QBVT #3 Elliott Heads

Posted on Thursday, 26 September 2024, 9:40 by Alexandra

This weekend was the premiere for me in the premier division of the Queensland Beach Volleyball Tour and I got the honors of playing it with Rose.

According to Google Maps, Elliott Heads (Bundaberg) is 5,5h away from Gold Coast. Google Maps lies here in Australia. You kinda always have to add 20% to the trip, even if it should take traffic into consideration. On Friday arvo, we left at 4:30pm and didn’t arrive until 11:30pm. We were driving up with Karissa and Anna and had a really great car ride up. It is hard to drive in the dark though. It gets so dark here! And the roads are narrow, and speed limits are high, oncoming traffic has strong lights compared to the pitch-blackness all around. Mikael and I switched several times though.

Karissa and Anna were staying at the camping ground and Mikael and I were staying in the backyard of a small cottage behind the camping grounds. Very close to the beach and it was so quiet over there.

We popped the tent up and went straight to sleep after trying to figure out how to get into the house and use the bathroom.

It rained during the night and it was windy, so the straps from the tent hit the tent walls all night which made it hard to sleep, but I still felt rejuvenated when I woke up at 6am. It was still cloudy and we weren’t expecting much of the venue after the organiser, Vball in Paradise the day before had posted that nature had had its toll on the nature reserve where the courts were gonna be put up. But once we got there, we were surprised to find that he really did a great set up! 9 courts out of 10 planned, the sand was definitely rocky and had lots of shells still left in it, but so much had been raked to the sides.

Rose and I played really well together. We did some mistakes, but we always went all in for the points. My defense game was on point and the wind was on our side in every game. We lost our first game in the pool, but still got really good scores. The second game we won, so we ended up 2nd in our pool. Here in Premier division, you don’t go straight to quarter finals unless you win the pool. So the 2nd and 3rd meet in playoffs and the winner goes to QF. As 2nd in our pool, we thought we would be in advantage, but we got a team in the playoffs that should have won their pool, but instead lost. We thought we would win as well, but we didn’t. So that sucked. But that meant that we could leave early on Sunday.

Anna and Karissa made it to the final, but got a ride from their opponents in that game, so Mikael and I could drive home early. Still took 7h, even if Maps said 5.

On Saturday night, we all went to Elliott Heads Bowls Club, which was the place to be in this tiny town on a Saturday night. We had dinner, didn’t stay too long. People voted for Mikael to start playing and there was a limbo competition. On Sunday morning, we went to the beach a quickie and saw whales pretty close to shore. Soon, they will be gone again. What is the point of looking out over the water then?! It was so great driving in the light so we could actually se the environment around us. That made us unfortunately see things we didn’t want to see. We saw a dead roo, echidna and snake. So sad…

Great weekend, long drives, but fun to see something else than Brisbane, Gold Coast and Byron Bay,

Byron Bay 3/4; Byron Community Market

Posted on Thursday, 8 August 2024, 21:31 by Alexandra

One night of planned camping spontaneously turned into two nights because we were too spontaneous and didn’t look up availability for the whale watching we wanted to do. All good though, we got a really good weekend out of it down in Byron Bay. It can be divided into four parts and there will be an equal amount of posts because one will be way too long:

Brunswick Heads Market
Killen Falls
BYRON COMMUNITY MARKET
Whale Watching

After sleeping like babies for almost 10 hours, because while camping in the middle of winter, there is nothing to do after the sun sets and it gets dark, so you go to bed, we woke up and were ready for the new day!

We headed straight to our next camping spot after check out and hoped they had early check in. They did. Which meant we had somewhere to park our car in central Byron Bay on the first Sunday of the month for the Byron Community Market. We went straight out to the market, which was even bigger then the one in Brunswick. But very similar, many stalls were at both markets, there were lots of food stalls and live music. We bought a few things, like dragon coasters, a natural loofah, and some keychains to our car key and Mikael’s home key.

