I'm lame!!!

Yes, that is what I've been called today! Today is St Patrick's Day (not something we celebrate in Sweden), but here in the U.S. it's an excuse to party, wear green clothes or risk getting pinched, and particularly it's the only time of the year to drink green beer. 

I've grown attached to this tradition over the past few years and was looking forward to tonight's events. I wore green all day (see pic :)), was all excited to finish grading student projects, got home and had dinner, and realized there was no way I was going to make it out of the couch! Just the thought of standing up was exhausting!

Don't know whether it's old age or getting over jet lag or the fact that I've been at the gym at 7am monday and tuesday, but regardless of the reason, it's lame! Next year, I promise!!!

The weekend is already over?! :(

Pheeeewwww, aaaahhhhhh, those are the noises I'm making while I sit down to rest for the rest of the evening. I'm tired! A little jet-lagged I must say although the difference between here and Hawaii is only three hours and I did sleep until 11am this morning. But after that I had a busy day!

I spent two hour catching up on dancing with the stars... yeah, I got hooked on it, and it's great to watch it online, because you can skip a lot of the commercials and more importantly you don't have the bf complaining the entire show. Believe me it's much better this way!

Then I talked to my bff Michaela for almost an hour on the phone. With the time difference between here and Sweden I was happy to get that much in. I'm sure she was exhausted by the time we finished! Not only because it was late, but she's been super tired since she got pregnant. Her pregnancy is so exciting! She's my first close friend having a baby, and I feel bad I'm not there to experience it with her, but I try to talk to her often enough to know what's going on. The bf thinks I'm only collecting more data... He thinks I'm crazy about pregnancies and collect a lot of data that I later can regurgitate in conversations.... Anyways... moving on to the topic of this blog post...

We got a garden plot!!!!!! Yeay!!!

Finally after months of waiting we got a garden plot outside our apartment. We spent hours turning up the soil to air it, and then we planted carrots, swiss chard, and summer squash. Next week we're going for snap peas and green beans! I'm ridiculously excited about this!!! I don't know why, but I think I really need something to care for regularly, because before the garden I was begging the bf for a puppy. Hopefully the garden will take care of this "caring urge" for a while! :)

Sister in hotpants...

As I was going through some old pics I came across this hilarious one when my sister found the craziest hotpants ever! It was a tough choice between the knitted brown with a bow and the blue with yellow balls... :) They both got so much potential! 

The sales women gave us stern looks as we're doubling over laughing at the sight of these! You might wonder what kind of stores we go to, but I swear it was a fairly normal store aside from those raunchy creations. Oh I wish I got to hang out with my sister more often!!!

Bye bye paradise...

LOL! look at the difference in our clothes! Poor guy that had to walk around almost naked... Our hotel formed some kind of wind tunnel and was always about 10 degrees colder than anywhere else. Good reason to go to the beach rather than hang out at the hotel!

The beach right outside the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Not too crowded this time of the year. The Hawaiian Village had its pros and cons, the situation on the beach was definitely a high point, but the cost of internet was outrageous! Another good thing was the "hospitality room" a room you can book for 20 minutes to clean yourself up after the beach before heading out to the airport. That's a nice touch!

Enjoying the last few hours of beach before having to leave paradise for this time. Hopefully we'll be back again. I'd love to visit another island after having been on Oahu four times!

This is what my feet will dream about when they get bundled up in socks and shoes back on the mainland... :)

Kailua beach

Last day in Hawaii we ventured away from Waikiki and ended up on this
perfect beach called Kailua.

Magical Island

This place is magical, I'm sure of it. I can't describe the feeling I get when I'm here, even when it's for work it's wonderful! The turquoise water, sandy beaches, and lush hills put me in a great mood and I feel less stressed than usual, and definitely beats working at home. It's like that island in "Lost", except instead of being magically weird this place is magically wonderful as it just makes you feel better, it's like one giant happy pill!

We arrived in Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon and managed to get a couple of hours on the beach and a dip in the south pacific before dinner and an early night. 

We started today with a hearty breakfast at Wailea Coffee House that offered eggs and toast and coffee. Then I attended an interesting keynote on astronomy. I learned that Hawaii hosts the biggest telescopes in the world and is the best place on earth for astronomy because there is less interference in the atmosphere than elsewhere. There are just so many advantages of living in Hawaii, as I'm sure the Professor giving the talk figured out :)

I attended some conference talks after that, and spent an hour by the beach going through the slides for my presentation. Laptops are a great invention! 

After lunch it was time for my session. I endured some presentations that were less than expected and some really interesting ones, I was the last person to present, so at 5pm it was finally time. I think I did ok. I got a question and some interest after the talk, got to demo my tool :) Yeay, I'm a big geek!

After dinner, by the beach, Ramzi and went for a sunset walk. As we're staring into the gorgeous play of colors left on the sky as the sun is vanishing beyond the horizon, we see two whales jumping out of the water and making huge splashes. They continued playing around for about 10 minutes, it was amazing to see.

The plan for tomorrow is to attend the software engineering track. Take a break for a phone conference with a company for a possible summer internship, and then soak up some sun in the afternoon. I also plan to eat about 10 pineapples, they're so delicious here. Sounds like a good plan huh?! 

Now I'm off for some cards and beer with the bf on the balcony.

Hawaii here I come!

About to land in Honolulu :)