Tag Archives: summer

The pool and studying

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This weekend was over so extremely fast. I know I have one more day of weekend, but kind of no. I can’t sleep in, have to get up at 8am to go to the office hours of Transportation Engineering because I don’t understand the last two problems of the homework which is due Tuesday.  And then I guess I have to study for my midterms on Thursday. I did some studying today for Architecture History. I read some at the pool in between the mandatory stays in the water (it was about 95F (34C)) so I couldn’t stay up on land for more than four pages. I read a whole chapter on the Greek world while talking to friends. It was fun. We were gonna go to the beach at first, but we decided to go to the pool. Easier to study there.

Went back to the apartment at 5pm, had dinner, took a shower, and I’ve been studying since. I am doing a summary document of all the names and dates and pictures and short descriptions. It takes time. So far I’ve gone through two out of six time periods. I will hopefully be done with it tomorrow and then I guess I need to do some studying for Transportation Engineering as well. I look forward to Thursday evening. All homework will be handed in, my two midterms will be done and I am going out with Julianne to Farmer’s Market and we are also having sushi for dinner. Hopefully this week willbe over as fast as the rest of my four weeks I’ve already spent here. Where does time go?

Internet again

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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.

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.)

DMV and quarter schedules

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Today was not a very productive day. The only thing I did was some ARCH reading before biking down to the DMV on the south end of SLO. I was prepared to just show my old CA driver license and take a new photo and then be done with it. But apparently I forgot to bring my I-94 paper, which I never got this year (but now you’re supposed to print it yourself). So we had to make a new appointment for next week. AND I can’t just renew it since my application period expired. So I need to retake both the written test and the behind the wheel test. I’m not cool with that so I am gonna call to the Sacramento head office and tell them my story and hopefully I will get away with it. But I got the Driver License Handbook just in case. I am getting a driver license this year, doesn’t matter how!

The way back was hard. Up almost all the way. I stopped in downtown for a bit to buy body lotion (my skin is so dry in this weather! I will get used to it eventually, but it might take time). I got home and had 15 minutes before I had to be at the library, so I grabbed a small snack and then jumped on the bike again. I was so sweaty. It was hot today again, but not as hot. I was at the library with Johanna and Courtney to work on our homework in Sustainable Environments which is due Wednesday. We sat there togetherfor an hour and then I sat alone finishing for another two hours. It felt good to study for once.

When I got back I had dinner, hung at at Ryan’s for a bit and then got back home where I talked to Tobi about my winterbreak trip. He wants to join me for Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. And another guy from Brazil messaged me on Facebook today telling me he was interested too. It would be so great if we could be four people, it would be cheaper and more fun. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS TRIP! I am guessing it will be more epic than my Hawaii trip in January.

Last night I also stayed up late, but I actually did something productive. I decided what classes I want to take. I am not gonna have as awesome schedule as I have now, but I will have a three-day weekend at least. So for Winter quarter I will take ”Intro to Environmental Engineering”, ”Public Transportation”, and ”Elementary German II”. 12 units in total. Monday’s+Wednesday’s 12-17:30, Tuesday’s 14-15, and Thursday’s 14-18. Not too bad. And in Spring quarter I will take ”Water Chemistry and Quality Measurements”, ”Traffic Engineering”, and ”Elementary German III”. Also 12 units. Monday’s 15-16, Tuesday’s+Thursday’s 7:30-16 with a gap between 11 and 15, and Wednesday’s 8-16 (no gaps). Not too bad either. The early Wednesday mornings won’t be too fun, but I guess I will be bored with Pint Night by then. All of those courses sound interesting. And I hope that we will have Professor Bertini on both Public Transportation and Traffic Engineering. He is a good teacher (from what I can tell after two weeks of class with him).
I can register for class on November 10th, so it’s far away. But I wanted to be sure of what to do so I don’t have to stress about it later.

It is way past my bedtime now, I should have been in bed like 1,5 hours ago. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow… My first TRX session is coming up, exciting :).

