts of Ascalon, the Guild Wars 2 books. I finished half of it already and it is actually really good.

Today was a little bit different. I went to Pismo Beach with Cal Poly beach volleyball club. Unfortunately there weren’t many girls so I didn’t get the opportunity to play more than two games. I can totally play with three guys, but I don’t think they would like that. I need female beach volleyball players in SLO, where are you?? The two games were really fun though and the guy I played with, we played well together, at least the second game. Our peppering was also amazing, I don’t think I’ve ever been going on for so long without dropping the ball. SO much fun! I am a little bummed that I didn’t get to play more than two games, and lessons are cancelled tomorrow. I am gonna pick up beach volleyball seriously when I am back in Sweden!

Last week was normal, lots of homework like normal, nothing special happened.

After the beach today I wrote my own review sheet for my German midterm on Thursday. I feel like I have that under pretty well control.

Now I will play a little Guild Wars 2 before going to bed. A new week awaits!

Pint night

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 night was a very fun evening. My second pint night since I moved to SLO. The first one was the first week of school last quarter.

I went down there at 9pm with Måns, Pelle and Toby and met up with people down there. We thought we were early but when we got to SLO brew the line was enormous! Fortunately we found some of our neighbors halfway to the entrance and sneakily cut the line. No one noticed. We probably saved ourselves an hour. It still took us an hour to get in, good thing it wasn’t too cold. And the company was great. After a little while Matt joined us too. We got in and bought cheap beer. It was extremely crowded in there and very loud, but when we finally got a table as far away from the bar as possible it was easier to talk. It was the five of us who hung out the whole evening. The three Swedes, the German and American. I am a little bit embarrassed to admit that we spoke a lot of Swedish. But it was just one night, I will go back to my normal English (and weird-feeling Swedish) as soon as Måns has left tomorrow. I don’t know exactly when he is leaving, if he stays so we can go to Farmer’s Market or if he wants to stay even longer and go to line dancing. He should, but he also has a long drive down to LA. We will see. I have a long day in school first, noon to 6pm without any breaks except for the 10 minutes between classes. I don’t think I will be a big fan of Thursdays this quarter.

Before pint night yesterday I had my first day of classes. It started with Introduction to Urban Planning at noon to 2pm. It seems like an interesting class, but a lot of work. There are only two midterms, no final, two assignments, so not too bad. BUT, we do have readings before every class. Just skip the reading you say? Nope, because we also have a quiz before every class (which is twice a week). So this time I will have to do all the reading. Ugh… This morning I read more than 20 pages and took the quiz between my two classes today. I got 88% because the short answer questions needed to have the exact phrasing. I knew the answers, but typing it wrong many times. Annoying.

My second class was German and I can already say that I love that class and that it will be my favorite class this quarter. I didn’t miss anything on Monday, the teacher just talked about the syllabus. And yesterday he went through all of last quarter briefly. I recognized everything so I don’t think I will have any problems at all with this step 2 class. And the teacher is funny. A very important trait with teachers. He made us laugh all the time, and he seems to know most of the students since last quarter.

Right after class Lauren, Måns, and I went to Slodoco to buy 23 donuts for Rachel’s 23rd birthday yesterday. She got really happy! And now we all have donuts to eat whenever. Not too good… But still very good!

Then Måns and I went to Pismo Beach to watch the sunset, and it was a glorious Californian sunset. No clouds and it was warm. Oh yeah, the whole day had been really warm. Like a summer day. Almost 30C. Winter? Nope, SLO goes straight for summer. I love it! I was afraid it was gonna be cold when I got back from the Caribbean. Today has been as nice, but I was at home most of the day and didn’t go out until in the afternoon. Still very nice though.

Pismo Beach Pismo Beach Pismo Beach Pismo Beach Pismo Beach seals Seals were swimming right next to the pier.Pismo BeachPismo Beach

After the beach I bought food since I threw everything out when I left for winter break. Pizza was ordered for dinner and I took a hot shower with our new showerhead the maintenance guys put in over the break. Awesome!

