A quarter century!

Posted on Monday, 11 April 2016, 22:59 by Alexandra

So, 25 years ago I was born. Twenty-five years! It is a big number and definitely a milestone. It’s crazy, but I can’t do anything about it than thank everyone for their happy-birthday-wishes today. I had a wonderful day, it was the most beautiful spring day ever! Not a single cloud anywhere to be seen and it was warm in the sun. Sure, I guess it could have been any other day than a Monday and a school day, but it was still okay. I didn’t do much, went to class, went grocery shopping, cleaned the apartment, played a little on my new Wii U (that Jesper gave me yesterday) and waited for Jesper to come home from work. Soon after that mom came over and we made dinner; tacos. And for dessert; princess cake! Doesn’t matter how old I am, there should always be a princess cake, haha!

It’s been a long time ago since I updated, and not because not many fun things have happened, I just kinda lost my will to write. So here comes a bunch of photos from the last three months instead (sorry, but many of them are of the cats).

Ramses There was a period when the cats pooped shapes, here was a cat! Cleo is sit-sleeping. You can’t go to the bathroom alone. They removed the soles from my shoes not once, but twice!! They got a new active toy which they love, blinking balls on a rollercoaster. This is the cutest picture ever. I did not put them like this,they fell asleep like it! They always sleep along my legs or on them when I am sitting on the couch! Never alone. Even if they fight a lot, they still seem to like each other. Ramses is very chill! We had some very pretty sunset the past months. Semla mudpie Ramses the chill. St. Patricks Day. IMG_20160401_192251 Jesper and I went up to my cousins in Nynäshamn a week ago. We had a great time up there, played a lot of cards, walked around in the harbor, enjoyed their new hot tub with an ocean view and just hung out. IMG_20160403_112435 I got new toys for the cats, and it did not take long before one of them was in its natural habitat. Now it is completely gone! Cleo is such a beautiful cat! Rachel (for those who don’t know, to the right, and my former roommate in California) came here with her friend Elyse to visit for a few days. We went out to the archipelago and enjoyed the amazing Swedish spring on the west coast.

Here is a link to google maps where I uploaded a sphere picture taken at Öckerö after my 17-year old cousin told me about it, haha! (I am getting old):

Other than what I have taken pictures of, I am doing well in school. I am almost done with my first year in grad school, one more to go. Last quarter I took a class called Leadership & Communication and the home exam I wrote with another girl was super interesting: Why do people follow destructive leaders? We brought up Hitler and Trump as examples and it was the easiest finals week ever. I haven’t gotten the grade for it yet, but it should arrive very soon.Then we had three days in school and then two weeks off. I needed it, just relax for a bit. Today was the first day back after the break and on Wednesday we have a presentation. A few more weeks and then the summer is here and lots of work at Liseberg (where I actually start in two weeks already, but not full time until the last week of May).

I have also been reading, but haven’t finished anything new in a while since I am reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and it is long. The new ereader (Kobo GLO) is working perfectly!

I have also played a lot of beach volleyball and have already have many ups and downs. I hope I will have time to play this summer as well, even with lots of work at Liseberg (or maybe SKANSKA if they will contact me about my application I sent in a month ago).

I should probably go to bed now, I am not as young as I was yesterday and I have a lecture tomorrow at 9am. I can’t make any promises about more frequent posts, but I can almost say that the next one won’t take three months.

Desert Safari and kitten

Posted on Sunday, 24 January 2016, 2:15 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.

Our last day in Dubai was amazing and was over so fast. We started the day at Kite Beach. It was a beautiful and warm day, we spent some time in the water and it was just awesome! We got back to the hotel at 1pm and we actually had time to take a taxi to Deira City Center and crossed our fingers that that Max hadn’t closed down as well. And it hadn’t. We ordered a normal Frisco meal with fries. They said they had Crispy Fries but it was not the same as in Sweden. The Burger wasn’t the same either. But it was still worth it.

