orusttjejen

Will miss this view of Birmingham...

... and I will miss this handsome guy.

But on Monday I will fly down to Kosovo to start my exciting fall as an intern in the swedish embassy there! :-) Actually working in an embassy has been a dream of mine since I were like 15 years old, and now I'll finally get to do it, which feels so good! :-)

I'm gonna live there together with the other intern Ellinor in a big apartment 15 min walk from the embassy! :-) We have one bedroom each, two bathrooms, two balconys, a guestroom, a living room and a kitchen - so awesome! So if anyone wants to visit I'd be happy to have you! :-)

I just need to show a picture of what apparently is a popular candy in the US (according to Andrew). It's kind of like the fishes you can buy as "lösgodis", but so funny that they have it as a special bag like this... :-)

And apparently swedes are popular here, especially on the airport. I almost didn't have anyone ask me where I came from here before, but when I went through security one guy told me that he really wanted to go there and another one told me that our soccer- and icehockeyteams were great and that me made great cars and airplanes! Glad that some americans get what is good! ;-)

A really genuine American place in my eyes...

Me and Andrew there...

After that we drove around a lot and saw a lot of the Alabama countryside and drove through some small towns. We also stopped in Ashville, but everything on the (not so impressive or big) main street were closed...

The main street of Ashville, Alabama (and I did get it all in the picture)

A lawyers office that looked so cute! :-)

Roadtrip II - Atlanta, Georgia

On Sunday we went for a much longer road trip to Atlanta, which is around 3 hours drive from Birmingham. But the drive was a lot of fun too, so it wasn't a problem, and I was lucky not needing to drive! :-) And on the way there we stopped at the Waffle house, which is a great breakfast place with just about everything (not just waffles). Mahsa: try it if they have it up there!

The driver! ;-)

Me at waffle house

When we arrived in Atlanta our first stop was "the world of Coke", which is a museum of Coca Cola. After that we walked through the olympic park and walked around in Atlanta for a while, with a stop at Starbucks because I was getting really hungry...

The world of coke! A good museum, and the best part was the tastings in the end. You could test drinks from the Coca Cola company all over the world, some were good and some were really disguisting... But always interesting to try! :-)

At the entrance to the museum

In the olympic park!

View over Atlanta

A tired Maria at Starbucks!

We ended the visit with me joining Andrew for a mass in a catholic church there and it was very interesting, especially the fact that it was really so similar to going to church back home! The order of almost everything was the same and the way everything was done. It made me wonder even more what the big deal of all the different churches over here is. To quote Tien: They all love Jesus and the Bible, what's the big deal.

On the way home we made a stop at Taco Bell, since Andrew had told me how amazing it is, and apparently it's one of Doug's favourite places too... It was good and very cheap, like 7 dollars (45 SEK) for a meal, fast food is so cheap down here. But I was not that impressed, not as good as the Swedish taco! ;-) (But Mahsa - you should give it a try, and I had number 6 with one of each, that was good.) Made a mistake though when Andrew asked me to fill up drinks for us, apparently they have ice in these drink mashines over here, missed that! Americans are so crazy about their ice... :-)

Taco bell - Andrew wanted to take the picture to show Doug he took me to this amazing place! ;-)

After I arrived we went around the city a little bit to shop for food and we went to his office because he needed to pcik up some stuff. Then we went for dinner at the fish market in the eveing and had swordfish (delicious!), scallops (=pilgrimsmussla, not that impressive) and fried tomatoes which is apparently famous here in the south and it was good, but too much fried for me. We went on to a bar after that to have a drink and ended the evening with swimming in the pool Andrew has outside his house - so good! Can't believe the weather is so warm here - makes life so much easier! :-)

The pool seen from Andrews balcony

During the weekend we made some road trips, but I'll post about them in a separate post, so on Saturday evening Andrew cooked me steak, which was really good! :-) And after that and a some glasses of wine we headed down town to a bar and danced for a few hours. I wondering before about whether Andrew would be up for dancing or not, but he totally was! It was so much fun!!! :-)

Me with the great steak!

