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.

Three months away from home already. I can’t believe I only have three quarters of my time here left! I’m pretty sure the days here are shorter than in Sweden…

Today was actually a little shorter than normal days. I slept until 11am. I felt like I needed it since I got up so early yesterday. I skyped with my mom and then went to the outlet mall with Vasoula. Last time I was there, like a month ago, I saw a pretty jacket in Sun Diego and wanted to go back and try it on. I know that I don’t need a jacket here, but I’ve had mine since I was like 16, so it’s about time to buy a new one. It fit perfectly and Vasoula kind of hates me now. She loved it too and bought it in blue instead of my red. Haha! I love that store, they have super awesome clothes. I also bought a pretty blue/white striped beach dress. I didn’t bring mine from Sweden and thought it could be nice to have one here in a beach community.

After our shopping we went to Carlsbad downtown. The first time since I got here! It wasn’t much but it was pretty. We found a cute outdoor café where we both had a waffle. Our third and last stop of the day was Oceanside Pier. I wanted to see if that souvenir shop had gotten the towel I want to buy, but they hadn’t. They should have had it 1-2 weeks ago… Instead we went to the beach where we sat and watched all the surfers and kids swimming. It late afternoon but the sun was still warm (unlike in Carlsbad where it was cold…). After a while we went up on the pier and watched the surfers from a closer distance. I really want to learn how to surf so tomorrow I’m gonna send an email to a surf lesson company that I heard about last weekend. I can’t wait!

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.

This day was divided in two. Before lunch and after lunch. Before I had breakfast with the kids while my h-mom was at the gym. The girl went to a birthday party and I was alone for the rest of the day, the mom and the boy did something together after. So I played a little GW2 and Aion for the very first time since I got here. In Aion I hardly remembered anything and died at once… At 3.30pm Vasoula picked me up and we went to the community pool where we lay in the sun for about two hours. We also swam in the pool and sat in the hot jaccuzi. It was awesome! Home for a quick shower and then to San Diego downtown. A Polish girl who Vasoula met at the au pair training school was visiting San Diego with her host family (she lives in San Fransisco normally), so we three went to Hard Rock Cafe San Diego. I had the California Burger, but only half because of my diet. And now I have lunch tomorrow!

After that we went to Coronado where we met some Americans who started talking to us. They thought it was super cool with European girls being au pairs.

Back home and now I am super super tired. I am gonna sleep until late tomorrow and then go to the Premium Outlet Mall with Vasoula. Goodnight!

I just got home from the movies with my h-mom and the kids. We saw the Croods and it was really good! And I’m really looking forward to the summer when more fun movies are coming! (I love animated movies  ;)).

This was the first time I was at the movies here in the US. A small drink was like a large in Sweden and you didn’t get seats, you had to choose when you got inside. Weird.

At the gym I had made an appointment for a body scan and measurement. So that’s what I did instead of working out. I don’t remember the numbers, but I think my upperarms is about 4cm bigger since before I got here, and that is not fat. My arms are the only part of me where I really can see improvement. My thighs, hips and core have gained a lot of fat and that’s why I was curious about my new body fat percent. It was 23%, just 1,1% more than before I got here, but I can feel the difference. And according to the guy helping me, a girl at age 21 should have 9-15% body fat. That’s just crazy! So according to him I need to lose  around 12 pounds. Which is actually less than what I’ve gained since I got here… So, I bought an early birthday present for myself, a month with 4 PT sessions with one of the master trainers at my gym. First session on Monday. He will help me find a work out schedule with exercises that fits me, apparently google can’t help you with everything. I really hope that this works, because I don’t like myself right now… I miss the old, slim me! When I had a BMI less than 20.

Today I got a really nice message from my mom. She got my letter that says how much I’m gonna get in tax refunds this year, and it was 7753 kr which is awesome!!

A funny thing that happened was that I really felt American today. I went grocery shopping and when I got home and was taking out the bags from the trunk of the car, one of the bags broke and I had to hold onto the bag with all my upper body. We don’t have paper bags as in the movies, but very thin plastic bags are worthless too and they break very easily. A funny feeling!