We got back to the hotel and had time to pack everything before we got picked up for the desert safari. A humongous Toyota Land Cruiser. It was the two of us and another Indian family of four. The first stop was at a Dune Buggy place, it wasn’t included in the package and none of us went. Then we went straight out in the desert, the road just ended and there were so many cars! We all went in a long line and it was a bumpy ride. I guess I should have known, but I was surprised at how bumpy it was, I felt sick. We then stopped for some pictures in the desert, the sun was setting and it was beautiful. It was windy and we had sand everywhere, but it was nice. We then took normal roads (and at the end in the dunes) to reach a camp that was set up in the desert. It looked like a small small circular city where there were small stalls where we could pick up starters, coffe, tea, sodas and then later a buffet table. The food was okay and I guess the closest to the Arabian culture. We sat on pillows on the ground and in the middle of the whole camp was a stage where people danced. Right outside of the camp there were two camels that we could ride as well. That was scary, especially when it rose and lied down.

We got back to the hotel at around 9:30 pm and the taxi came and picked us up at 11pm to go to the airport. The flight would take off at 2 am, but it was delayed and we didn’t take off until 3am. And also because of winds the plane had to take a detour over Poland and make a landing to refuel. And that meant that we lost a lot of time and therefore missed our connection flight in Stockholm. We landed when it took off at 8:30am. The next Norwegian flight that we didn’t have to pay anything for was at 5:45 pm. We could book with SAS, but that would have been expensive, so we stayed at the airport the whole day instead of being home with Cleo and chilling. In total we stayed up for 40 hours with a few hours of bad sleep in the plane from Dubai to Stockholm. It was brutal. I am still tired, even if I got a good amount of sleep last night. I guess it can also be because I spent two hours this morning playing beach volleyball. We were only 4 people there so it was a lot of practice time. I was dead afterward.

I am still not 100% recovered, but I have a full day of just doing nothing at home tomorrow which is good, but then on Monday, school starts again.

Today was a big day. After practice I met up with Jesper downtown and we picked up the scratch map we left for framing before we left, we then bought a frame for the pictures we bought in Dubai, and our last stop was Webhallen where I bought a new eReader. My old one was drenched when my water bottle leaked last Thursday on my way to practice. Too bad, that was a good eReader and they are not sold anymore. So instead of a Sony, I now have a Kobo Glo HD which has light in the screen which is a huge plus! It actually seems like a really cool eReader and much more complex than my old one. I think I will like it.

And then we made an even bigger purchase, we got Cleo a Friend! He looks almost exactly like her, but he is fluffier and a boy and 1.5 months younger. He is adorable, and didn’t complain at all when we drove him home. He was curious and then fell asleep. When we got home Cleo was super curious about this new little guy. But she is very rough with him, playing all the time, refusing to leave him alone and he is much smaller than she and can’t defend himself. I guess she is making sure that he knows that she is in charge here, but she is kinda overdoing it. I know that she is very playful, but I hope she will calm down and not be so rough with him, he is just a baby! But I guess in a month or so he will be as big and will be able to hit her back. They have slept together twice, but as soon as nap time is over they are fighting again. I really hope this will calm down soon and that Cleo won’t hate us because we brought a smaller cat here. All of last week she was with mom and her two cats and apparently she was all over them there. She would never leave the two oldies alone so we thought a friend for her at home would be nice too. But I don’t think she realizes that the cat she played with most at mom’s was 8kg, while she was only 1.7kg and this new one can’t be more than 1.2kg. We will let the small one sleep with us tonight with a closed door and Cleo on her climbing tree and hope she will behave better tomorrow.

We don’t have a name yet, so if you have any suggestions for a fluffy red boy, let me know.

It is so beautiful in Gothenburg right now! It is kinda sad that we missed this last week when it was this much snow. Unfortunately tomorrow it will be above freezing and therefore everything will melt… On our way to Orust through Winter Wonderland to get our new family member. And here he is! At first she followed him around like an extra tail. And then she started to get rough and play with him. One nap was okay and they were like siblings lying there. And then there was some more fighting… And another nap, closer this time! And then some more fighting.And lastly before they went their seperate ways to sleep in different locations, Cleo washed him. Cute! I think this will work out, we just have to give them time (especially for him to grow more).