The pool (again)

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All this sun is making me so exhausted. I slept until noon today, and then I spent three hours at the pool and since then I haven’t done anything except had dinner and made a work-out schedule. It is 8pm and all I want to do is go to bed…

It was so hot when I woke up, just getting out of bed made me sweaty. I skyped with mom and then went to the pool with Kelsey. It was hot, but the water was cool. Back home I had leftovers and then I made a workout schedule. I am gonna try working out 5 (or 4) days a week and it doesn’t look too bad. Monday: Interval training and light full body workout in the gym. Tuesdays: TRX during lunch and maybe Electro Flow Yoga in the evening. Wednesday: rest day. Thursday: TRX during lunch and Vinyasa yoga in the evening. Friday: rest day. Saturday: Beach volleyball at either PCV or Pismo Beach. Sunday: 6-pack abs (30 min class) followed by 45 min of spinning (called Breakaway here). I think I could survive that.

I actually think I am going to bed now. If I go to bed early I might wake up early and have energy to do something tomorrow. Maybe workout? Or maybe some architecture history reading. In the early afternoon I am going to the DMV to renew my drivers license and then doing my homework for Sustainable Environments with Johanna and Courtney. And after that the third week of school begins. I like warmth. But I do hope it cools down, I don’t like being this tired…

CA HSR presentation

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(=California High-Speed Rail presentation)

Today was the big day. A week of ”hard work” in transportation engineering lab is over. Last Thursday we got a huge assignment, a 15 page paper and a presentation due today. I am very relaxed I’ve noticed. My groupmembers (we were four people) were super stressed out about this whole thing, while I did my thing and wasn’t panicking at all. They got me all worked up the last hour before hand-in this afternoon. And it actually made me a bit upset. I’m never worried about these kinds of things. I know that everything works out and I am satisfied with my part. But the presentation didn’t go as well as I thought. I am always very confident when it comes to presentations (at least now, maybe not five years ago) and the rehearsal before went awesome. But I choked when I was up there in front of the class. I guess there is a big difference holding a presentation in your native language and in your second language. I forgot words, I mispronounced a lot of words and I guess I stuttered a little too. I hope the teacher understands that and understood  what I was trying to say. It feels good to be done with this though. This was the toughest assignment in the lab class if I don’t misremembered.

After that I went to the rec center (Recreational Center = the gym on campus) to end this long day with an hour of yoga. The gym is amazing by the way (google ”cal poly rec center”!). I am so excited about starting to work out again. I need to make a work out schedule though. I don’t wanna go to the gym unprepared. And after yoga (first time in like five months) I realized that I need to increase muscle mass. I am ridicoulusly weak at the moment… I guess my legs are good after all the walking on this huge campus, but my upper body strenght equals zero.

The evening was spent with Lauren on the couch watching 21 Jump Street, drinking tea, eating Reese’s Mini Peanutbutter Cups. It was a very nice evening. After that a lot of people stopped by as usual which I love. It is so easy to meet people with an open door. I think I met four new people today and I think i remembered all of their names. Yay!

 

So, my day started at 5:40 with a shower, a real breakfast (scrambled eggs and avokado) and a cup of Yerba Mate tea and then class at 7:40. I couldn’t get home on my four-hour break today so I decided that I needed to wake up properly before class. The tea is full of caffeine and I think I was more awake during my first two classes than normal, but I’m not sure. In Architecture History class I sat next to a guy from Carlsbad, CA and who had also been to the three Caribbean islands I am going to. I can’t remember his name though…

After my two classes I went to the Study Abroad Fair to be one of the international students who the American students could ask questions. It was fun, but not many people who asked me things. I got free lunch and that was nice. At 1:30pm I met up with my trans lab class and rehearsed for the presentation and fixed the last things in the paper. And that was all that happened today.

No packages today. I want my bathroom rug and the small cutting board! Hopefully tomorrow. I am completely off (no homework except reading due Tuesday) so I am gonna relax by the pool all day tomorrow after I wake up. It is supposed to be around 97F tomorrow and it was the same today and that is hooooot! I love it though, where else is it 38C in October?! 🙂

I am tired, but I don’t feel like going to bed. But I probably should anyway. I really need to update the page ”Who is Alexandra?” though…. That’s for tomorrow!