 

Today was another day of school. I did the reading, went to my German class (where we watched an old 40’s movie about post World War II), and then took the quiz, and went to my first Public Transportation class. The teacher talked extremely fast, and he was Indian so I had to really focus on what he was saying. What I hear was that we don’t have any class next week, yay! And he also talked about the different public transit modes for an hour and a half. I talked to him afterward and I was still in the class, thank god!

I went back home, watched the last part of Sex Tape with Måns, and then he started cooking dinner. He made poppy seed salmon with haricot vert/ginger/honey pasta. It was delicious!! For dessert he made us Swedish pancakes with strawberry jam and ice cream. Very appreciated and so nice of him. I am still full and this was three hours ago.

After that Toby and Aiden stopped by and hung out for a while. We all played Trivia Crack against each other and it was just a very nice evening.

And now it is past midnight so I should go to bed. Not that I have anything to do before noon.

Bishops Peak plus moon Yesterday morning I had to go up really early to buy a parking permit for Måns, and on our way back to my apartment we saw Bishops Peak and the moon.Måns cooking

Internet again

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.

That only took a few days. Boring days. But early-to-bed-days.

Yesterday I was at the library for most part of the day studying. Doing homework in Transportation Engineering. It took 4 hours to do 6 out of 8 problems, and another two hours of trying with the last two in the evening. It didn’t work. So I will go to office hours with our professor on Monday morning and ask for some help. I guess most students might go. We had two problems which we haven’t even talked about in class.

At 8pm I went to salsa lesson with Johanna. My roommates dissed me because they wanted to go to the social salsa dance tonight, but they ended up not going. I had fun last night. I was so much better than the first time.

I went home and spent the rest of the evening talking to people. Everyone was at the toga party, I wasn’t in a party mood so I just waited until everyone got back and didn’t go to bed until 3am for some reason.

This morning I went to Pismo Beach with Johanna and the Cal Poly beach volleybal club. It was very very foggy this morning but the sun came out eventually as it always does. I couldn’t play as much as I wanted though. I pulled a muscle in my upper but and I couldn’t stretch it out. It still hurts, even if I’ve been on a foam roll a lot this evening. I should probably do some more before I go to bed (which I should have done a long time ago).

Pismo BeachBeautiful Pismo Beach! New bikiniMy new bikini (Victoria’s Secret) is beach volleyball friendly. A little more athletic than my other ones. The neon color makes my tan look nice. Retrieving a flip flopWhen we were getting to the car I dropped one of my flip flops down the rocky side down to the beach. It stopped in the middle, so first I tried throwing rocks at it to make it slide dow to the bottom. Then I decided to walk down there (walk all the way to the staircase and then back on the beach) to try to reach it from down there. It took me like 30 minutes to finally get it. Stupid flip flop…

When we had had a cinnamon roll at Old West Cinnamon Rolls we drove to Avila Valley Barn where there was a pumpkin patch. All the holidays are big here in the States (I’m sure I wrote the exact same thing last year) and a pumpkin patch is where you buy your pumpkins and do stuff like ride horses, feed fat goats, buy locally grown fruits and vegetables, go on hayrides, and buy corn on the cob and stuff like that. It was a fun event and I am going back next weekend with my roommates. We are gonna by pumpkins and carve and put in our windows for everyone outside to see. I so look forward to that. Today we went there with the international students. I only saw a few though.

Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin Patch Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin Patch Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin Patch Avila Valley Barn Pumpkin PatchI got three small pumpkins to have as decorations in our apartment. They are soo cute. The big ones are being bought next weekend. I also bought a lot of fruit. It felt good buying something from a farmer’s market. I do buy a lot of organic food here, but it still felt more special.

When I got home I did my Sustainable Environments homework. And that was a fun homework actually. By taking a test (you can take it HERE) I found my ecological footprint and wrote a 1-page paper about it. I took the test twice, once for my life in Sweden and one for my life here in SLO. If everyone in the world lived like me we would need 1.44 Earths (Sweden and 4.09 (USA). I compared and retook it again to see if some changes made big differences. Very very interesting.