Us in the bar! :-)

On the Monday (yesterday) we started the day with visiting a law school just outside Birmingham to look around and since Andrews judge knows the dean (rektor) there we got an appointment with him. We started off talking a little about the American legal system and what the law schools are like and then he asked me a lot about what it's like in Sweden. Then we attended a class that he was giving where the students were gonna learn how to act in the court room and it was very interesting. He also introduced us to the class and told them a little about the Swedish legal system, so apparently I did a good job explaining it. A funny thing was though that one of the times he was mentioning where I came from he said Switzerland (Schweiz), so apparently americans don't know the differnce! ;-) The lecture was interesting because the way you speak in the court room is so different in US and Sweden since you speak to a jury in US and to a legally trained judge in Sweden. He ended the visit with also giving us a tour of the school, so nice of him! :-)

After this Andrew took me to lunch to have some really good hamburgers! So delicious! :-) And afterwards he dropped me off at a mall so that I could go shopping, since he needed to go to work. So I walked around there for a few hours and bought some things and I ended the visit with going to a movie - and I was surprised that it was sooo cheap! I paid 5 dollars (about 30 SEK) for it, which is almost a fourth of what it would cost in Sweden... It was also funny to see that they had big buckets that you could buy popcorn in, and that they asked if you wanted them to pour butter on the popcorn. But according to Andrew Alabama is one of the fattest states in the US, and with all the cars, fried food, free refills, cheap fast food and big portions it's not hard to understand...

At the hamburger place - Andrew in fancy business outfit. So strange that that probably is gonna be me too in a week down in Kosovo...

Me and my hamburger with sweet potatoe chips. (Sweet potatoes are what Andrew made me with the steak too and it's soo good, need to cook that!)

Me and Rob in front of a cool painting on a wall...

Then we stopped at the nail shop that Tiens father owns and his cousin painted my nails for me. She's so cute and really insisted on doing it! Tien has such a nice family! Before I left his mother also gave me a t-shirt from Café du Mond, where she works, and a pair of earrings.

Together with Tiens cute cousin...

... and his mother.

And another fun thing is that the road next to Tiens has the name of my wonderful sister Marlene! :-) And I promised her a picture of it - so here it comes:

P.S. I miss you! Hope that Dublin is treating you well...

In the evening it was time for me to try the famous night life of New Orleans (even if it didn't get that late because of my train leaving at 7 the morning after). Me and Tien started it off with dinner, then Brittany joined us after work and later we met up Rob in a bar after his job. And we ended the evening on a balcony overlooking Frenchmen street and talking about life... I'm so glad to have all these people from all over the world in my life! :-)

Me and Tien at dinner

Me with sweet Brittany! :-)

The whole crew in the end of the evening! Miss you guys!

The swamp - so beautiful...

One alligator out of like 20-30 that we saw during the tour... (And apparently alligators and crocodiles are different species, didn't really know if it was two different words for the same thing.)

Brittany, me and Tien - felt like Nijmegen again! :-)

Another alligator

Holding an alligator! :-) Felt a lot different than I imagined, very soft, like a frog or something...

Brittanys expression says it all... ;-)

Me and Tien! He's such a positive energy...

Brittany with her boyfriend Andrew

Tien in front of his house and his own (supersized) car - that's the car that took us around the whole day, since public transportations here are a bit (read: very) limited.

We had traditional Vietnamese breakfast (different kinds of soups) in a restaurant. With that I also had lemonade which is so good - my new favorite drink or something! Tastes almost like a mojito without alcohol...

After breakfast we drove around a lot to look at both the poor and the rich neigborhoods of the city, and we were especially circulating in the area where Kathrina hit six years ago. It's really so crazy that so many people were killed and homeless then and even more so that the walls (according to Tien) hasn't been properly replaced yet. But all the new houses that were being built in that area were built on poles, so hopefully there'd be less damages if the same thing happened again. Another thing that stroke me when we were driving around were the huge differences in society here. We saw a lot of houses today that were worn down in a way that I've never seen in Sweden, but people were still living there, so sad...

Tien in front of his University. To the right is a big church and in the background a statue of Jesus - people are so religious here... In Sweden I feel like religion is very seperated from Universtity, but here it seems common that they're linked together.

Two houses in a nice neighborhood close to Tiens school. To me they look very typical American...

Me in front of a big catholic church in the city. It was very beautiful, but hard to beat the nice European churches... Another thing that stroke me today was that here it seems so important which kind of Christian you are - lutheran, baptist, catholic, presbyterian etc. - but is there really so much of a difference?