Goodnight/goodmorning!

1st+2nd day of class and Pint Night

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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’ve spent two days in school now and I have gone to one of each class. And I like it. Yesterday morning I had Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering at 7:40am to 9am. The teacher seems to be really good and the topic is interesting too. I actually had no idea what I signed up for months ago. The teacher introduced me and Johanna in front of the whole class because we were from Sweden and that he was probably gonna ask us during class sometimes how it works with transportation in Sweden.

At 9:10 I had to find my next class. It wasn’t too hard but I was one of the last to get there so I had to sit in a left-hand seat. The tables you have in front of your chair in the lecture hall and it is just a tiny piece of table you fold up from the armrest and a few have a table on the left side, so that was weird. That class was History of World Architecture : Prehistory-Middle Ages. It is a fun subject. But I heard it is a tough class, much to remember and read. But I will probably be fine. The teacher is very monotone when he speaks though which makes two hours extra long. But I’m sure the multiple choice tests will be easy enough.

I went home after that, had a quinoa salad (so far I have actually been healthy!), and then went to my last class for the day which was a lab in Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering. It is two different classes for some reason. The teacher was nice. He called everyone’s names and he asked most of us if we preferred what he said or a nickname. So he asked me if I wanted to be called Alex or Alexandra. I said Alex since everyone here knows me by that name. Alex is a very very common name here. I meet Alex’s all the time. In the lab we were just doing a little research about the Interstate Highway System. It took a while for me, I need to get used to this. But I hope it was okay.

After that I went home, hung out at Ryan’s for a bit before we headed downtown with Johanna. Taco Tuesday offered $1.50 tacos and $3.50 margaraitas. That was fun. Then we went to trivia night at Woodstock with some of Ryan’s friends and then we headed to SLO Brew where we spent most of the evening. Apparently a guy from LMFAO was there so the line in was long, but it went really fast anyway. Not many people from our WoW-group was there but a few and it was a nice evening. So Pint Night works like this. Every Tuesday a few bars downtown sells a pint of beer for $1-3 depending on what beer you want. You first buy your own glass and then you just reuse that all the time. Cider was available for $3 which was awesome! I met a girl named Martina there last night and I met her in San Diego last year when she was roommates with Hanna (who did this exchange program two years ago). She was also an international student back then and now she is back for her graduate degree. I had no idea she was back and when I saw her, that was a nice surprise. She is very nice. I wasn’t too drunk but I still walked the bike home. I got home at 3am. And I am so glad I don’t have any early classes on Wednesday’s.

This morning I skyped with mom for the first time since I got here. It felt so normal, like I never left San Diego. Was I ever home in Sweden?

After that I went to the pool here in PCV and did a lot of reading. Here it is apparently normal to read what the teacher says before class to be prepared. So I spent a few hours by the pool reading about architecture history. I think I got a little tan. Not any redness at all. I think I am getting used to the sun here which is good. Of course I had a lot of sunscreen on but my first weekend here I got burned anyway.

Studying at the pool

I got home, took a shower, had another salad for dinner (I don’t have that much food yet) and then headed to my last class, which is Sustainable Environments. That class will be so much fun. We are gonna watch a lot of movies, he encourage us to listen to music like Bob Marley and Ramones (he put links to songs on the course webpage). And we only have three hours of class every week instead of four (it is a four credit class). So those last ten hours that’s missing we are going on field trips. The teacher gave us a lot of suggestions and after each we have to write a paper. On Monday I am going to a documentary called Cowspiracy, which is showed downtown and then I will go to a solar panel thing and a landfill and maybe something else. I need ten hours. We talked to the teacher afterwards and he seems really cool. I need to remember to bring a cup of coffee or something next time though. I got pretty tired and I don’t wanna fall asleep during class.

Tomorrow’s another Tuesday. Thursday’s and Tuesday’s look exactly the same. I don’t look forward to going up at 6am to go to class at 7:40… Goodnight!

