Elsja Down Under

Au Revoir March 7, 2007

I’m off in a few hours. I’m looking forward to seeing my boyfriend, eating yummy Thai food, lying in the sun, and all that other fun stuff I do while I’m in Australia.

Maybe there will be some thunder/lightning storms too since there have been A LOT of those lately… see…

I’m not really looking forward to the 15 hour plane ride, but hopefully they have On Demand movies and I can watch all the Oscar movies that I haven’t seen yet. Then I can take a sleeping pill and snooze with my wonderful cuddly Nap Travel Cuddle Blanket.

I’ll be back in April! Enjoy the month of March without me and I’ll see you all in a few weeks.

Things I love February 13, 2007

1. My boyfriend Andrew, to whom I would like to say Happy Valentines Day!!! (in Australia of course, I’ll say it again tomorrow for the US) Look I even found a kangaroo Valentine. I would love it even more if I could actually see my love on V-day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Turkey Pepperoni- best discovery ever! I would love to thank my sister Jan for finding this yummy deliciousness for me to enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh- and I still love pumpkin spice lattes! At the Dallas airport last night I had a sneak peak into the stock room of the starbucks there. I saw 4 whole giant bottles of pumpkin spice! This is definitely a good sign!!

He Came and Went February 5, 2007

Well it’s been awhile… I lag, I just haven’t had any motivation to blog because I was too busy having fun with my boyfriend for the last 2 weeks. That’s right, Andrew was here for 2 whole weeks. He was only supposed to be here for 10 days, but that was extended a few times. First he changed his flight so he could meet with some pilot people here… then even when he was supposed to leave Wednesday night, he got stuck and couldn’t get on the flight so he was with me until Saturday night

We had a great time!

We took the train to San Diego for the day and he was really really excited to see the bar where the piano scene in Top Gun was filmed. We also went to the big aircraft carrier so Andrew could drool over some of the crazy jets!

 

 

We spent the weekend in Palm Springs just hanging out. We got take-out chinese and ate tons of reese’s pieces. We watched a few movies (speaking of which- we rented “the last kiss” i was about halfway through before i realized its  a REMAKE of a foreign film that I’ve already seen. I like how they failed to announce that in all the advertisments!), we played Uno and Yahtzee, drank wine in the jacuzzi… it was a nice relaxing weekend.We also took a trip to the Living Desert in Palm Desert. They had all these cool animals- like a zoo… they had camels, giraffes, cheetahs, zebras and even African Warthogs…. see….

 

 

We ate out… a lot…

 

 

It was an amazing 2 weeks… and now we only have 4 more until I get to go back to Sydney.

Until then, I miss my love terribly!

 

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Take a Guess January 10, 2007

Guess why January 19th is the best day of the year!!! (Yeah I can say that with ease because there have only been 10 days so far)

Anyways… just guess. Guess why it is the best day and I just can’t wait for next friday.

 

 

 

I’ll give you a hint.

 

 

 

 

 

Dang. I hope I didnt give it away!

Christmas is Over December 29, 2006

Another Christmas down So sad that we have to wait another year for all the holiday fun and food and festivities. I hope Christmas was good for everyone… I know it was for me My family had a nice time watching the kids get excited that Santa had been there. We ate our traditional Swedish pancake breakfast and Turkey dinner. Just my parents, my sister and her family and me.  I am sad that I couldnt spend Christmas with my love… but he’ll be here in a few weeks

I’m REALLY excited about my wonderful new ipod shuffle that I got for Christmas. I already used it at the gym and it is so exciting to just clip it onto my clothes rather than set it on the machine and worry about dropping it (like i have several times). Last night I spent a good hour updating my gymjam playlist to include some fun new songs for me to break a sweat to.

Another fun item is my new Treo wx phone. Got this last week, mainly for work purposes… but it is nice to have the internet and email at my fingertips. Now I spend a lot less time on my actual computer. That is probably a good thing!