Kelsey baked banana bread tonight and I’ve been trying to figure out what to wear on Halloween. It is not easy. And I feel like it has to be something good since holidays are big here. I have four options so far. What do you think?

Halloween 2014Minion from Despicable Me, Viking, Penguin or a Zombie Fairy? Or something else?

I also got to see the car I probably will buy in December. It is a small convertible and it works perfectly. I so look forward to buying my first car!! And it will be a VW convertible! An international student bought it the other day, but he is only staying this one quarter so I will buy it together with Johanna to use for the next two quarters. I am so excited! And about the driver license. I called the DMV office in Sacramento and they told me I didn’t need to retake the tests. I just have to show up with all my legal papers, take a new photo and wait for the plastic card. I am so happy! Everything works out in the end, like is has for the past year. Life is good.

Volkswagen Cabrio 1999

I really need to go to bed now. I am planning on going up at 8am to study before going to the beach around noon. (And I don’t have any trouble going in and out of bed anymore. I was extremely sore yesterday (3 days after TRX) but now it’s better. I played some beach volleyball at the PCV court Thursday late evening and that removed the last of the soreness. Too many people there though so it wasn’t fun. Next time I will exlusively invite only three people to play seriously with. I look forward to a new week of exercise starting on Monday, for real this time, I will take it even easier this time.)

Kanelbullens dag

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

This Saturday was amazing. We were supposed to start it by playing beach volleyball at the PCV court but it was so windy outside it wouldn’t be fun, so I cancelled. At 11am we went to the beach instead, me, Kelsey, Tobi, Coby, Evan and Julia. We did the right thing. In SLO it was too hot, over 100F. Out at Pismo Beach it wasn’t even that warm. It was okay to lay in a bikini, but it wasn’t super hot. So we spent five hours there. We played beach volleyball (no wind out there surprisingly), went into the cold water (17C /65F), and lay on the beach tanning. It was an amazing day. I didn’t get burned and the water was so much fun. It was cold, but after a while your body got numb and all the big waves made it easier. We also saw several dolphins pretty close to the beach and also some seals. I still get very excited when I see dolphins.

Oh right, I almost forgot. I also tried skin boarding, which is when you are standing on the beach and ride on a thin board out in the water when the wave is just on its way back to the ocean. It is very very hard and I fell on my butt the second time I tried. It didn’t hurt, but I got sandy and had to go in the water again.

Dolphins at PismoDolphins to the right and left in this picture. A surfer in the middle.

Before we left Pismo at like 4pm, we stopped by this awesome place called Old West Cinnamon Rolls. I got a cream cheese frosted one and coby a walnut and we shared so we each got a half of each. So good! I remembered when we were sitting there that it was ”kanelbullens dag” (the day of the cinnamon roll) in Sweden yesterday. Then I googled it and it turned out to be today. Awesome! Not Swedish cinnamon rolls, but still delicous.

The day of the Cinnamon RollAn american cinnamon roll.

Back home we all chilled for a bit. Taking showers and I ordered a new bikini in which I will be able to play beach volleyball in. The ones I have will probably fall off if I go all in. I think it was worth it.

Then me, Kelsey and Lauren went downtown where we met up with Rachel when she got off work and we had a roommate date evening at Firestone Grill. They have the most amazing pulled pork sandwhiches. THE BEST EVER!!!

Roommate date at FirestoneMy amazing roommates. Left to right: Me, Kelsey, Rachel and Lauren. Roommate selfie

Our next thing was to go grocery shopping. I got everything I needed except pasta, but that was probably for the best anyway. I don’t have a scale here, but I am afraid that I’ve gained weight. It is hard being healthy here, but as soon as I start working out it will probably be fine. And speaking of, I just signed up for TRX classes twice a week for te whole quarter. It cost $40, but I think that will be worth it. It is every Tueday and Thursday between noon and 1pm, when I am out of class, so I didn’t really have an argument why I shouldn’t sign up for it. I love TRX and that would be a good motivator to get me to start work out again.