Bank account, PolyCard, bike

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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 very very warm again. And it started with a 2.5 mile walk to the bank. With no buses (because of the move in which by the way has made all of campus chaotic, the line of cars in to campus was so long today!!) and no bike I didn’t have another option. I was late and walked fast and was sweating a lot when I came to the bank where Johanna already were, starting up her account. Everything went smoothly and I put in $530. I had to withdraw most of it later in the day when we found out that we  could buy bikes for $150 (Johanna didn’t have that cash on her American bank account and couldn’t use her Swedish to withdraw so I let her borrow $200). Right after that we walked back up to campus where we checked in at the international center where we also had to sign up for an appointment with an advisor on Thursday morning to go through all our papers and check if everything is signed and ready and okay. Our next stop was to get PolyCard which is an ID card. It was a bit troublesome for me. My full name is Hanna Alexandra Camilla Bemm, but my given name is Alexandra, and that makes it really complicated here in the US, here Hanna is my name. I told the guy who took my photo and made the card that my given name is Alexandra but he said he could do nothing about it (even if I have put my preferred name in the system to Alexandra) so now my card says Hanna Bemm (like my email hbemm@…). Maybe I should have changed name to Hanna this year.

PoluCard

Our last stop of important things to do was to check in to WoW. There are over 400 groups, I am in 325 and our activities starts tomorrow at 3:30pm. I am so excited about that!! We got a bag and a t-shirt and information sheets.

No more plans for the day so we went downtown to do a little bit of shopping. I just bought a new pair of sunglasses and sunscreen. I found both of them at Ross, $4 for the sunglasses which are black and light blue on the inside, and the sunscreen was $7 instead of 9, win for me. We also did pedicures. That was way overdue. The woman doing my feet felt sorry for my blue big toe nail so she put on some diamonds on it to cover some of it up. It is a tiny flower and the blue/dark going out on the sides actually looks like petals. Very nice of her.

PedicureI got this after my first two days at Liseberg when I had too small shoes on. I will probably have this for another year…

Then we went home to the bike guy at Cal Poly. He sells bikes to international students and I and Johanna got one each. So great!! I haven’t been on a bike in probably five years, so it was a bit shaky at first, but it was nice, and it will be so fun going around town now. The breaks started making a lot of noise though so I will get help from him fixing it hopefully. It was awful!

My bike

Free dinner at campus for us WoW participants and then home where one of my roommates, Rachel from northern California, dropped most of her things off. She was very nice and so was her dad. They stayed for a while and we talked. The dad was excited for his daughter to have a Swedish roommate. I am so exotic, haha ;).

When they left I unpacked all my stuff so now my room is done. My drawers and the cabinet are so empty I think I need to go shopping for more clothes! One day soon 🙂

Backyard of my buildingMy building looks like a “U” and my apartment is in the middle. Anyway, this is the “backyard” in the middle of the U. Beautiful morning! California Polytechnic State UniversityThis picture was taken today, a little more than a year after I took this photo the first time. Main entrance to the schoolAngry BirdsMy roomMy room is done! It is very empty on the walls, so I am thinking about buying a big California Republic flag and put up over my desk. It would make the room less echo-y too.
Drawers under the bed
Too little clothes!! Rachel came with three suitcases and tons of other things. It was nice though, some things for the kitchen. She is by the way moving in tomorrow. She just dropped things off today.

Closet

First day in San Luis Obispo

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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 first day of my new life is over, almost. And I wish I could go to bed right now, but going to bed at 8pm in a hostel where four other people sleep is probably not a good idea. Or maybe it is, so I can get some sleep before they all come in.

Yesterday was a very long day, I was awake for about 24h.  I got up at 9, picked up Johanna at 10 and I said goodbye to mom almost an hour later. The plane to Stockholm left Gothenburg at noon and 35 minutes later we were at Arlanda. A million people decided to be at that airport at the same time, retarted. We had no time at all left to do anything than to hurry to the gate, which of course was at the other end of the airport. Our plane from Gothenburg also landed at the national terminal so we had a long walk.

Me and Johanna had two of three seats in the middle on the second to last row in the plane. We left the middle one empty to have our feet on. The flight was only 10h, I was expecting 13, but then I remembered that 13 was the whole travel time. It was over very fast and it wasn’t that bad. At one point I was extremely bored and couldn’t do anything so I just sat there until I got the ants in my pants away and read some more. I finished The Assassin’s Blade and started the third book Heir of Fire. Amazing books!