But I think the best part of the market was Mikael’s celebrity spotting. None other than Jeff Ling from Parkway Drive. He was so starstruck but managed to humbly ask for a picture and tell him how much he influenced him personally to start playing the guitar but also how much of an inspiration Parkway Drive was to his own band Reborn as Phoenix. He was such a down to earth guy, super kind and seemed to appreciate Mikael’s praise. We were told that the concert in Brisbane will be special, so we have something to look forward to on 18 September.

After the market, we walked along the beach to Cape Byron Lighthouse for a rematch with the sunset. We caught it along with so many whales and dolphins. It was a magical evening.

Out there between the boats was a whale earlier in the evening splashing with his flippers. Like a lot! Just above the trees to the left is a small small dot. That’s a dolphin.

Rainbow Bay and Snapper Rocks

Posted on Saturday, 22 June 2024, 22:33 by Alexandra

Even when we are sleeping in, we still manage to see and do lots of stuff. It was super cloudy this morning anyway, so we didn’t miss too much getting out at noon. We had brunch at Cafe Kirra (pancakes and smashed avo sourdough) and then walked to Rainbow Bay Lookout and over to Snapper Rocks. Two lookout points south of Kirra, where we are staying. When the sun came out, it was so warm and lovely today.

And the best part about today? We saw whales and dolphins! At first, we saw them breaching. I saw a really big one jumping and splashing. Mikael missed it but saw the splash. So wow! When we got to Rainbow Bay Lookout, we saw plenty of whales blowing water far out. Still super cool! Then we also saw dolphins breaching, I think three at most. I’ve missed seeing whales and dolphins, it’s been 9 years since my last year in California.

Rainbow Bay Lookout:

Whale blowing water!Dolphin (above the surfer). Unfortunately the best I could do as I only filmed and these are screenshots.

Snapper Rocks:

And yet another sunset picture of Gold Coast:

Kirra

Posted on Wednesday, 19 June 2024, 22:17 by Alexandra

Four weeks down under has gone by so fast and we have made our first move. We left our tiny granny flat in Mermaid Waters this morning and took an Uber down to Kirra in Coolangatta, the most southern part of Gold Coast. It only took 30 min, but when we are standing on the beach here and watch the skyline, it looks so far away.

I got one last beach session in with Cici and Katja at Surfer’s and we all had lead legs for some reason. Might be the cold. It’s really cold right now in the mornings. The sunrise was incredible as usual and I’m not even sad to have alarms set at 4:45am when I get to start my day with 1,5h of beach volley practice while the sun is rising.

Mikael and I cleaned out the AirBnB and had the luxury of checking in at the next place as soon as we arrived. And what a place! We have a room in a two bedroom apartment on the top floor. We are staying here through a friend of a friend of a friend and she matched us up with another friend of hers that plays beach volleyball as well. But she doesn’t seem to come until the end of the month so we have this two story apartment to ourselves for a bit. We can see the ocean from both balconies and it is super cosy with ocean theme.

Bye granny flat!

We packed up and then went out to explore a bit. It is truly beautiful here. Much calmer, not as many and not as high skyscrapers and they are not as tight together. We had lunch at Haig St Cafe and Restaurant and wow, we are definitely going back. Everything on the menu looked incredible!

We walked past the beach volleyball nets, walked all the way down to New South Wales and then a quick shopping on the way back. Right in Coolangatta, there is a state line which means that we walked to NSW today. Pretty cool!

The public restrooms are really nice here! Our first koala! Central Gold Coast looks so far away. QLD and NSW boarder.

The sunset on the way back was amazing! We are a bit further east than the rest of the Gold Coast, so we saw the skyline being lit up by purple and the sun set behind the mountains. Even if the sun sets behind land, it still colors the sky amazingly!