Café du Mond is a very famous café here that dates back like 150 years and is situated in the middle of the city. The atmosphere here is so good with jazz musicians playing just outside and we had freshly squeezed orange juice and the only thing they serve to eat here - fried dough with powdered sugar. This is also where Tiens mother works and she's with us in the photo in her working clothes.

The french market is very old and this is the place where they sold slaves in older years, but now they sell all kinds of other stuff.

At famous Bourbon street where there are a lot of bars and stuff.

Bourbon street by day - will probably get to see it by night tomorrow.

New Orleans was apparently owned by Spain for like 40 years, and in a square they had all the provinces of Spain. So maybe this is a sign that I should live in my favourite city again? :-)

Outside of all the travelling I'm doing at the moment I'm thinking a lot about different options to stay abroad after I graduate from law school - life really gives a lot of opportunities and it's so exciting! Also my Kosovo trip is approaching and the girl I'm gonna live with down there might have found us a really good apartment - but will write more about that when it's all clear. She also wrote that everyone down there are so nice, looking forward to my internship a lot! :-)

A Nijmegen-picture of me and Tien! :-)

The heroes square, to remeber heroes from all the Hungarian wars.

The weather was really hot - and then the asian tourists took out their umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun... :-)

Me and Misi with a statue of the famous hungarian writer that's called "Anonymus"

The casle, in which there has not really lived any royalties, since the royal family was the same as in Austria and they mainly lived in Vienna. Now it's however a big library...

Me and my darling on the bridge that divides the two parts of the city - Buda and Pest. The river that divides them is Danube. (I had no idea about what river that was until I understood that Danube is the English word for Donau... They must have thought I was a little stupid for never having heard of Donau! ;-) But it's complicated with the English names for cities, countries and rivers sometimes...)

The parliament! (Why don't we ever have that great buildings in Sweden?)

The three of us overlooking the city from the castle

The great view over the river and the city...

In the evening the three of us were joined by Gabor and we started off sitting in the park in front of the Parliament just talking... Good to get to see him to a little again! :-) We talked a lot about Hungary, it's people, the salaries and the borders that has been changed a lot during the last 100 years. I knew so little about this before so I'm really glad that I got to know more, and I think the best way to learn these things are to talk to the people who's actually from there.

Me and the guys on the bridge

Me and my darling Zsofi! It was so good being with you for a week, but now I miss you a lot. Luckily Pristina and Pecs are not that far away so hopefully we can meet in the fall!!! <3

The mandatory Palinka! ;-)

In the restaurant where Misis favourite waitress works.... ;-)

Me and my darling! <3

Misi together with his nice friend

The impressive castle by night - will probably have a better picture tomorrow...

Tomorrow there will be a whole day of Misi showing us the city - gonna be really nice to see it all with a "local guide"! :-)

Anna get's superhappy to make her coffee! ;-)

The view from the balcony, which lies right by the canal.

In the evening we went out for dinner by the canal and was also joined by Anna's supernice friend Martina. We then walked through the city and ended up in an Australian bar, which I of course loved! ;-) And the best thing about Austrian nightlife if that "the place to party" is the Swedensquare! :-)

The 3 blondes at the restaurant by the canal eating Austrian food.

Then we shared some great choclatecake for dessert! :-)

The blondes and Martina at the Australian bar with Peachwine (which you don't wanna pronounce in German...)

Today we started the day with having a really big breakfast in a supergreat place called Einstein, close to the city hall! You could eat as much as you wanted and as you'll see in the pictures under they had really everything! So good, and hard to beat!

All of us with the great breakfast! :-)

Me with my big breakfast!

After the big breakfast we went for some sightseeing with our great guide Anna! We were also lucky with the weather that just got better over the day!

Anna and Zsofi in front of the parliament

The Hapsburger Castle, where the royals lived within the city.

A beautiful church

The spanish riding school in Vienna

As a break in all the sightseeing we went to the apparently famous Café Central where they had great bakery and where you apparently can spot politicians and celebritys sometimes...

