Crazy birthday weekend

Posted on Monday, April 13th 2015, 21:31 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 two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Wow, I haven’t updated my blog in more than a week. I’m sorry blog. So much happening all the time, and mostly homework. The workload is approximately the same as last quarter, maybe even more.

Last week wasn’t very interesting, I spontaneously went downtown on Thursday, on Friday I hung out with some friends and Saturday was my birthday. I started my 24^th birthday with skyping with mom and opening her gift. I got teary-eyed. It was a beautiful silver ring and silver infinity sign bracelet. And in the card she said that the bracelet was the first thing she made in that silver smithy class she is taking. So sweet of her!!

Then I spent the rest of the day with Lauren. First we went for breakfast at Slodoco and then to Pismo Beach. We were only there for 2 minutes, it was so windy. My dad called me while we got there and wished me a happy birthday. That was nice of him to call all the way to California!

So we went to the pool in PCV instead. Not too bad that either. We were there for like an hour before we needed to go back and prepare for dinner and downtown. Rachel, Lauren, Cody, Aiden, Pelle, Ciara, and I went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. From Lauren and Rachel I got a tiara to wear so everyone downtown would know it was my birthday, I also got a sweet card and nailpolish. Lately I’ve been very focused on painting my nails. I wonder where that came from? From Cody I got a cute seahorse decoration thing and a princess wand to match my tiara, haha. Also a very sweet card. These guys are the best!!

So, our night started at SLO Brew and then we went to Motav. People kept buying me drinks, even random people who just wished me a happy birthday. People here really like birthdays. I didn’t have to pay any cover fees and the music was good at Motav for once. The first song played was The Nights by Avicii. I wasn’t feeling too drunk until after midnight. It went from nothing to everything very fast. I honestly can’t remember anything from after midnight. That never happened before, it is scary, and I will never ever get that drunk again. Yesterday I only left bed to shower. I was still hungover today. It got pretty okay at like 6pm. And now I can eat normally. I feel kinda done with alcohol now, and besides, I am old, haha!

This morning I skipped the beach volleyball lesson and TRX, because I was still hungover. German class was fine, it was a recap of the last two quarters. Then I went back home to study. So much homework… Free pizza in the courtyard and I don’t feel bad anymore. I would have needed that pizza yesterday, haha!

I did one quiz in Digital Cities today, I finished most of my German homework (but I can’t focus, so I will save the last two assignments for tomorrow). I should do more, but my brain is all mushy and I am tired. I have another day tomorrow too!

The Swedish Easter bunny found its way to SLO. Rachel baked my favorite cookies (oatmeal raisin) and left a chunk of dough on my fridge shelf. Isn’t she the sweetest?! Pismo Beach on Saturday was ridiculously windy. Way way away from where I stood there were a ton of kitesurfers. Maybe you can see them if clicking on the picture to zoom in? I got flowers from the people. The jewelry I got from mom ❤Cody, me, Rachel, Lauren, Ciara, Pelle, and Aiden. Thanks guys for an awesome birthday!!

A day at the pool

Posted on Saturday, March 14th 2015, 0:22 by Alexandra

Today was pretty chill, I had a check-up with the doctor, and she was happy to hear that the pills are working and that my mono symptoms are still gonna be here for at least a couple of more weeks. So I don’t know what I really got out of that, but it made me get out of bed pretty early so I had more time to relax at the pool.

They changed the sunbeds a couple of days ago and they are so nice now! A lot of people from the building were there and the weather was beautiful and it was such a nice day! It was around 30C and just amazing. No burns, but I am tired from all the sun. I didn’t read much, but I will have plenty of time to do that when my finals are done in five days.

I don’t really have much to study now anyway. I reviewed all the old quizzes for the Urban Planning midterm on Tuesday. It feels okay, I have some concepts I want to define before I feel completely ready to take the midterm (it is during finals week, but not cumulative, so I call it a midterm). And I can’t really study for the German final on Wednesday. We are gonna watch a movie and then discuss it in groups. I thought we were gonna answer questions individually on papers. So now I am not worried at all about this. I am gonna do more of the old German homeworks another day, probably tomorrow night.

I was very unhealthy tonight with both Panda Express and a donut from Slodoco. So I will go to bed now and dream intense dreams and hopefully burn some of these unnecessary calories.

