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.

Today was very very warm again. And it started with a 2.5 mile walk to the bank. With no buses (because of the move in which by the way has made all of campus chaotic, the line of cars in to campus was so long today!!) and no bike I didn’t have another option. I was late and walked fast and was sweating a lot when I came to the bank where Johanna already were, starting up her account. Everything went smoothly and I put in $530. I had to withdraw most of it later in the day when we found out that we  could buy bikes for $150 (Johanna didn’t have that cash on her American bank account and couldn’t use her Swedish to withdraw so I let her borrow $200). Right after that we walked back up to campus where we checked in at the international center where we also had to sign up for an appointment with an advisor on Thursday morning to go through all our papers and check if everything is signed and ready and okay. Our next stop was to get PolyCard which is an ID card. It was a bit troublesome for me. My full name is Hanna Alexandra Camilla Bemm, but my given name is Alexandra, and that makes it really complicated here in the US, here Hanna is my name. I told the guy who took my photo and made the card that my given name is Alexandra but he said he could do nothing about it (even if I have put my preferred name in the system to Alexandra) so now my card says Hanna Bemm (like my email hbemm@…). Maybe I should have changed name to Hanna this year.

Our last stop of important things to do was to check in to WoW. There are over 400 groups, I am in 325 and our activities starts tomorrow at 3:30pm. I am so excited about that!! We got a bag and a t-shirt and information sheets.

No more plans for the day so we went downtown to do a little bit of shopping. I just bought a new pair of sunglasses and sunscreen. I found both of them at Ross, $4 for the sunglasses which are black and light blue on the inside, and the sunscreen was $7 instead of 9, win for me. We also did pedicures. That was way overdue. The woman doing my feet felt sorry for my blue big toe nail so she put on some diamonds on it to cover some of it up. It is a tiny flower and the blue/dark going out on the sides actually looks like petals. Very nice of her.

I got this after my first two days at Liseberg when I had too small shoes on. I will probably have this for another year…

Then we went home to the bike guy at Cal Poly. He sells bikes to international students and I and Johanna got one each. So great!! I haven’t been on a bike in probably five years, so it was a bit shaky at first, but it was nice, and it will be so fun going around town now. The breaks started making a lot of noise though so I will get help from him fixing it hopefully. It was awful!

Free dinner at campus for us WoW participants and then home where one of my roommates, Rachel from northern California, dropped most of her things off. She was very nice and so was her dad. They stayed for a while and we talked. The dad was excited for his daughter to have a Swedish roommate. I am so exotic, haha ;).

When they left I unpacked all my stuff so now my room is done. My drawers and the cabinet are so empty I think I need to go shopping for more clothes! One day soon 🙂

My building looks like a “U” and my apartment is in the middle. Anyway, this is the “backyard” in the middle of the U. Beautiful morning! This picture was taken today, a little more than a year after I took this photo the first time. Main entrance to the schoolMy room is done! It is very empty on the walls, so I am thinking about buying a big California Republic flag and put up over my desk. It would make the room less echo-y too.

Too little clothes!! Rachel came with three suitcases and tons of other things. It was nice though, some things for the kitchen. She is by the way moving in tomorrow. She just dropped things off today.