Kite Beach and a bad taxi driver

Posted on Wednesday, 20 January 2016, 23:27 by Alexandra

Today was exactly yesterday, except that we stayed on the beach until sunset. It was warmer than yesterday, and not as windy. A really nice day. I also finished the 9th book in the Tales from Shadowhunter Academy series.

We then tried to find a cab, and the one we found turned out to be ridiculously expensive. We were going to Oasis Center because a few days ago it said that there was a Max Hamburger restaurant there, but when we got there it had closed down. Bummer. We spent 50 AED to go to a stupid shopping mall where they didn’t even have the thing we were looking for. So we bought some candy and donuts to have while watching a movie tonight. We got a taxi quickly at the mall, but that was a mistake. First of all, this guy was young, had an extreme lisp and we could not understand what he said with his accent. Then he didn’t know where we were going, had to put it in his phone GPS (no one here so far has used the GPS), and then he insulted me asking me if I was Jesper’s mom! And then he said it was a joke. Why would a taxi driver make a joke like that? And also I don’t think he was joking because later he asked if he had permission to speak something, and then said that he suggested me to dress in black to look younger. What an asshole!! Then he was in a car accident while we were in the car and had to stop right on the freeway. He drove into the car in front of us, nothing really happened but he told us he talked his way out of calling the police, and then he explained why. I think it was something about that he had to pay a huge fine because he was a taxi driver and also pay out of his own pocket if the car got damaged. He said we would get the ride for free because of this delay and that money wasn’t everything. After that he drove extremely recklessly, he was driving fast and very carelessly. He said he was 21 but his passport said 37 because you can’t be a taxi driver here unless you are 25. We left the taxi when we finally got to the hotel, he honked at us and asked us to pay. I was so angry at that point that I gave him a 20 instead of 30, and then borrowed the phone at the hotel to file a complaint. It took a while, but they took me seriously and I will learn what they did about it before January 31. Worst taxi experience ever.

Good thing we have another day tomorrow, I think I would hate this place if I left after tonight. Stupid fuckface!

Tomorrow anyway is our last day here and we are spending half the day at the beach and the other half on a desert safari. That will be fun. Too bad we won’t have time for Max before we leave. We might have time tomorrow between the beach and the safari, but we will have to see.

Kite Beach and Hard Rock Cafe #17

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

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

First day in Dubai

Posted on Saturday, 16 January 2016, 22:41 by Alexandra

Being away from cold, work and stress in school is great. Today was supposed to be the coldest day this week with about 22 C. It will be a great week!

Yesterday we left Gothenburg at 7 am, spent 7 hours at the airport in Stockholm and then another (almost) seven hours on a pretty uncomfortable plane. I think the length of this flight is too short to require comfortableness. It was not very nice. But we had three seats all to ourselves so we could kinda lie down. We landed at 1 am local time, our taxi took us to the wrong Holiday Inn Express so we didn’t go to bed until 3am. Up again at 9 so we wouldn’t miss breakfast and then we got fooled by the hotel that gave us a taxi which took the long way to the beach so we had to pay about twice as much as it would have costed. Whatever!

We spent a few hours at the JBR beach, we both got burned. It was a nice beach, the water was warm, probably 23 C or something. But it was a bit windy so we only got in the water once and left around 4pm to have early dinner at Panda Express. I have to say, that Dubai is very international, all the fast food chains from California is here, and it doesn’t feel at all like an Arabic country (except for the Arabic letters everywhere). It feels like my second home, I like it. After dinner we walked around on JBR at the Walk which is a strip right next to the beach where tons of stores and restaurants. This place was pretty far away from where we live, definitely the touristy place of Dubai. We walked around a lot, bought some food to snack on tonight and then we found a nice taxi who took us to the hotel up north, kinda close to Burj Khalifa.