Last day in DR

Posted on Friday, December 19th 2014, 22:18 by Alexandra

My last day in Dominican Republic is over and I am a little sad about it. I love this place, but I guess I am also ready to move on and try something else. Leave this comfort at an all inclusive hotel and switch to a hostel in a big city. Puerto Rico is gonna be so different than Dominican Republic. I am not gonna have the beach one minute from my room, I won’t have free drinks and food. I will have to start to take care of myself again. But I am also very excited, driving around, seeing different beaches, and lots of other things. It will be fun! And so different from this.

The morning today was cloudy so I stayed in bed until 10 am. Had breakfast and then stayed at the pool all day. It was nice actually. Cloudy most of the day, but at 1 or 2 pm the sun came out and it got really hot. The pool was cold and awesome. I had a couple of drinks, finished half The Death Cure (3^rd Maze Runner), took a few naps, and texted with Matt. I miss him.

At 4pm, out of nowhere, it started raining A LOT. The sun was out and all, it was strange. After ten minutes of hiding in the bar, it was over and the sun was out again. I left the pool at 6 when the sun was just going behind the buildings.

I had my last long and warm shower, my last nice dinner, and then packed everything so I can spend as much time as possible at the beach tomorrow before checkout at noon. My flight leaves at 3:30 a and only takes 55 minutes. I think I will have to plan the week tonight. It will not just be waking up, putting on a bikini and going to the beach. This will need planning.

This pool is really great. The jacuzzi is part of the pool between the palm trees.

The IRS

Posted on Thursday, October 23rd 2014, 0:58 by Alexandra

I took my medicine last night at nine, read for 30 minutes and then fell asleep like a baby. I woke up two hours later from loud roomies, but when I asked them to keep quiet, and they listened, I fell asleep right away again. I slept all the way to 10am and felt so well-rested. It was the best night I’ve had in a very long time!

I called the IRS in the morning and they told me that they just received my payment, not the actual form I filled out. So they need me to send them in again. And when that process is done, in 6-8 weeks I can send in my tax transcript to CSN (the Swedish company that gives me financial aid) which for some reason needs to see if I paid enough of my loans back last year. Why is everything so complicated? I should have just skipped paying taxes last year, it seems like it didn’t matter anyway and I could have saved $600.

I had lunch and then spent a few hours at the pool. It was very nice. Dinner back home and then I went to class. Today we talked about transportation and it was very interesting. I got so angry when we watched the movie “Who killed the electric car?”. The state of California totally made it illegal pretty much to have an electric car like 15 years ago. Or maybe it was 10. Anyway, the stupidest thing ever. Just so the oil companies can continue to earn millions of dollars every year. This greedy country makes me angry! That movie made me want to have an electric car in the future, zero emissions would be so great. But before I have money I will have to be satisfied with a gas car. I and Johanna looked into buying one today. We realized that we won’t fit surfboards in a small convertible so we need to buy a bigger car. I’ve been told that a Toyota 4Runner is very reliable and can go on forever and ever. I’ve texted two guys on Craigslist but it was probably too late for them to answer today, so I’m hoping for answers tomorrow. It would be so nice to have a car as soon as possible. It would make my life so much easier!

Time for bed! A long day tomorrow again.

Trying to get rid of the cough

Posted on Sunday, October 19th 2014, 23:18 by Alexandra

My cough has actually been getting better. I don’t know if it was the sun exposure (which always makes me happy) or the mucus congestion medicine. I still cough, but not as much.

I was out there for three hours, listening to music. I’ve found my old music again and I seriously get goosebumps when I hear my old favorite songs. And when I get new favorite songs. Like Three Days Grace new song Painkiller. I miss Adam Gontier, but the new singer, Matt Walst, is actually as good. LOVE IT! I look forward to their next album whenever that will get out.

Nothing more happened today, except that I cooked dinner for once. Chicken with mashed sweet potatoes. It was good, but the kale with it was awful. I think I need to throw that bag away and buy spinach again. Ugh.

Monday tomorrow, which means Sunday for me. I will go to the Health Center to get my throat checked out and then some studying for a couple of hours. I can’t really complain about how much I have to do.

The pool and studying

Posted on Monday, October 13th 2014, 0:26 by Alexandra

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?

The pool (again)

Posted on Sunday, October 5th 2014, 20:37 by Alexandra

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…

The pool and salsa

Posted on Friday, October 3rd 2014, 23:12 by Alexandra

Today was a very chill day. I woke up at 11am, had breakfast and then spent five hours at the pool, tanning and playing waterball (basketball in the water) with some guys from the building. It was fun and exhausting. Left the pool at 5pm to pick up three more packages. The bathroom rug, my sunglasses and the small cutting board. And that was the last things from my big $200 order a week ago. So now I am just waiting for the bike lights from mom in Sweden and the package from Amazon which I am gonna send to my brother.