The café

Me and Zsofi with the great Austrian cakes Sachertorte and Strudel with berries, really good! And I also got my tea in a teapot - so cute! :-)

After all the sightseeing we went to a supermarket to buy breakfast and then we went back to the apartment a little to relax and get changed. The next thing we were to see was the former royal familys summer residence Schönbrunn a little way away with the metro. But it was well worth a stop and we sat on a hill having a little picnic looking out over the castle and the city - so lovely! <3

The castle with the city and the mountains behind - really beautiful and the view from our little picnic!

Me in front of a small part of the really beautiful garden...

We then started the evening with wienerschnizel (of course!) and the Austrian beer-mix Radler in the same place as we went to in the morning - liked it so much! :-) We were joined by sweet Martina yesterday too and then also by three other nice friends of Anna... After dinner we ordered two typically austrian desserts to split on four, but they were sooo big so it'd probably have been enough with one. I also taught them to sing "Helan går" after I discovered that it's only us Swedes that like to sing when we drink (or at least not Austrians and Hungarians)! :-) After spending some hours in this place we continued to a square in the museum area where people just hang out and drink (drinking outside is apparently legal in Austria) - it reminded me a lot of the bottellions on the squares in Cadiz a few years ago...

Me and Martina and my really big wienerschnitzel!

Zsofi and Anna with their Schnitzel-mix

Together with one of the two desserts (you see how big it is!?)

The square we finished the evening in...

Today we'll pack up our stuff, have a good breakfast in the apartment, see the market and then depart again... Anna to Linz (where she lives) to work and me and Zsofi to Budapest to meet up with Misi! Both exciting and sad at the same time! There is so many good things and so many great people in my life now - I'm very grateful and happy! :-)

Me and my darling in the tower

The amazing view over Pécs - the mountains in the back are Croatia!

The afternoon were then spent in an area with swimmingpools and special warm Hungarian bath in a town half an hour from Zsofis. The weather is great at the moment and it was good to get to enjoy it more with some swimming! :-) In the evening I also got to know three of Zsofis wonderful friends, all of them really nice and also very international. All of them spoke English all the time even though I was the only one not speaking Hungarian and I really appriciated that! Has been to way too many occasions when people don't respect that, so it was great! We also had a lotof great conversations, I got to enjoy the festival in town now and eat some langos-like food... Then I finished the night with a long and lovely talk with my Zsofi-darling... :-)

Together with two of Zsofis sweet friends on the fountain in the city.

Tomorrow it's time for new adventures... Me and Zsofi are gonna be on the train most of the day and end up in Vienna together with wonderful Anna around 6 pm.

The view from Zsofis balcony

Zsofis street - on top of a BIG hill

After the walk Zsofis mum was kind enough to cook us even more amazing food! Getting so spoiled here! She's such a nice person, but unfotunately it's a little hard to talk to her since she only speaks Hungarian... Get more exercise with her dad though since he speaks German. It's hard for me but good practise!

Zsofis nice family in their garden.

After lunch we went down to the city center for Zsofi to show me the sights of the city and to get into the whole feeling, and it's a very nice city. Very beautiful! And the country is so far so very nice, think I for sure could live here, at least if I learn some more Hungarian first...

The beautiful cathedral of Pécs with it's four towers (why four?)

The absolutely gorgeous cathedral from the inside, why are catholic churches always more beautiful than lutheran?

A mosque left from old times, now remade into a church, interesting! In Sweden we build mosques, in Hungary they make the mosques into churches... :-)

In front of a fontain with special porcelain made in Pécs

Me and Zsofis beloved dog Lexie!

View from the train

View from the patio in the evening.

Me and Zsofy at the dinner table before dinner.

Zsofys mother then cooked me Gulasch with chicken in for dinner and it was absolutely delicous! And before I embranced their traditions with having some palinka (very strong liquor) as an aperterif. After that we spent the whole evening by the dinner table with her parents talking about stuff. The difficulty were thought that neither of her parents speaks English. But her father speaks German, so that was the language we mostly used since both me and Zsofy studied it for a while. Everything get's a little more complicated in German though... I'm also trying to learn some polite Hungarian words so that I can speak a little with her mother. This is yesterdays list (so that I won't forget), all spelled like I would pronounce it:

• Finom = Nice, good (about food)
• Jo esakat = Goodnight
• Jo reggelt = Goodmorning
• Iggen = Yes
• Nem = No
• Kösinam = Thank you
• Eggasheggadre = Cheers, Enjoy, Bless you etc. (very useful word)
• Szia = Hello
• Jokepu = Gorgeous
• Hodg Vodg = How are you?