We are so tired, long day of traveling yesterday, and a lot of walking today, so now we will chill with a movie, fall asleep and prepare for a day at Dubai Mall tomorrow with Burj Khalifa afterwards.

You know you are in an Arabic country when camels are walking on the beach. JBR The Walk. Jumeirah. JBR The Beach. It’s too bad they are building so much out in the water, it ruins the sunset… A chrome Lamborghini. All the cars here are extremely fancy pancy, but this one was a little bit better. This is a very international city, so why not try stuff from other countries? This basil seed drink is from Thailand.

Dive #7 Les Moyades

Posted on Tuesday, 11 August 2015, 23:38 by Alexandra

Today was the nicest days we have had. Cloudless and so warm we were constantly sticky, and now we are both very red. I did put on sunscreen but I guess I should have done it more often than I did. It is not too bad, but it is definitely red.

Morning in Marseille.

My day started 6:30 am to get ready to go on two adventures. First, get myself to the dive center with the local buses. I am always nervous about doing that, but it worked out fine and I got there on time. The dive center had two companies working there and I went with Aquadomia and the two main people could speak English really well. It felt so nice to speak English here. I was a bit sceptic about this before. How could it only cost 89 euros and include everything? All the rented equipment, including a dive computer, and a boat dive as well. I am surprised and happy! It was a pretty short dive though, but it was still so worth it. The dive site was called Les Moyades and was in the national park (since two years) Calanques. We pretty much just dove around a rock and I really enjoyed the dive. It was only 31 minutes, and I kinda wished we could have been under longer. But we saw some pretty cool stuff like moray, starfishes, sea urchins, a scorpionfish, and lots of schools of Saloma. We saw some other specific fish too, but I am too lazy to get out of the couch and get my dive log, haha!

The surface temperature was apparently cold today, only 17C, and the bottom temperature 15C. I didn’t think it was cold at all, I was actually really warm when we were done. When I was on the boat, waiting to fall backward into the water I was burning up, sitting there in a 6.5mm wetsuit in that hot sun. I was scared of getting a heat stroke. So the “cold” water was welcome. The maximum depth today was 18 meters, that’s the deepest I’ve ever been before. Because of the great visibility, 20m+ it didn’t feel too scary.

We took a very fast boat out there and it was just so nice with the wind. But I was a bit afraid of falling over board, haha! We were back at the dive center around noon, I cleaned my equipment, filled out my log book and thanked the two guys (one was Vincent, but the other had such a French name I honestly don’t know what it was) and went back. It went smooth going back and I even got a couple of French tourist girls asking me for a specific beach. What’s crazy is that I actually knew where it was and told them how to get there and that they had to change bus on the way, haha!

Scirpionfish. Cool blue stuff. Highlighted scorpionfish. Moray in the crevice. Sea urchins. The rock we dove around. Turtle island to the right.

I met up with Axel in the park behind the building we live in. Sat there for a while and just chilled. Then we went up to the apartment and got ready for the excursion to Calanques National Parc. We went on a tourist boat and it was okay. The tour guide only spoke French which was not very fun, and there were too many people on the boat. But the scenery was pretty amazing! But the only thing I could think about was how badly I wanted to jump in the water. It was so blue and it was so hot under the gazing sun. I got burned, but this might have been my last chance of getting any sun, so why not. It is not too bad, but my shorts gave me a pretty bad new tanline…

The whole boat tour was 3.5 hours and we were back in the harbor at 7pm. Went straight to dinner and I had the best pasta carbonara I have ever had. Then we went to the same park by the building and watched the sunset. It was a very beautiful sunset.

I almost feel bad for taking this selfie in the mirror thing down in old port… The square where we had dinner today.

Then back up and I looked through the videos from the dive. They weren’t as good as I hoped. The blue color is not even close to what it was in real life. And the pictures are kinda blurry. Well well, it’s at least something.