 I think one of the most exciting things I did this week was buy a huge bin of Christmas ornaments, all at 50% off. Why you ask? Well, for my Christmas tree… that I will have next year… in the apartment/house that I don’t have yet… but I will. I hope. Otherwise, I’ll still be living at home with a big box of colored glass balls in my bedroom. That would SUCK. Oh, and I also bought 50% off plates and cooking utensils and stuff like that… again, for the house i dont have yet.

And the most important day of this whole week (other than Christmas) is today. Because today is the day I met Andrew for the first time (in person) in Sydney. Awww it’s been a whole year since I met my love! Crazy how time flies. And here’s a distorted picture from that very night.

 

 

I Can’t Believe It! November 20, 2006

After 3 months, my love Andrew finally updated his blog. What an exciting day.

Sad Day, Happy Week November 7, 2006

Well the time had to come. My boyfriend had to go home, but I’m still happy because he did stay an extra 3 days longer than he was supposed to (he was supposed to leave Saturday). I’ve been kinda out of the loop, haven’t really written stuff on here, haven’t watched all of my TV shows, haven’t talked to many people the last week… but that’s what happens when I only have 10 days to spend with my Drew. Just to recap, here’s a list of some of the things that happened this week. It was one of the best

1. Went to Disneyland, I hadn’t been in years! It was really fun and not too crowded so we didnt have to wait longer than 30 minutes for any ride.

2. Andrew turned 26 on the 28th of October. We rode bikes downtown (it was a beautiful day), ate lunch at Ruby’s, went swimming and stayed at the Hyatt in HB that night. We went downtown and had too many drinks (Andrew had WAY too many drinks)

3. We ate out WAY too much, but ate soooo much yummy food! I think I gained a few pounds because on top of eating a lot, I also didn’t exercise that much (another thing that got skipped over so I could spend more time with andrew). Some of my faves: Tantalum, Don Jose’s, Tsunami, and Flemings. Some of Andrew’s faves: Ruby’s, Red Robin, Tantalum. YUM YUM.  

4. Speaking of eating out, last night Andrew and I went to Tsunami with my dad. Andrew did sake bombs for the first time ever and I tried shrimp (prawns) for the first time ever. That’s right! I TRIED SHRIMP. Those of you who know me, know how amazing that is. I think it was the glass of wine and the first 2 sake bombs that gave me the guts to try it out. I just had a little bite- but still, I tried it and that’s what matters. Andrew was very proud! It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either. I think it’s something I could get used to- but not something I would prefer.

5. Andrew witnessed his first American Halloween. The decorations, the kids in costumes, Trevor’s crazy contraptions that scare the crap out of tiny children, and his first taste ever of pumpkin pie!!

6. I took Andrew to Hollywood and he got to see the Hollywood sign, Hollywood Blvd Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Hollywood and Highland and some of the freaks and other interesting “entertainment” in LA!

7. We watched DVDs, went and saw “The Departed”, went swimming, went to the beach, walked in the park, hung out with friends, drank a lot of wine, and also enjoyed some quiet cuddle moments

It was an amazing 10 days. I am so sad that he had to leave, but hopefully he will be back next month!! YAY. Now back to reality. Back to work, the gym, yoga and my TV shows. I’ll just have to start my new countdown to the next time we get to see each other! Oh and I got some really really CRAPPY horrible news about my text messaging plan with Sprint. But, I’ll blog about that later cause I want to keep this one nice and happy!