Gothenburg Book Fair

Posted on Saturday, 30 September 2017, 21:41 by Alexandra

In Gothenburg there is a book fair held annually. And as a book enthusiast, I am embarassed to admit that I have never been, until today. If I hadn’t had an appointment, I probably wouldn’t have gone at all because of the demonstration. I won’t go into detail about it because it is extremely upsetting and I honestly don’t understand how the city of Gothenburg could approve of a Nazi demonstration. So many thousands of people on both sides coming to Gothenburg of all places, from all over Europe to demonstrate. Svenska Mässan, which is the place where most fairs are held in Gothenburg, was right in the middle of all the action but mom and I were lucky and didn’t get in the middle of anything.

We started our day at Heaven 23, the top restaurant in Gothia Towers. In all the years the hotel have been there, I have never been to that restaurant and had one of their famous shrimp sandwiches. But today I did! And at one of the best tables, right next to the window with an overview of all the chaos down in the street. Lots of people there, but we were lucky. Nice experience!

So anyway, at 16:30 I had an appointment with a literary consultant. They offered free analysis of the first chapter. I was nervous, but the woman I had who read my chapter was really nice and gave me some really helpful tips. For example, I was really good at making the text flow, well-written, and good environment descriptions. The first part of the first chapter was really good, built up some suspension, but it got kind of flat at the second part. I put together chapter 1 and 2 as they are written now because it made sense. There is kind of an anticlimax, I build up for some suspension but then leaves it. So I will add some action, or maybe not action, but something exciting instead of the “perfect” and boring paradise life.

Something else she told me that really inspired me was that I need to direct the reader in some direction. Either plant hints about what will actually happen, or lead the reader in a different direction and make them surprised when something else is revealed. I have planted lots of small hints, but they are not enough to guide the reader in any particular direction. I have to think a little bit about that I think. But I already know what kind of suspense I will add. I got the idea exactly when Anna-Carin told me about it. It will be awesome!

There was also a monter where there was supposed to be a short seminar about how to publish a book and what to think about. I was there, waiting, but when I got there the owner of the publisher told me that the security guards told them to keep the volume down. But the monter behind them were allowed becase the security guards didn’t want there to be any conflicts. The monter behind was Nya Tider (the nazi paper)… She is gonna post a presentation online in a week and I will look at it then. She gave me lots of help there though and I knew what kind of questions to ask at least one publisher that I have looked at before. It sounded really nice! But that is far away. Hopefully only a year, but we will see.

Anna-Carin also gave me lots of advice, like what I should do if I get stuck. I should try to write from a third person perspective and from other people’s point of view. Now I will get very “stuck” with my main character, to whom I draw lots from myself. She told me it could be good to write some other things and feelings to get perspectives that will give me a better understanding of the story.

Lots of good help and if I get really stuck in the future or need anything, I now know where I can turn. Unless it is way too expensive. But she was really professional and helpful and kind and excited. It was a good experience and I am now more thrilled than ever to continue to write!

This fall has been better than this year’s summer. Beautiful evening in downtown.

A mix of pics

Posted on Wednesday, 25 January 2017, 19:30 by Alexandra

Not too long again the river that runs next to our neighborhoos was very very flooded! One morning on my way to school, this beautiful sunrise took place! It took a while for Ramses to get used to the new drinking fountain, at first he was afraid of it, then he slowly started to get near it, then he drank the spillwater Cleo had played with and now he is drinking from the running water like nothing. We redid our hall, looks much nicer now. And Cleo approves! The same week as the sunrise (it might even have been the day after), we had an incredible sunset.

One extra day in Greece

Posted on Tuesday, 12 July 2016, 1:10 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.

So, our flight was delayed by 12 hours yesterday. Instead of being home at 2 pm we came home at 4 am. We were tired, and I couldn’t really sleep tonight, so 10 hours work today was not very fun.