Ponto Beach/Pacific Beach/La Jolla/sunset surfing

Posted on Sunday, 29 March 2015, 1:11 by Alexandra

Wow, the last two days were so eventful and I am tired out of my mind right now. If you feel like you need a vacation after your vacation, you did the right thing on your vacation! I have had an amazing time in San Diego and I can’t wait to go back, which I will hopefully do at least one more time before I go back to Sweden. I know I didn’t take San Diego for granted a single day when I lived there, but it still feels like I did, because every time I go here I fall more and more in love with it.

The past two days has been full of San Diego adventures. Friday was all about hanging out on Ponto Beach with Pelle (Swedish exchange student at Cal Poly). It was a very nice day, no pelican poop, 86F on land, 62F in the water, not a single cloud during the whole day. No dolphins unfortunately. Later in the afternoon a few people from the beach volleyball group at Ponto came and set up nets and played. I didn’t join because I had to go home and get myself ready for going out in PB with Helena in the evening. I ran into Chad there, first time I saw him since we said goodbye at the SD airport more than a year ago. It was nice to see him again.

Ponto Beach for the first time since January 2014! ❤ It is not a very special beach to most people, but to me this is the most special beach in all of San Diego. This is where I played beach volleyball, and met a lot of fun people, this is the beach where I always spotted dolphins, and it was always empty.Friday’s sunset over Carlsbad! I think everyone following my blog knows by now that I love sunset!

I left the beach at like 5:30pm, back home I showered and packed for the night and today and picked up Helena for dinner at 8. We met up with another German girl at In N Out, first time for both of them. Delicious as always! We then bought drink ingredients at Vons and made a Solero drink at home before taking an Uber to PB (Pacific Beach, the party area of San Diego). We first went to Tavern, a place I really liked because they played good music. We then moved on to Duck Dive which was Helena’s favorite place. The music and people there were weirder. The people might have been because it was later in the night and they were more drunk. But I wasn’t very drunk at all and didn’t enjoy it as much as I probably could have. I can definitely see myself having fun there though, more fun than in downtown SD. The people in PB are young. But on the other hand, I am not much of a party person anymore. I have realized that I would much rather wake up not hungover the day after and do stuff, like surfing. It was still a fun evening and I am glad I finally went out in PB, what everyone kept talking about all the time last year.

We got a ride from some random creepy guys, but we used them and just said goodbye when they dropped us off. But it took a while for them to go away and stop ringing the doorbell. Creepy. But I fell asleep as soon as my head it the pillow. Helena’s house is by the way incredible! It’s humungous and so nicely decorated inside. Helena’s bathroom was ridiculous, she even has radio in her shower, which is also a tub with jets. Only a little bit jealous, haha.

This morning Helena made breakfast for both of us (the third girl didn’t drink and drove home late last night) and that was so sweet of her. Avocado/scrambled eggs bagels. Yummy!

We drove to La Jolla Shores and I am so thankful she knows an old German family right there on the beach so we could park in their driveway. It is a pain in the butt to find parking there. I think you have to go there at like 7-8am to get a pretty decent spot. It’s so stupid. I hate parking here (one of very few bad things about SD). We lay down close to the surf tent and I read a little bit, finished a 100-page cross-over story between Percy Jackson and Carter Kane and then started the second short cross-over story and after that one (which I will probably be done with tonight) I will start reading Artemis Fowl.

Before Johanna came we just lay on the beach, I read some, took some naps, and went in the water with just our feet once. It was cold and with the cloudy sky I would not warm up enough to go all the way in. Fortunately it cleared up later in the day and the day ended in a very beautiful way. Johanna came at 2pm and soon thereafter we put on wetsuits (I had my own with me this time) and went out in the water. It was Helena and Jessica’s (the German girl from last night) first time surfing and they got tired pretty fast and went up after not even an hour. I stayed the longest, more than two hours. It was not the best conditions for surfing today, the current were extreme and it was hard to just be in the water. But I managed to stand up several times and I would say that it went almost as good this time as last time.

