Tag Archives: work

Sunday

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Yesterday I had my 5th day of this summer season at Balderado. I had Spinrock the whole day but that was great. Spinrock is fun to work at and especially when you are two people. The day went by super fast and I was home before I knew it.

Today I was at Berget again where I only had one hour passes which is kinda slow if you have it the whole day. One hour at one attraction is a lot of time. Half hours go by so much faster and the variation makes it easier to keep the mood up.

I was in a very good mood today, but my tiredness made it tough to keep it up. I did have a nice day in general though.

My tooth, or the lack of tooth more correctly, is okay. It hurts a tiny bit, but I could eat almost without any problems at all. But being careless probably made it worse by the evening. Now it hurts when I swallow and it feels like I have a sore throat. But I know better, it is the hole. I should probably be more careful, even if it feels alright, because it probably isn’t alright just yet. It has just been three days!

I closed Höjdskräcken today again. So awesome. No stress, you get closer to the guests who actually come and you can relax before going home. Love it!

 

I found out a couple of days ago that I need to enroll in a new course at Cal Poly because I am currently on the waiting list for the environmental class that is mandatory. I was certain that I would get that class because of an email from the professor a while back. But I am second on the wait list and to meet the requirements of my visa status I need to enroll and get accepted to 3 more credits. I’ve found another class that might be similar, Sustainable Environmental Engineering. But I will also enroll in German 1. I have to get one of those three classes and will have more options. I really hope I get Sustainable Environments, my first choice, but if I don’t I will have to take that class when I am back in Sweden which will suck, but it would work. So tomorrow night at 11pm I will enroll in new classes. Cross your fingers for me that I get my first choice!

Hard Rock Cafe Gothenburg

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Finally! My hometown was number 12. The California burger was good, but not as good as it normally is, it was a bit dry and heavy and 189kr for that was a bit much. But the atmosphere in there was the same as in all of the other Hard Rock Cafes I’ve ever been to. It was nice. 12 glasses is now showing on my shelf!

Today at work was my Friday, I had a long day, almost 10 hours of work. But it wasn’t too bad actually. After lunch just disappeared. First I had 2.5 hours straight of work, then 30 minutes break, 1 hour of work, 30 minutes break and 30 minutes of work before I got off at 9:30pm. The best ending on a day there is, perfect! And the day started with supervisors from two different areas fighting over me. There had been a misunderstanding and I was supposed to be on Balderado for the first couple of hours and then on Berget. But I ended up on Berget anyway. They were literally standing over me while I was sitting down, handing me papers on two different attractions and fighting for me.

Right after work I went to Hard Rock Café to meet up with Chad, Nicole and Nicolai. Nicole is a German friend from San Diego who is doing a roadtrip in Scandinavia with her boyfriend and they are staying here with me in Gothenburg for a couple of nights. Today they went adventuring in the city alone while I was working and tomorrow we will go to Liseberg for a while before I have to leave them there to go pull out a tooth. They arrived late last night.

 

Yesterday at work was a crazy crazy day! So many people for no apparent reason. Huge lines everywhere. The day before that was the complete opposite. No lines at all. The line ran out at Helix even! And when I closed Höjdskräcken I did 7 rides during the whole hour. Normally you can do 18-19 in an hour.

Yesterday was fun because of a challenge the supervisors gave us. We were supposed to find guests who travelled from far away. And the person who found the guests from the furthest away got an extra break on the schedule someday in the future. You had four tries to ask guests and I got so lucky on my first on; Los Angeles. I felt confident after that. I also got China, Germany and Spain. When I handed in my paper to the supervisors they said they had Philippines and Brazil as well, and I could see my extra break be removed from the time table.