Here’s a few pics of my wonderful week:

 

HALLOWEEN WITH PRESTON AND EMMA:

 ON THE BEACH IN LAGUNA AFTER FLEMINGS:

BEFORE THE DROP ON SPLASH MOUNTAIN:

AFTER THE DROP ON SPLASH MOUNTAIN:

ANDREW’S FIRST SAKE BOMB

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Yippeee Skippeeee October 18, 2006

Today is a happy happy day. Today my dear boyfriend booked a flight to come see me!!! Earlier than I expected too! He wasnt supposed to come until mid-November but he’s coming next Friday!! Aren’t you all so excited? I know I am!! He will be here Oct 27-Nov 4.  I cant wait to do this again in a week

 

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A Good End to a Hard Week September 22, 2006

Well it’s not the weekend yet for me… but it is for my wonderful boyfriend who had a rough week  It was just one of those weeks full of stress and crap and it sucks that I couldn’t be there to be supportive and I couldn’t be there for him to come home to and hug at the end of a long day. It’s especially hard because I have had a rough week as well just being home and jet lagged etc. But today was a much better day for him so it was a good, or at least more positive end to a somewhat cruddy week. I hope next week will be even better for him and I hope I will finally get rid of the headache that I’ve had since Sunday (yes, since SUNDAY…see my home again and jet lag posts!!!)

I’d also like to say:

1. Congrats to Jen for putting her 1st offer on a new home! I hope she gets it

2. I can’t believe Shannon is getting married 3 weeks from Saturday! Holy crap!!! I’m so excited for her! Um maybe I should think about getting my dress altered some time soon. Oh… and that means Vegas is in 2 weeks! Bridesmaids better bring strapless bathing suits- can’t have massive tan lines in our dresses!!!

3. Grey’s Anatomy was wonderful tonight although I’m really frustrated that they still didn’t answer THE major question that they left us hanging with at the end of last season!  UGH! Gay.  I also started to watch Six Degrees… which started off looking pretty good- but I had to drive home so I recorded the rest on tivo. I can’t wait for LOST to start next week! I swear, I forgot what it was like to be hooked on shows in Australia because I mostly just watched The Simpson’s and movies on Showtime! Even if I wanted to watch shows there I couldn’t cause they are all behind where we are at! I guess that’s one thing good about the U.S… we get the good TV earlier than other countries!! Oooo that means Desperate Housewives starts too and I can spoil it for Andrew

4. Happy early birthday to my sister who will be turning 33 on Saturday!!

Ok off to bed now! Wish me luck… seriously- lately when it comes to sleeping- I NEED LUCK!!

Home Again September 17, 2006

They say “home is where the heart is” which is mostly true, but in my situation right now, I feel like my heart is on the other side of the planet. It got sucked out of me when I stepped onto that plane and flew over the Pacific. I would like to say it’s nice to be home in my room with my stuff, but it’s not. Of course it was nice to see my family and the kids (Preston was sooo excited to see me and just couldnt stop hugging me and telling me he loved me) but I didn’t really miss Huntington Beach. I went to dinner with Jen and Nicole tonight- I can say that eating Mexican food was nice– it is something you don’t find much of in Australia, but even still… I didn’t miss that either! I only ever missed people, and now, I miss Andrew more than ever.

So now I’m home. Don’t want to be but I am. Coming home to my family made me happy but I also came home to piles of junk mail, mounds of receipts and brochures and things from my trip that I need to go through, heaps of laundry… some dirty, some not- but I’m so lazy that I’ll probably throw it all in the wash so I don’t have to hang it all up yet.

 

Oh, and I came home to a credit card bill for a card I NEVER use. That was fun! It has no balance but I forgot that my Toll Roads account was linked to the card to automatically pay when my account gets low. Since I hardly use the tolls anymore, I hardly get charged. Well I did finally (figures the time I leave for a month is the ONE time this year that I received a bill from the card I never use). On top of the toll from July, it also charged me the “annual fee”… it must have come the week I left and wouldn’t you know, the due date was Sept. 13th. Since I always just pay my card payments online, I told my mom to ignore any credit card mail. Ooops. Gay. I don’t even know why I still have the card. I’ll be cancelling it tomorrow. No more $60 fees for something I don’t even want! I should have called and fought to get the charge removed, but I really dont have the energy or motivation. I figured it would be easier for me to just pay it.