Utsikten från vårt hotell - en lång strand, härligt vatten och en mysig strandpromenad med restauranger. Kan man önska sig mer? :-)

Solnedgången...

Det enda som fattades var en snygg kille som ville gå längst stranden och titta på den med mig! ;-)

Min favoritdrink - Strawberry Daquiri! :-)

Jag och min fina Linnéa! :-)

Gör ett försök att döda det uppblåsta turkiska brödet! ;-)

Den goda turkiska grytan, som var den enda riktiga turkiska mat vi hittade.

(=vi åt den flera gånger på flera ställen)

De specialgjorda drinkarna från bartendern som var så hängiven åt sina kunder att han tom smörjde in mina ben med Raki (typ turkisk vodka) för att få bort mina myggbett... :-)

En kväll kom även ett av mina favoritpar - Anna och Peter från reseledarskolan - förbi för att äta middag med oss. De råkade vara i Alanya samtidigt och det var verkligen kul att prata om allt som hänt sen sist, var ju ett tag sen...

Jag i solnedgången! :-)

Den trevlige servitören på vårt hotell just i färd med att knacka sönder den turkiska grytan. Det var också honom vi följde med till en trevlig nattklubb och som erbjöd mig drinken "Sex on the beach - with sex". Behöver väl inte tillägga att jag inte var särskilt intresserad... Turkar har inte riktigt fattat vad som går hem hos tjejer. :-)

Jag med den turkiska grytan sista kvällen i Turkiet. Alla dagar på stranden hade gett mig lite solbränna med! :-)

Ett fint torg

Lite rolig skylt vi var tvugna att ta kort på "Parking - blondes only".

Vackert hus med massa flaggor! (Blir alltid inspirerad att jobba utomlands när jag ser massa flaggor...)

Fredagens våffla! (Belgien är ju känt för sina våfflor...)

Satt i en park och vilade lite efter allt promenerande och hittade massa skolklasser som lekte ihop. Det inledde en intressant diskussion om huruvida man får röra sina elever eller inte, England verkar vara väldigt strikta och extremt rädda för pedofiler för där skulle en klapp på ryggen eller en kram aldrig vara ok...

BRYGGE

Efter att ha tillbringat hela dagen i Antwerpen så reste vi vidare med tåget till Brygge, som är en betydligt mindre och (enligt mig) betydligt vackrare stad. Blev lite kär i staden! :-) Det fanns mycket gamla byggnader och smala gränder, och staden var betydligt mer turistig än vad Antwerpen var. Natten tillbringade vi på ett hostel väldigt centralt, och vi hade glömt hur stort rum vi hade bokat in oss i. Men när vi kom fram så visade det sig att vi hade bokat ett 12-bäddsrum, vilket var en intressant upplevelse, och gav lite flashbacks från Australien för fem år sen då jag bodde så hela tiden. Men det gick bra, förutom läskig trappa och lite konstiga skrik i grannrummet på natten!? På kvällen gick vi ut och åt, och Anna lyckades ofrivilligt charma servitörerna, medan vi sedan frivilligt charmade några andra belgiska killar som visade oss vart man går ut i Brygge. Så det blev en riktigt kul kväll! :-) Anna introducerade mig för ölen Kriek också, som väl egentligen inte smakar så mycket öl...

Nästa dag inledde vi med ett besök på chokladmuseet i Brygge, men det var lite av en besvikelse, vi hade förväntat oss massa provsmakning, men icke... Mest massa prat om chokladens historia, även om det avslutades med en lite provsmakning i alla fall. Sedan var det dags att bege sig till nästa anhalt.

Vacker kanal!

Vi såg lite "segway"-åkare som tog sig fram på Brygges vackra gator.

Vår del av det fantastiska hostelrummet...

Sedan var det dags att klä upp oss lite för middag ute...

Vi hittade en konstig staty och klättrade upp...

Sedan drack vi Kriek på en trevlig bar...