 

I am so tired now, so I will be boring and go to bed actually. Me, Nicole and Nicolai will go to Liseberg pretty early tomorrow so I need my rest I guess. Or I probably will just sleep for the rest of the day when I get back from the dentist. As the two times before, mom will be there to be my support! ❤

Hard Rock Cafe Göteborg

Mega thunderstorm

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Today was as much opposite as yesterday as it can be. So calm and nice and quiet. It was sticky though, you could almost feel the moist in the air and it was kinda disgusting. I also had a bad stomach ache the whole day which wasn’t particuarly fun either. The crazy thing that made this day interesting was the huge thunderstorm that rolled in over Gothenburg in just minutes. Normally the rain goes on and on an on and it is just a drizzle. But today it was sunny at one point, and five minutes later the sky opened up and poured down tons of water and hail and thunder and lightning and it took out all the power in the park for a while. Berget had a nice break for an hour, but I was on lunch for that whole hour. When I just sat down to eat it started and when I walked out it was sunny again. So weird!

The day was over so fast, 6 hours isn’t that much. And the park closes at 10pm on Sundays. So nice to be home before 11pm! And now I think I will go to bed and read some. I have to get up pretty early tomorrow to study…

Storm at LisebergThe view from the employee cafeteria. It was way worse than it looks like and the lightning bolts were lightning up the whole sky and the thunder came at the same time. It was scary!!

Snoop Dogg @ Liseberg

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Such a crazy day at work today! I am glad I was at Balderado instead of Berget because I heard it was the worst up there. I only have KristallSalongen, Ponnykarusellen and SpinRock at Balderado and they are all very calm attractions. Ponnykarusellen is for tiny kids, Kristallsalongen is just a house of mirrors and SpinRock is busy, but nothing crazy and it is reliable. But at the end of the day when I was closing it with a colleague it went amok!! Balder was on break because some people had climbed the structure. And half an hour before everything closed Kållerado also went on break (those two are the big attractions in the Balderado area) so everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, came to SpinRock which is a big swing that spins at the same time. Right before we were closing the gates so we would start the last ride at five to eleven, twenty minutes of extra queue walked in. And more people were jumping in so our last ride was a quarter past eleven! And apparently it was the same on most attractions.

During the day people were smoking weed in the queue at Helix and all over the park. I understand why no one else wanted Snoop to give a performance at their place. The whole of Liseberg turned to drug lover’s paradise. I don’t understand how Liseberg could agree to that with so many kids around. And most of it were ignored by the guards because they had more important things to do than tell people to stop smoking. People were also climbing on roofs.

I didn’t notice any of this though but I can imagine my colleagues at Berget did. Crazy day! 45 570 people during the whole day!! (A normal day is around 20 000)

Tomorrow I work from 3pm to 11pm, a nice 6 hours, and probably at Berget. I guess I really need to go to bed now, I am so tired…

“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!

Lightning and thunder

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After weeks of tropical heat, rain was so very needed. The day started out hot like every other day, but that changed in just a few hours. It dropped 10C (it was actually a bit cold when I walked home at 10pm in shorts and a tank top) after the heavy rain and thunderstorm in the afternoon. Up on the mountain we aren’t allowed to have any rides open when thunder is roaring and because of that we had several breaks. First at 2pm there was a 15 minute break when I was on Helix. The second break came at 4:30pm and lasted for almost two hours. And right after it stopped to thunder I was going to be on AtmosFear for an hour, but after lightning hit that tower we had technical problems and the attraction was closed that whole hour. I think all of the park heard the boom when it hit Atti, and just a few minutes later it hit the middle Gothia Tower. I missed it all, I was down in our pause room.

Because of the weather I’ve had a headache a big part of the day. Not too fun. I also hit my elbow on one of the Helix gates and that still hurts when I move it in a specific way. I hope it will be better tomorrow, it will be hard checking the safety restraints otherwise…

Last night I saw Divergent and it was so good. I probably would have had a lot to say if I read the book recently and didn’t have 30 books read after that triology. I remember the story, but not details about what happens. But I want to reread them. But I probably shouldn’t since I have like 600 books on my to-read-list. At the moment I am actually reading the four short stories from Four’s perspective. I wish I had more time for reading…

Sunburn

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I’ve got a good share of my long longed-for Swedish summer. First yesterday at Öckerö and today before work at Björlanda with mom. It was warmer today because there was no wind. I put sunscreen on the most exposed areas, like shoulders, back, and chest. But I got burned on my stomach and thighs. Stupid me. I should know by now that the sun up here in Sweden can most definitely give you a sunburn. It is not extremely bad fortunately and it will probably be fine tomorrow.