The waves got better in the evening and Johanna and I decided to go out one more time, during the sunset. It was so amazing! The waves were better so we both did much better than earlier in the afternoon. And the sunset was sooo pretty! I wish I had had my GoPro with me for that. Watching the sunset from the water was something I had never done before (not that I can remember anyway), and it was incredible. Definitely not the last time I did that, but next time I will bring my GoPro.

Resting between surf sessions.Pre sunset surfing. Post sunset surfing. Johanna and I posing in front of a sunset that was much more beautiful in real life. The person who invents a camera that can capture exactly what we see is gonna be the richest man on Earth! I love sunsets!

On my way home I picked up Panda Express and then watched an episode of Arrow while eating a very late dinner. It was a nice evening. I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. Surfing is energy consuming.

I think I will pack everything now, so I can sleep a little bit longer in the morning. Or I can sleep in the car, we have a few hours to kill there, haha!

This first and last spring break of mine has been the best! Especially the last part. San Diego will always be my second home ❤

Pirate’s Cove

Posted on Saturday, 7 March 2015, 21:58 by Alexandra

Sorry blog for being so lazy on updating lately. I’ve been busy with sorting through all my digital books since I found this amazing program called Calibre where you easily can change the metadata, convert epub to/from pdf without any struggles and also change the context in the file, so freaking cool! I’ve been really into this the last few nights, but now I am done with it all and can get back to my normal life again.

This week has actually been pretty bad. Surprisingly many symptoms of my mono in form of one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had, fever, and more fatigue than ever before during this sickness. Today and yesterday I’ve been fine though. I actually went to the health center yesterday, and after talking to the doctor for a while about everything that’s been going on, she came to the conclusion that I am under a lot of stress right now (not from school, but from life), and my sleep is getting affected by this. So without any hesitation she prescribed sleeping pills that I can pick up on Monday. I’ve been thinking a lot about my future lately, should I go back home, should I stay? What will happen to my apartment back home in Sweden if I stay? What will happen if I stay and then have to go back home during the process of the HB-1 visa? I am thinking way too much, I’ve realized that too. And I have come to the realization that it doesn’t matter. Everything will work out in the end the way it was supposed to. I have applied for two jobs down in San Diego, I have an apartment that I will most likely get, a car as well. If it doesn’t work out with the jobs, I will be totally fine with going back home, move back in with mom, work the whole summer, save up some money for the first time ever, and then take whatever happens after that.

Right now I have to live in the now. (Which is what I have been doing up until a month ago)

So to make myself not think about all of this I’ve spent this whole day at the beach. It’s been really warm today, 80F. The water only 57F, but that didn’t stop me from going in the water several times. Very refreshing. First time at Pirate’s Cove beach today, which is also a nude beach, and I have to say that I was more uncomfortable that I thought I would be. But it was a small beach, right under cliffs, and very pretty. And when I focused on my book it wasn’t that bad.

We then “hiked” up to the actual cave and sat down for almost an hour, waiting for the sunset. It set behind the Avila hill, but it was still beautiful, and warm, and otters where swimming in the water below. This is definitely one of the reasons (maybe the biggest?) that I really want to stay in California.

To the left on the big rock is Pirate’s Cove. Other side of the cave. Avila in the distance. Normal photo of the sunset. HDR photo of the sunset.When the sun was down the whole Avila hill was glowing!

Here’s a photo from last night’s sunset at Shell Beach. The sunsets and the beaches make me so calm and relaxed. I wish I could have spent more time at the beach this year.

Study at the library

Posted on Thursday, 29 January 2015, 0:36 by Alexandra

I don’t know if you guys know this, but I am not very fond of the library. I don’t know why, but I guess I like my own room better even if there are more distractions here. But today I had too much that needed to be done so I spent four hours there with Matt. I actually got a lot of stuff done. First I looked at what my partner had written for the report that is due tomorrow afternoon. It looked good, so I finished the reading for the Urban Planning quiz (we have one quiz before every class (twice a week)) and then did the quiz. 97%, not too bad. Then I wrote down ten German verbs and conjugated all of them. We have a quiz tomorrow on the prepositions and ten verbs. I hope that will go well. I feel like I know it all, but I am not good at forming sentences. Cross your fingers for me!