I also watched a couple of movies. I saw Free Willy for the first time in probably 15 years. So cute movie! And then I watched Frozen for the third time in just a few months. That movie gets better and better every time I see it.

We landed at 4pm in Los Angeles and it took us three hours before we were on the road up to SLO. A million people had to get out of the plane before us, the qeue to US Customs was the longest I’ve ever seen and then we had to take a shuttle to the car rental place and that line was also retardedly long. We didn’t get a Nissan Altima which was a big win. Instead we got a Toyota Camry which was nice to drive. But it was a 3 hour drive and any 3 hour drive is tough after being awake for almost 24 hours. We survived and had dinner at Ihop. For some reason not as good as I remember. Maybe my sweet toothness has started to disappear?

I dropped Johanna off at her house and then tried to find my hostel. It took a little longer than it should have, but I arrived at midnight, got my room, and fell asleep directly.

Today I woke up at 6am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay in bed until 8:30 though when I got up and paid for my room and tried to connect to the wifi on my computer. I talked to one of my roommates which turned out to be a Swedish girls I’ve talked to on Facebook a few weeks ago. SHe was checking out today to move to her house.

I picked up Johanna and we took a brunch at a place we found in downtown SLO. It was good and well needed.  This whole eating-out-thing will stop as soon as I get a routine here which should be in a week when classes start. After that we went to Bank of America to start up bank accounts. They were busy today though, so we got appointments for it on Monday morning. That was too bad, I was looking forward to get rid of my big bunch of cash… Our next stop for the day was to get cell phone plans at T-mobile. We went to Best Buy and took the car there. A car would be so convenient (but we will wait a bit to get help with buying one, bot me and Johanna very much wants to buy a car so we can easily go to the beach, do grocery shopping and take weekend trips), but until then we will get to know the bus system and buy bikes as soon as possible. They have a very nice system with plans here if you don’t want to sign up for a long period of time. I was amazed when the guy told me how it worked. So, you bought a sim card for $15 and then you bought a month of a plan of your choosing. So depending on how much you pay (30, 40 or 50) you get different things. I decided to go for the one which cost $50 and in that unlimited texts and minutes and 1 GB are included. That is valid for 30 days and when that time period is over I need to buy a new plan and it doesn’t have to be the same as I had. And I don’t have to go to a store to buy it, I can do it online or by just sending texts. An awesome system. The only problem with it is that it is so ridiculously expensive. But I will survive.

Cell phone plan

The third stop was Target where I bought a lot of things, like towels, a hair dryer, hairspray, after sun lotion, tooth paste, Nair hair wax roll on and nail polish remover . I also had to buy a bag since the city of San Luis Obispo has decided not to hand out plastic bags anymore to save the environment. I like that, but I wish I would have remembered to bring my bags I brought from Sweden.

At Albertson’s I actually bought a reusable shopping bag when I bought some snacks for tomorrow’s visit to the beach.

We returned the car, took a taxi to downtown where we had an early dinner. We met four of the five Swedish students from Uppsala and then we went home and on the way took a few detours in to some stores, like Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch. At Bath & Body Works I found a scented candle that smelled amazing!! I am not allowed to have scented candles in my room, but I am thinking about buying it and just having it smell in my room and then bring it home. It was amazing! Oh right, I don’t think I can have things that smell in my room either. Then I will ask them if it is okay to have it in a plastic bag until I get home to Sweden. I need to have that candle! It smelled of Mahogany Teakwood. Sounds weird, smelled amazing.

At the hostel I went straight up to my room, started writing and will go to bed as soon as I am done. Maybe start marking interesting things out on the SLO map I got from the reception.

Tomorrow I will move to my room in the shared apartment on campus. The other girls won’t be there for another day or two. After that it’s beach time with Johanna and maybe Maria. There might be some shopping as well, I have a feeling I need to buy things for my room, like a comforter and pillows.