I also came home to a package of several hundred pictures (literally) dating back to April that I had ordered from my Kodak site while I was away. So I need to organize them into albums. 5 months of pictures!!! Maybe this is all a good thing. Organizing usually relaxes me in a sense somehow… I cleaned up most of my mail and junk that’s been sitting around my room, and so that’s one less thing to do tomorrow. I really feel like I have this urge to clean my whole closet. I want to throw away half my clothes and just tidy up. Living in a small space for 5 weeks and sharing a closet made me realize that I have too much junk in mine!

I uploaded pics from my week 5 but haven’t added photo titles. I plan on finishing up all my picture duties tomorrow so if you’re on my picture list, you should be receiving them soon

And even with all this organization… and with jet lag…and a headache from crying so much… one thing keeps me happy–and that is knowing that I’ll get to do it all again one day. All the mail, laundry, crying, organizing… oh… and the weight gain from eating too much thai… it’s all worth it when I know it’s all so I can be with my wonderful boyfriend and do the little things together like eat strawberries and sorbet .

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Sept 17th September 16, 2006

is the crappiest day ever. I’m going home now and I’m sad. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. I hate leaving the person I love and not knowing when Ill get to see him again.

My Birthday Weekend September 10, 2006

As many of you may know, it was my birthday on Friday and I turned 26 (old). So for my birthday Andrew and I took a drive to Hunter Valley (wine country) for the weekend. We left Friday morning after my wonderful boyfriend made me breakfast in bed and then gave me my present. My present was the most special gift he could give me. He wrote me a beautiful song and with the help of his brother Paul and a few other people, they recorded it at Nova studios and Veronica did all the artwork for the CD case. It brought tears to my eyes which is not an easy thing to do!! Of course I’ll have to play it for all my friends and family when I get home!! And of course we listened to it over and over in the car on the way up to the valley. Oh- and I saw my first wild kangaroo today!!! Too bad it was dead on the side of the road. Sad.

We stayed at a cute little winery/bed and breakfast and we were the only couple there along with the owner of the winery, John. Friday we had a little wine (John gave us a bottle for free which was nice) and we drove to this little shopping center near Hunter Gardens. (We drove there BEFORE we drank the wine) We were going to walk around in the gardens which looked beautiful, but it was $20 bucks so we decided it wasnt worth it. It was a nice day so we just lounged on the grass for awhile and enjoyed the quiet. We went in a few of the shops too but I only made one purchase. A little wine wheel that tells all about wines and where they are from and what they go well with. it was cool so I had to get one. Friday night we went to dinner. I won’t speak much about dinner because it was kinda chaotic and not the best service ever. It took us literally HOURS to find somewhere in the area that had chicken breast or anything remotely vegetarian (most places had things like duck, prawns, beef, lamb etc… but no chicken). We finally found somewhere and went there and needless to say, they didnt have their alcohol license so we couldnt even get wine (at a winery) haha. It ended up being ok though so I wont say any more about that. It was just nice to be with my love on my birthday.

 

 

 

Saturday was nice. We woke up and took a wine tour of 5 winerys, a cheese shop and we had lunch at a cafe nearby (that had chicken AND vegie stuff). Interestingly enough, 3 of the couples on our wine tour were the parents of some of Andrew’s old classmates from high school. We learned a lot about wine and things like that which was nice, but we didnt even get boozy at all. 5 winerys over 6 hours just didnt cut it because we drank all the wines so slowly. I guess that is probably the ideal way to taste wine, but whatever… we were looking forward to getting a bit drunky and we didnt. It was so different from wine tasting I’ve done before though. We actually got to sit in these private rooms and someone explained all the wines etc. It was very detailed, not the type of tasting where you just walk up to the bar and point out what you want. We had dinner at an Irish pub type restaurant and that was nice as well. Oh, and I forgot to mention… it was POURING rain all day- made it a little cold and uncomfortable, but it wasn’t really too bad.