BjörlandaThe water was very very shallow at Björlanda so it was hard to get all of the body cooled down.

Mom drove me straight to work after that and it’s been a very rough day. I’ve been trying to drink as much as I can, but I’ve still felt like I was melting away. It is still around 32C and that is the warmest in all of Europe right now! Crazy that Sweden is warmest… It is gonna stay like this and even if I normally like warmth, it is not very fun to work in. I think I will need to eat more salt from now on, skip the sweet semolina porridge and go for scrambled eggs and bacon. I have almost 10 hours tomorrow and I really hope it will be cooler tomorrow, but I doubt it…

Liseberg at nightI had to wait for 15 minutes for my second tram and spent that time taking pictures of the glittering Lisebergshjulet.

City of Heavenly Fire

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I am now done with the sixth and last book in the Mortal Instruments series. I love Cassandra Clare, all of her books are amazing and the story is really good. The ending was perfect. A happy ending. But this was not the end, Clare has said that she will write six (or was it seven or five?) series about Shadowhunters and this was just the second, or first, depends on how you look at it. This one took place in the present, the other one, The Infernal Devices, in the 1800. Several characters from the Infernal Devices came back in the Mortal Instruments, but not too much, just for a little while. They were hard to let go of so I was happy when they came back. In this sixth book, new people were introduced and the next series, the Dark Artifices will be about them. All of the books in the different series will be connected and in a very good way. I am so bad at writing reviews, but I really like all of her books, and if anyone likes demons/angles/vampires/werewolves/fairies/warlocks in a modern society I can really recommend all of her books. The series about the warlock Magnus Bane is also good. There are 10 100-page novellas.

I wish I had more time for reading, at the moment I am only finishing a book every month…

LäsdagbokThis is my reading diary. I’ve written down every book I’ve ever read in this little book.I started with the exact dates in 2004 when I realized I loved reading. In total there are 19 full pages full, one book per line. I had an ugly reading diary before but I ran out of pages (a lot of unecessary space in it for things I didn’t care about writing down, I think it was two or three books per page!) so I bought a notebook a couple of years ago and transferred the reading list to the new one. And decorated it with a dragon, because my favorite genre is fantasy. Läsdagbok = Reading Diary.

Today I had my Friday at work and that was awesome! These last 6 days have been long and my last weekend short. This weekend will disappear way to fast too. I opened SpinRock today, an attraction at my second area, Balderado. I haven’t been there in so long and had to read the manual on how to open it properly. I was there for 30 minutes before I had to run up to Helix for another half hour. And in the ridiculous heat today it wasn’t that fun.

About Helix, I had the test yesterday and I passed. So now I have 8 approved attractions I can operate at Liseberg. I have been told that I will get one more, but I think I will just get the introduction, the amount of education hours, and the test, just because. Not because they need me at that area. But I don’t mind. I like Berget!

Tomorrow will be another warm summer day and I will spend it at Liseberg with my cousins. They are driving down here so we can be there when it opens at 11am, go there the whole day, and then they will stay over at my place and drive home the day after. I look forward to it. It might be the last or second to last time I will see them before my departure in the middle of September.

I will go to bed now and read in my new book, I Am Number Four; The Lost Files – Return to Paradise. It’s a 100-page novella from the series I Am Number Four. Another good series, but this one is about friendly aliens on Earth who are being chased by evil aliens who want to take over the Universe. Sounds childish, but I am too tired to write a more thoroughly description. Look of the trailer for the movie I Am Number Four and you will know. Goodnight!

Last day of Gothia Cup

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The world’s biggest soccer tournament for kids is finally over. This week means that the whole town is being invaded by people from all over the world, all of the tram’s are always full, they smell of sweat and they all get a super cheap bracelet to Liseberg that is valid for the whole week. That means that everyone is at Liseberg as soon as they don’t play any games. That means a lot to do for us who work there. It hasn’t been too bad actually, but once in a while there is half a team who wants to go on a ride without tickets or bracelets and doesn’t understand English. Or the scenario where another half of a team wants to sit next to each other one a ride… I survived and I even survived an intro and education at Helix, the busiest attraction by far at Liseberg.