It was a nice day, the weather was warm (26C at its warmest) and the sun was out at all times. Palm trees does exist this far up north, even though there aren’t that many, and I still get happy every time I see them. I am back in California and I couldn’t be happier about it. This will be an amazing year!

Downtown SLOSLO downtown Santa Rosa Street, SLOAll around the city mountains rise. It is beautiful! Sunset from the hostelIt’s not over the ocean, but the sunset tonight was still amazing. Tiny SLOI came to the realization today that San Luis Obispo is very very tiny. This is pretty much it. A bicycle will be plenty enough and even walking. Only 45 000 live here. But it will be a nice experience to live in such a small city too.

Camping and sambo

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Two long days are at its end and I could probably fall asleep standing if I just let myself. Yesterday after work me and Chad went to Landvetter to camp for a night. We found a nice spot right next to a lake, put up the tent and everything and then went in the water before the sun set. It wasn’t cold at all in the water but I didn’t want to stay in for too long, it would have been very cold when the sun was gone. We had dinner after that, some cold cuts and a tuna/bacon/pasta salad which were both really good. And when you are camping you have to make a fire, so we did that too and sat by it until we ran out of firewood. Spent a short while on the beach after that and watched the starry sky. We even saw a few shooting stars. Very romantic!

I slept until 9am and I couldn’t go back to sleep so I read for an hour until Chad woke up. We slept very comfortable on two air matresses tightly put together and with a sheet on top of it it looked like a real bed. Surprisingly comfy.

Landvetter campingThis was the view over the sunset from our tent. Sweden is so beautiful!

After that our big mission was to get all of his stuff to my place. So first we packed the last of his things, rented a van and drove all of it to my place. It didn’t take that long but it was rough. And especially in this heat and with his heavy couch that we put in my basement. I am gonna be so sore in my arms and hands tomorrow.

The whole evening we have been unpacking and I have packed most of my clothes. I am just gonna stay in Sweden for a little more than a month so I might as well pack most of it now when he needs somewhere to put his clothes too.

We aren’t completely done yet, but we’re getting there. It probably will be done tomorrow, at least I hope so. I think I will go to bed now, I am starting to see double…

“Thursday”

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Today was a good day, not as warm as it has been, but still warm enough to wear shorts and t-shirt all day and evening. I had 8 hours of work but it felt like less. Lots of people though. You never know how man guests there will be during the summer season days, some days there are not even 20 000 people. Some days there are way more than 30 000.

I’m sure something interesting happened at work today but I can’t remember right now. I guess my whole body is tuned to sleep. But there were things I really needed to do. Like get one of my hostkids a birthday gift. I knew that his birthday was on July 30th, but I haven’t been very good at keeping track of time lately, it’s been hectic at work and I’ve been trying to enjoy the summer while trying to study so I am not surprised I didn’t remember to take shipping in consideration. I hope he will be happy a week later anyway. I drew him a birthday card and made a rainbow loom charm. He’s too young to read my blog (I think), so I will post a picture of it because it is so cute and I put A LOT of time into doing it. It is supposed to be Olaf from the movie Frozen. I will try to send it tomorrow but I’m not sure I have time…

Rainbow Loom, Olaf from "Frozen"I really hope he will like it! 🙂

I have also been packing tonight. Not for my upcoming move across the Atlantic in 45 days (!!!), but for mine and Chad’s tiny camping trip tomorrow. Mom was nice and let us use the car but I need to bring all my things to work and I really hope my packing fits in my locker.

The day after that Chad will move in here so I guess tonight was my last night alone in my apartment. Exciting to have a sambo (sambo is the Swedish word for a person you’re living with) again :).

 

I am having very weird dreams. First of all, the music at Helix is in my head when I am in my bed trying to fall asleep. It is loud too! And then when I fall asleep I feel like I need to stay awake because I need to operate attractions and I am just taking naps while the ride is going, and I do that in my bed because the attraction is right outside my bedroom. When I open my eyes I see that it is dark outside, check the clock and tell myself that the attractions aren’t open after 11pm and I get back to sleep and redo that routine a few times before going into deep sleep. It is really annoying! Funny though how much work is clearly affecting me.

Let’s see if the same thing happen tonight. Goodnight!