Finally it was Sunday, time to go home We packed up, said by to John, got a few more sips of wine and we were off. We stopped by the Olive Center where they had SOOOO many yummy dips and spreads and jams and jellies and oils to try. It was wonnnnderful. You just walk around and get your bread and dip it in all this stuff. All for free, but of course I liked so many things that I had to buy a few My favorites being the macadamia nut butter and the dukkah… YUM I’m praying that U.S. customs doesn’t care that I’m bringing them home! Goodbye Hunter Valley- I definitely want to come back and see you again!!!

On our way home we stopped by the home of some of Andrew’s friends (John, Stu and Webb). Played some pool, watched  some “footy” and ate some delicious cheese and crackers. I love cheese! We then stopped by Andrew’s dad’s one last time so I could say goodbye before I leave next week. We just chatted a bit and stayed warm indoors since it was still pouring down outside.

I guess that’s it for my weekend. It was a wonderful birthday but it was my last full weekend here in Sydney and I’m sad about that. I’m looking forward to seeing all my family and friends, but I am NOT looking forward to leaving here. I’m going to just have to come back in a few months and stay again for a long time I guess I will be seeing you all in a week.

 

Hey girls, you up for some Don Jose’s when I get home on Sunday? I haven’t had Mexican food in almost 5 weeks!:)

Oh… P.S.- thanks to Sinead for planning dinner on Thursday night before my bday- and thanks for my drink It was nice to see you and Kris again and if I don’t see you before I leave then I will definitely see you when I come back!!!

Date Day August 23, 2006

Andrew got home yesterday from work pretty early and I was in a good mood! Then I got in a bad mood when he told me some bad news about our whole visa situation… but then my good mood came back when we decided to go for a walk. I really never go on walks at home unless it is the walk to my car in a parking lot (although my sister and I do walk around her neighborhood from time to time). I think if there were these beautiful places to walk to nearby… and I had my boyfriend nearby… I may actually go on more walks. Now yes, we have the beaches etc… but they are always so crowded with annoying people and they don’t seem as special and fun since I’ve grown up by them my entire life. Just look at some of the places we go to on the walks near Andrew’s house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the day was quite enjoyable as well. We went to dinner at a delicious Thai restaurant (yes, ANOTHER Thai restaurant that I LOVE LOVE LOVE) and then we went and saw “You, Me and Dupree.”  Here’s a picture of us being silly in the theater-or cinema as Andrew would say- before the movie stared. Yes, I know we are retarded!

What a fun date day/night I’m really getting used to this and it’s going to severely suck when I have to leave again and go back to my lonely dateless life. 

Also… I thought I would share a few things with you that I miss about home and some things that I love about Sydney.

Things I miss from Cali:

My family and friends 

Parking lots

Warm weather

Cheap stuff (food, drinks, clothes… etc. everything here is so expensive)

Driving on the right side of the road

(p.s.- I don’t even miss Tsunami because the food here is just as good) 

Things I love about Sydney:

Sakata rice crackers (I’m perfectly happy giving up my baked lays for these delicious little snacks)

Thai food (ok they have that at home, but I never eat it there)

Yummy dip (notice my first 3 items are all food related)

Walking down the street to shops/restaurants/yoga

Andrew’s bed (so much more comfy than my distorted, concaved mattress)

No tipping at restaurants

 

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Things I Get to See in 2 1/2 Weeks July 25, 2006

AND BEST BEST BEST of ALL….

You Are My Sunshine July 13, 2006

Have I mentioned how cheesy me and Andrew are with each other?? Well after the last post about wine tasting, I’m sure its pretty obvious, but in case there was any doubt, I’ll post our text conversation from earlier.

Me: My car says it’s 39 degrees (104) at my sister’s house.

Andrew: I wish it was that here. Low cloud and pissing rain.

Me: Yuck, I hope it doesn’t rain much when I’m there

Andrew: How could it? you bring too much sunshine into my life.