I also found a guy yesterday in the building who likes to fix bikes so he took a look at mine and will fix it on Monday when he get new parts for my breaks. So very nice of him!

Then I made dinner for Lauren and Kelsey. I don’t have any containers for leftovers yet. I am gonna by that tomorrow. I made spaghetti with meatsauce, and it was very appreciated.

At 8pm the three of us went to campus for a 1.5 hour long salsa lesson. I actually enjoyed it and will continue to go. $5 each time is not too bad and I had a great time. I’m not a very good dancer, but it was fun.

I am tired, my core muscles are sore after yoga yesterday (perhaps already from waterball as well) and I am going up at 8am tomorrow to play beach volleyball at the PCV court at 9. I should probably go to bed. At 11pm on a Friday.

Kahaluu Beach Park (29jan)

Posted on Friday, January 31st 2014, 22:57 by Alexandra

This morning was so boring! No rain, but it was cloudy. Our plan for the day was to take a look at the pool area here on the hotel and then take the bus to a beach south of here. The bus only goes once every two hours and we just missed the one at 10:40am, so we spent that extra time by the pool. The sun was slowly coming out from behind the clouds and it actually was a nice day after that. There is a lagoon on the hotel properties too. But the pool isn’t anything special, it is very small. But it is right next to the ocean.

We took the bus, $2 each ride (it was better on both Oahu and Maui where the tickets lasted 4 hours after purchase and where you could by day passes). For 20 minutes until we reached Kahaluu. I thought the stop before sounded nice, Magic Sands/White Sands until the shuttle driver yesterday told us that that beach is called Magic Sands because the sand completely disappears from the beach sometimes because of the waves. So we took the beach park instead. It was tiny, but it was a beach at least. There are hardly any beaches here! The sand was a mix between white and black sand, so it was pretty cool. But what made my day was in the water. First of all, the snorkeling there was better than at Hanauma Bay on Oahu. The coral was much nicer and it was more colorful fishes. I didn’t see any turtles, even if there were a lot of signs on the beach telling us to not touch the turtles. When I got out of the water I asked one of the volunteers at the beach about turtles, and he said it was very common to see them there and pointed out towards a tide pool where people were pointing and taking pictures. I walked out there with my camera and there were four (4!!) turtles in the extremely shallow water eating things of the rocks. They weren’t very big, maybe like 4dm. But it was turtles! I spent a lot of time out there taking pictures of them, Caroline got tired pretty fast, haha!

The rest of the day we just lay at the beach working on our tans. About 1 hour before the bus came it started raining so the last 30 minutes, when it was pouring down and impossible to stay at the beach, we were under a roof just waiting for time to fly by.

On the bus back we saw the sunset out in the water and on the other side, towards the mountain were two big rainbows! So beautiful. The sunset was amazing, as it was yesterday. It’s like the colors here are different than on the other islands. It gets way more orange and pink or whatever that color is called. After the sun was set, when we were walking towards a restaurant the sky was all pink and the water all purple. I don’t think I’ve ever seen water with that color, it was incredible.

We actually had dinner out tonight again, but that was the last time for sure. I totally forgot that I wanted to eat an Hawaiian pizza on Hawaii. So we found a restaurant eventually that served pineapple pizza and that pizza was the best pizza I’ve had this year! It was Kaluau Pork on it with a hot/sweet sauce. Soo good. When we got back to the hotel we tried getting access to the internet but it didn’t work. This hotel sucks! We spent a lot more money here than on the hostels, and the hostels had internet. Stupid hotel!! It’s not that I’m addicted to internet, but with it I can see my Swedish account balance. And there isn’t any Starbucks around here either… Stupid!

I’m thinking about maybe buying internet for 24 hours on Saturday so I can post everything before going back to Sweden. It’s $10 per 24 hours.

Tomorrow morning we are gonna call Enterprise to rent a car for Friday and after that walk north for a while to a nice white sand beach. I’m also gonna check if there are any other nice beaches more south of here. The bus goes pretty far south. Let’s hope the sun is out tomorrow!

2014-01-29, 20:36

The lagoon we have at the hotel. The pool area. Part of the outdoor lobby. Kahaluu Beach Park. Honu, Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle HAPPY! These were just babies and just a third the size of the ones we saw on Waikiki Beach, Oahu. The sunsets on Big Island really are much prettier than on the other islands.