We got picked up at the hotel at 8:30 am, we checked in and waited for takeoff at 11. We got information that it was delayed until 12:30, but at 11, we were told that we had to wait for 12 hours and that we would be driven to a new hotel where we would get a room, lunch and dinner and then driven back to the airport at 9 pm. So our day consisted of a lot of bus rides and waiting. We had lunch at the hotel right when we got there. It was not very good. Then we had to wait until 2pm to check in. Until then, we walked around on the hotel area and looked at the pool area. It was cute, but not many sunbeds. The room was not very nice, definitely not 5 stars. We put our stuff in there, changed into swim wear and then went down to the pool and were actually lucky enough to get two sunbeds. The pool was 3m deep, and that was fun. We read some, played around in the water and just waited for time to pass. At 7 pm dinner was served and it was pretty much the same food as for lunch. The people working there were not very nice and even rude and tried to charge us for drinks when it was supposed to be included. Right after dinner we went down to the beach (this hotel was just a stone throw away from our luxury hotel) to watch the sunset before packing again and leaving for the airport and hoping for the best. The transfer was supposed to come at 9pm, it arrived at 9:45 pm and the plane was supposed to takeoff at 11pm. I was seriously getting comfortable with the idea of spending the night there.

We got to the airport 45 minutes before takeoff, but boarding didn’t start until 11, and because of lots of traffic, we didn’t takeoff until midnight. We landed in Gothenburg at 2:30 am and got home about an hour later and went to bed at 4. I am so tired right now.

It was nice to have one extra day in Greece, but it could have been better if we would have skipped the whole checking in and waiting at the airport when the personnel knew at 8am that this would happen. I will contact my home insurance and hope that I will get something for this. We didn’t have to pay anything extra in Greece, but we did have to pay for taxi since we didn’t get a ride from Jesper’s mom as was planned since she was on a plane to Portugal when we landed.

It was a great trip, still the best I have ever done, even if yesterday was sucky.

Tassos Beach

Posted on Wednesday, 6 July 2016, 22:14 by Alexandra

Today wasn’t as warm as yesterday, but it was very very windy, even on the east coast. Sometimes it was hard to hold the eReader on the “beach”. We spent the whole day at Tassos Beach on the northern part of Kalithea. It was not exactly a beach, but rock plateaus. It was a cool place, the snorkeling wasn’t as good as Anthony Quinn Bay, and the water was a little bit colder because of the wind. It was not cold on land, it was very warm, the wind was warm, but helped a little bit. We still had to cool off in the water now and then though.

There is not much else to write, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Here is a link to a 360 picture I took on the beach: Tassos Beach on Google Maps

In the evening we drove to Old Town again, we had dinner at a very cute little restaurant on a small square. We then walked around for a little bit, but my stomach is hurting a lot tonight so we left pretty early. I took some medicine recently and am hoping that spending some time in the Jacuzzi tub will help.

Typical example of when panorama is not working properly. These two Swedish girls were running around the restaurant after the cats and eventually sat down next to our table to watch one of the cats which we named Simba (she looked like a Lion, and names shouldn’t matter depending on gender – just take our male Cleo(patra) for example). This view greeted us when we came back to the hotel. Turkey in the background.

Tsambika

Posted on Tuesday, 5 July 2016, 0:58 by Alexandra

Today was as good as yesterday, and even more. We woke up in the same executive suite, so that was not a dream, good! We then realized that the breakfast buffet was the best ever. We had some troubles getting out of bed this morning so we didn’t pick up the car until 11am when we had reserved it from 10am. But not sleeping more than 2 hours for 35 hours had its toll on us.

I drove us down to Tsambika in our small, red Toyota Aygo. I hate driving it so Jesper will probably drive for the rest of the week. Stupid car. The beach did not look like it did 13 years ago. Now it was full of sunbeds and so many watersports thingies (more than last time) and cafés. We walked to the most right of the beach where no people were. It was also close to the wall so we could see something when we snorkeled. The sand was hot, it was so so so hot! It didn’t just burn, it burned like hell! So we put our towels as close as we could to the water and since it was also very warm in the air, maybe 32 Celsius, so we were probably more in the water than on land. It was impossible to stay on land for a longer time. I am not sure that I will finish the book I am currently reading, we are not really lying down that much, haha!