Chokladmuseet avslutades med lite demonstration av hur man gör chokladpraliner följt av en provsmakning - mums! :-)

BRYSSEL

Vi kom fram till Bryssel mitt på dagen på lördagen, och både jag och Anna blev lite kära i staden direkt vi kom dit, och det höll i sig... Det är en av mina favoritstäder hittills och tror absolut att jag skulle kunna bo där i framtiden! Ett jobb på Europaparlamentet skulle ju inte vara helt fel heller... ;-) I Bryssel uppgraderade vi oss ganska mycket från vårt 12-bäddsrum till ett dubbelrum på ett hotell - vilken lyx!!!

Dagen ägnade vi åt att promenera runt i Bryssel och se det mesta av det vi ville se; för min del de centrala delarna av staden, Europaparlamentet och Kommissionen - lite juridiknördig! ;-) Sedan gick vi tillbaka till hotellet för en tupplur och gjorde oss sedan redo för en utekväll till. Först blev det lite middag och sen gick vi vidare till en bar, men denna dagen blev inte lika lyckad som den föregående, kanske lite beroende på att vi var för trötta, eller beroende på vissa skumma spanjorer...

I förmiddags fortsatte vi vår rundvandring i Bryssel med att titta på en känd staty (som jag inte fattar varför den är känd...), beundrande av utsikten, lite mer våffelätande och chokladprovande... Men precis när vi skulle åka hem fick Anna lite kortproblem, och jag fick lära mig exakt hur krångligt det engelska banksystemet är och hur svårt det kan vara att hitta en kundserviceperson för en engelsk bank som faktiskt pratar bra engelska!?

Vårt hotellrum låg mitt i stan - vi var så himla glada och nöjda med rummet! :-)

Ett vackert ställe och ett vackert väder... :-)

Jag utanför min framtida arbetsplats - Europaparlamentet! ;-) Noterade också att Sverige var enda landet som sätter ihop Europaparlamentet och inte skriver Europa parlamentet - så förstår var min svårighet att särskriva engelska ord kommer från...

Hittade ett nytt sätt att tjäna pengar på; jonglera framför en bilkö och sedan gå och försöka få pengar. Måste nog öva lite först bara! ;-)

Sen kände jag mig tvungen att ta ett hoppkort!

Lördagens våffla intogs på turistiga Grand Market

Den kända statyn. Varför vill folk titta på den?

Men tydligen var en hel del intresserade...

Utsikt över Bryssel

Söndagens våffla! :-)

Sammanfattningsvis så var Belgienresan väldigt bra, och jag och Anna hade riktigt kul ihop! Roligt att man kan trivas så bra med någon man bara känt några veckor... Men jag hoppas det blir fler resor ihop, och kanske lite SVerigebesök för hennes del och Englandbesök för min del.

Stranden sedd från Marlenes balkong

Maria Laura (min italienska kompis), jag, Marlene och Camilla (Marlenes rumskompis) på stranden första dagen...

Njuter av stranden...

Jag och Maria Laura badar för första gången iår - i april - amazing! ;-)

Jag och Marlenes italienska rumskompis, hon bodde visst med två italienska killar, inte två italienska tjejer som jag trodde... ;-)

Marlene, Camilla och jag på den korta (typ 20 meter) promenaden från lägenheten till stranden.

Blev lite party på kvällen, och här sitter jag i Marlenes stora vardagsrum med fyra koreanska tjejer. Älskar att träffa folk från hela världen såhär! Såklart så drack vi sangria också...

Självklart åt jag frukost på balkongen...

Vi besteg Alicantes stora berg och tittade på den vackra utsikten. Fästningen var stängd, men utsikten var kvar!

Kände mig som "king of the world" som DiCaprio säger i Titanic när jag var däruppe och tittade ut över stan.

På toppen träffade vi ett gäng gulliga amerikaner! Älskar att träffa nya människor oförberett sådär!

Är man i Spanien måste man ju äta tapas, och Marlene visade oss värsta grymma stället!

Marlene och Maria Laura på samma ställe...

Jag och min söta syster, som ser jättemycket längre ut än mig... Haha... :-)

Soluppgången från Marlenes balkong imorse innan jag åkte till flyget!

Sådär, då har ni nog fått en ganska bra bild av hur min Spanienresa såg ut, och jag kan säga att det var precis så underbart som det ser ut!!! :-)

Utsikten från balkongen på dagen - hon bor verkligen såhär nära stranden! :-)



Utsikten på kvällen...



Soluppgången...