After grocery shopping we went to the room above ours to a party. It was fun for a while, but I got tired. So I stopped by another room on the third floor (which is my floor) to hang out for like 30 minutes before going back home. I won’t be able to get up early to go to the gym, but whatever. I feel good about myself just signing up for TRX. There were only 4 spots left. It will probably be extremely hot tomorrow as well, so I will probably just hang out by the pool. Even tonight it was hot, we were al sweating in shorts and tank tops. In the middle of the night! It was around 30C. Ridiculous.  I like it though, I get tired from it. But the oppurtunity to be in the ocean in October doesn’t come too often.

I love my life here!

New tattoo, where?! Shit, my calves look gigantic on these pictures… Anyway, I wanna get another tattoo. Any input, calf or ankle (the same foot as my first tattoo)?TarantulaWhen we came home from Albertson’s and we were gonna park the car inthe parking structure, there was a big tarantula walking around in there. And I was just telling Kelsey at the beach today that I never saw a single one in San Diego and that she probably wouldn’t see one here in just a quarter. Oh, I was wrong… I’m guessing it was about 2-3 inches (5-8cm).

Beach volleyball @ Pismo Beach

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 sorry my 25 readers (which is more than last year, yay!), my blog has been dead because I’ve been too tired to update. So, I think Wednesday was the last day I updated. Since then I’ve gotten a 15 page paper due on Thursday next week, been to downtown again, walked all the way back and stopped to refill energy with a donut at the 24/7 donut shop. On Friday I baked muffins and cupcakes with my roomies and people from the building came and said hello. A great way to meet people. We had about 100 and we actually got rid of all of them.

Cupcake frosting with LaurenOne of my roommates, Lauren :).

In the evening on Friday we went to a house party and I have now something more on my experience list. The party got rolled, which means that the police came and asked everyone to leave. It was kinda weird and I really don’t understand how that works here, because it seems like all the house parties get rolled, even if non of the neighbors are home (like yesterday). The police earns money from it, so I guess that’s why they prioritize parties. It was only 23:30 so we headed back to PCV and hung out with some guys on the fourth floor playing Cards Against Humanity. The most fun game ever.

This morning I went to Pismo Beach with Ryan, Johanna och Franzi which is a German exchange student. We played beach volleyball for like three hours. At first not very serious, just to get warmed up. I ended up playing my last game with some pretty good players, that was fun. It was too bad though that the wind is always coming to the beach here at like noon.

Pismo Beach

On our way home we had lunch at High Street Deli which is SLO’s best sandwhich place according to pretty much everyone. It was very good and much needed after so many hours in the sand. It felt good to be back, but it’s gonna take a while to get into playing again.

At home I took a shower and then a too long nap. So I didn’t have time to study… I felt a little bad actually. But I am going up at 8:30am tomorrow to write on my paper about the High-Speed Rail in California. It is a group project, but it is still a lot of pages to write. I think it will be done pretty fast though as soon as I just get into it, which I will do tomorrow. I think I am meeting up with my group in Engineering Transportation sometime during the day as well to figure out what our project this quarter should be about. The 15 page paper of the California HSR is in Transportation Engineering Lab. I also have a lot of reading to do, so that’s what I will do tomorrow. I am also checking to see if anyone is going grocery shopping. I finally have a few ideas of food I want to cook. I am thinking spaghetti and meatsauce tomorrow. Or maybe Monday.

After the shower, nap and dinner (the other half of the delicious sandwhich) I went to Grover Beach with a bunch from my WoW-group to hang out. At Grover Beach it is okay to drive with the cars on the sand and it is a huuuge beach and you can just put the bonfire right in the sand. It was a very nice evening! I smell a lot of smoke right now, but it was worth it. My roomies were up and running when I got back at like 23:30. They were hyper from lack of sleep. Haha. I like them, they are so sweet and so funny. I am gonna miss them so much when I have to leave (way too soon!).

Bonfire at Grover Beach

I guess I should go to bed now so I won’t be too tired to get up at 8:30 tomorrow…