At 11 I felt that I was done, so I went out in the cold and headed home. Here I have watched funny cat videos and put together several different potential schedules for next quarter. I am waiting for responses from several people about different classes. But I have all my options saved so when February 10^th comes, I will be ready to enroll. I am hoping for CRP 214 – Land Use and Transportation Studies, ENVE 331 – Introduction to Environmental Engineering, GER 103 – Elementary German III, and CRP 409 – Planning Internship. I am also considering KINE 181 – First Aid/CPR/AED on top of all of those to renew my certification. But I am not sure about that yet (it is two extra hours every week). The Environmental Planning Methods that I wanted to take only covers the California laws when it comes to planning, so it might not benefit be at all if I don’t end up here. And that one was also early mornings and 4 hours each time, so I want to take the Land Use class instead. Better times and seems better suited for me no matter where I end up. I hope I can take the Environmental Engineering class too, but that is completely up to my advisor at Chalmers. I think that environmental engineering is definitely good for all types of engineers. But I am patiently waiting for my advisor’s email reply. If it is not okay, then I will just take a class called CE 421 – Traffic Engineering and have three out of five very early mornings, and also have class on Friday’s. Let’s cross all your fingers again for this NOT to happen! I also want to take the Planning Internship class which will give me at least 60 hours of work experience in planning, and also 2 units to my transcript. But it might be too late to find a company to work for even if I got a thumbs-up from my advisors here at Cal Poly regarding my visa status. If I get that internship, it could be my way in to stay permanently in California. But if I don’t, it just means that I have to contact companies directly and apply for a real job directly instead. Probably more work, but since I really want this, I am ready to put the effort into it.

I’ve been very productive today, and I will end this long day with the latest episode of The Flash and then prepare for a long long day tomorrow (Thursday’s are the worst, 6 hours of consecutive lectures, no breaks, and all in different parts of campus of course).

This is my German quiz #2. Don’t mind all the errors. But read the questions. My German teacher is the best! Today in class he had brought a light saber and a sonic screwdriver, he also went on an on about a guy’s feral cat invasion in his house and joked about it. I have never laughed in class as much as I do in his class (he is a good teacher too and teach us so much). Heil Edler Graf von Anderson!I can’t get enough of beautiful sunsets and they seem to be endless here. I love it! They make me happy.

Beach and banana bread

Posted on Saturday, 17 January 2015, 23:01 by Alexandra

It is January, isn’t it? Today it definitely didn’t feel like it. The afternoon was spent at Avila Beach with Matt and his friends and it was like any other Swedish summer days. Maybe a little bit colder, but not much. We played a lot of beach volleyball, Kan Jam (which is a Frisbee game, actually pretty fun), and then ended the day by going in the water. I still find it incredible that it is even possible to be at the beach in January, and go in the water even! I can’t say that it was warm, but after a while of just standing there, watching the sun get lower and lower in the sky, it didn’t feel cold anymore and I jumped in. According to internet it was 60F (15.5C), which is cold. But definitely not too cold. Maybe I am embracing my Swedish Viking heritage more when I am away from home?

We stayed until the sun set and on our way back the whole sky was the most amazing pink color I have ever seen a sunset be. It was so beautiful!

It was a very fun day anyway. I spent two hours at Matt house trying to get warm, he cooked dinner for me and then drove me home. The plan tonight was to hit downtown, but no one wanted to except me and Toby, so we will do it tomorrow instead and try to recruit more people.

So instead of going downtown I spent a lot of my time awake baking. First I baked white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for Rachel (and I got two) so she could pay with that instead of money to the line dancing thing. And then I baked banana bread for the very first time, and also from scratch. It turned out delicious! Why haven’t I ever baked that before?

I made my sweet cravings go down, now I am very super full and totally ready to go to bed and watch an episode of The 100. It is Saturday, 11pm, and there is nothing wrong with that even for a college student!

Bemm

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Beach and banana bread

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