So, today was the last day those special Gothia Cup bracelets were valid, but that doesn’t mean Liseberg won’t be as busy. These next couple of weeks are vacation weeks for most of Sweden, and that means that everyone is going to Gothenburg and Liseberg. I wonder if that will be worse or better than Gothia Cup? If there is something that’s actually been better this past week compared to normal weeks, is that people are too afraid of asking if they can wait for the next ride for example on AtmosFear because they want to sit next to each other. It is like they know that that isn’t something they can ask for. That that is just the way it is, we have a certain amount of seats and those need to be filled every time. I am so thankful for that!

My day started like yesterday; break on Helix. But today I had Helix for an hour and I could be a part of reopening it after about 35 minutes of telling people that it was closed. I learned how to do that which was good since I am not an approved attraction driver there yet. I did have my check-up today though, which means I will be ready for the test tomorrow. Yay! When that is done I will have 8 attractions in total at Liseberg.

When I came home from work at about 9pm I didn’t wait long until I started Guild Wars 2. Time flew away, it’s already 0:30 am and I should probably go to bed. I have a long day tomorrow. First 8 hours at work and then prepartying. Liseberg arranges every other Sunday something called a Rabbit Party at a nightclub in Gothenburg. I’ve never went, I enjoy the preparties more. And I work pretty early the day after, so I will hardly even drink tomorrow and just hang out for a while. Even if we work together at Liseberg, we don’t have time to hangout there, so we need these parties. We should do more stuff though, not just the Rabbit Parties.

Morotskort

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Today something very fun happened at work. Some guests get a special card, called a Morotskort (en=Carrot card) when they arrive in the park. They are supposed to give them to Liseberg workers who’ve done something extra and I got one of those today!! More than smiling and being nice to people I didn’t do anything special. It was on AtmosFear where a little girl was too afraid of going, so I let her out by opening all the safety restraints and telling everyone in the microphone that I just opened them but they needn’t worry because I knew what I was doing. I then started checking my half again and after a few guests there was a guy with one of his hands in his pocket and suspicious as I am I asked him what he had in his pocket (it is not allowed to have any loose objects during the ride so we try to prevent that before we start by taking everything and putting them in the baskets by the walls). He just smiled back at me and pulled out one of those cards and told me it was for me. I thanked him a lot and I was in a very good mood the rest of the evening. I don’t know if he was flirting with me, saw what I did to the little girl, enjoyed what I said in the mic or if he were about to leave the park and just wanted to give it to someone (which he didn’t because he came back on the ride). It was very nice anyway, and when you get one of those cards you get a Trisslott (you scratch it and have a chance of winning money). I hope I will win a million!

My day started with 30 minutes at Helix and like another day a week ago, it was on break. That meant that I stood for 30 minutes by the entrance telling people that we had some technical issues. Last week I had a whole hour at Uppswinget. Nice to start the day that way! And it was nice speaking English again. I haven’t done it almost at all these past two weeks, since Chad left for Minnesota. I missed it. On Tuesday he will be back though and I will have someone to talk to daily again.

A stupid thing that happened on AtmosFear today, before I got the carrot card, a guy in the seat started smoking!! I was about to go to the other side and check the restraints and I just saw a big cloud there. I walked up to him and asked him what he was doing and told him to put it out right now! He told me he wanted to throw it off the top of the attraction. Asshole! I took his lighter, I probably should have taken the pack of cigarettes instead, and also his friends lighter. I really really hope they didn’t have a third lighter and smoked up there anyway. What does some people think with?? It is not allowed to smoke in the park, why should it be okay to smoke on an attraction??

That was pretty much my whole day. Now I will go to bed and prepare for another long day tomorrow. But I do get off at 8pm already so I will have some time to do something instead of just going home and going to bed. I look forward to Tuesday (my Saturday).