We did use lots and lots of sunscreen, we put on 50+ at least every other hours, but we still managed to get burned non our backs. It might be because we went snorkeling for 1.5h straight. With aloe vera it should be fine soon.

Here is a link to the 360 picture I took at the monastery over the beach: Tsambika Monastery on Google Maps

Sea cucumbers.

Around 6pm we left the beach and drove up to the monastery above the beach. Of course, the road doesn’t go all the way up, there are 300 stairsteps to the top. It was tough, but the view was worth it!

Here is a 360 degree picture from the top. The monastery at the top.

Then we drove to Kolympia where we had dinner at a very nice fish restaurant right next to the water. We did some shopping in that city as well and then drove back to our fancy hotel suite where the Jacuzzi tub was waiting for us. It was really nice to sit there and relax a bit.

It was such a romatic restaurant. A little too bad we didn’t stay longer because the lanterns weren’t visible when it was still light out.

It is really late now and we have an adventurous day ahead of us tomorrow. The hottest day this week is going to be tomorrow, so we were thinking that it would be best to drive down to Prassonissi where it is really windy, and then spend the afternoon at the Butterfly forest and the Seven Springs and later in the evening, the Old City in Rhodes city. I am thinking that since both the Butterfly forest and Seven Springs is in shadows, it seems like a good idea on the hottest day. The Seven Springs also has ice cold water.

Goodnight!

Atrium Platinum Luxury Resort Hotel and Spa

Posted on Sunday, 3 July 2016, 20:40 by Alexandra

Our first day on Rhodes is over and even though we didn’t do anything special, it was a really good day. It has been long and we have only slept for about 2 hours since we woke up yesterday, and that was on the plane, so it doesn’t really count. We landed around 10am and everything went so smooth at the airport and with the transfer that we were at our hotel just an hour later. We are staying at Atrium Platinum, and it was the second hotel to be dropped off from the shuttle bus and I think a majority of the people on the bus were jealous when Jesper and I were the only ones who got off. It is a 5 star hotel just south of Rhodes city in Ixia. It is very windy here on the west coast, and that’s why we decided to rent a car for 6 days so we can drive to the east coast. Today we spent the whole day at the pool, which is pretty glamorous so it was a pretty okay day. Since we arrived so early, our room wasn’t ready. We had booked a Junior Suite with ocean view since that was the only room available. But when we went to the reception at 2pm they said we had been upgraded to the Executive Suite. It is the best room on this floor and is so incredible both Jesper and I had a hard time understanding how this was even possible. It is 80 square meters, it has a curved wall in the living room with windows from floor to ceiling outlooking the ocean. The bathroom is incredible with a big shower and a jacuzzi tub. We were too tired to try the jazuzzi tub today, but tomorrow we will try it.

We went down to the pool again and got the best seats because people were leaving just when we arrived. It has been so warm, but with wind, it’s been awesome! I didn’t burn, Jesper got a little. Tomorrow at 10am we will pick up the car and drive down to Tsambika for some relaxing on a sand beach. Jesper is really excited to go snorkeling for the first time in his life.

We had dinner at the first best restaurant here in Ixia tonight, were both super tired, felt the ocean a little bit, and now we are sitting on the balcony and watching the sunset. It is incredible!

We filled up the box with food yesterday, Ramses thought he was in heaven! Ramses was curious about Jesper’s new outfit he tried on yesterday before we left. I think both of them wanted to come with us. It kinda felt like they knew that we were leaving. Cleo washing Ramses. Sure they figt a lot, but they also do this every now and then. This was the view we first encountered when we walked through the door. That whole wall is a big window and the ocean is right there. Amazing! There is a cow out there too, he makes sounds every now and then. The bathroom taken with panorama so it lookes a bit crooked. So pretty! And this is the bedroom. It is ridiculous! The view from the balcony over both the pool area but also the ocean. The center of Ixia/Ialyssos. Not much. Pebblestone/sand beach right beneath the hotel. Not worth it.Pictures aren’t really fair, it was all pink in reality.