I worked late today, not as late as I thought, the meeting my h-mom went to ended an hour earlier but it was still around 7:30pm. So I had the whole day by myself with the kids. For dinner I made homemade pizza again, but they choose what they wanted on their pieces and it was a hit! I didn’t want to make such a big pizza as last time, so one third of the dough became real scones. I’m making pizza with scones bottom. Very appreciated by the kids who love scones!

Tomorrow’s Friday again and this weekend I don’t have any plans except taking it easy. Maybe going to the gym with Vasoula and hang out in the relax area after. Try out the community pool or maybe the beach. It’s gonna  be nice!

I’ve also started to look into what I want to do with all my vacation weeks and travel month at the end of my au pair year. I love to make plans for the future and I like having something to look forward to, doesn’t matter what it is really, I just need something. So far I’ve found a lot of stuff I want to see before I go home to Sweden and I hope it’s possible if I save a lot of money. Then there’s the tax refund I will get in the summer.

I think the parents said that I have vacation around Thanksgiving and Christmas. It would have been really cool to see the Niagara Falls (again, but I can’t really remember anything from the spring of ’92) and maybe stay in Toronto, Canada for a few days. New York would be nice too, but the waterfalls sounds more interesting I think. I’ve been thinking about the invitation I got from Lizzie about going to Mexico and Cancun and staying there with her. That would also be very nice!

For my travel month I really want to go to Hawaii and Florida. All the flights that month would be appr. $900 which is about 6000 SEK, not too bad! Then there’s hotels/hostels and food, but I think it could be managable.

If anyone is interested in seeing these places too, let me know :).

We’ll see. But I feel that when I’m on this side of the Atlantic Ocean I might as well try to see as much as possible. It’s a great opportunity since I love traveling and seeing new things (and besides, flights are cheap here)!

I think I will learn some things from this class. The teacher was really good and he already knew what kind of troubles a Swedish speaking person has. For example I didn’t know that I couldn’t pronounce the words with the z-sound. I keep saying s instead, easy or realise. Maybe a little, but I think that’s one of my major problems. I’ll probably find some more as I go to more classes.

I won’t get rid of my accent though, but I will be better at speaking naturally and more effective after this course and that’s good enough!

In my freetime today I was lying in the backyard painting rocks. I did two tiny shoes for the kids and some more for my window. I found eight triangles earlier today so I made a pizza. I think I burnt myself though, it hurt on my butt and upper back when I was in class. Haven’t looked at it yet, but I don’t think it’s that bad, otherwise I would have seen it when I took a shower.

Anyway, it’s very late and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Good night!

The happiness from yesterday was gone when I got to bed last night. My phone refused to charge. I tried switching the cord, I tried charging it in the wall and the computer. I tried both cords with my eReader and it worked. Super frustrated and confused. But when I thought about it I realized that the boy had hit my phone with the soccer ball earlier that day. Something must have happened then, because I’ve never had any problems with it before. The 10% of the battery lasted until this morning so I at least had my alarm. I was prepared for being without a phone for a while but in the afternoon I found a laptop repair shop. But apperantly they fix phones too. So I left it there for a little more than an hour and they fixed it! They saw my despair when I got there and put all their guys on it directly. It costed $89 but it’s worth it, I have my life on that stupid phone.

I skipped the gym today because of this. I lay in the sun in the backyard instead for 30 minutes. My tan is getting better and better for every day! And my book is so good. What am I supposed to do the next years while George R.R. Martin writes the next one?

We’ve changed my dinner-day to Tuesday for the next nine weeks since my class at UCSD starts tomorrow. The mom didn’t get home until very late today so I had dinner with the kids alone. I made creamy chicken crêpes which I thought was really good! The kids were as usual with my cooking. Didn’t say much, but probably out of politneness. I have to make dinner on Thursday too and I was thinking about making pizza again but this time they get to choose what they want on their pieces.

Since I thought my phone was lost forever and ever I started looking at new phones. HTC has come out with a new one that is supposed to be released April 19th, HTC One. But on the other hand, Samsungs’ Galaxy S4 is coming almost at the same time. Maybe it’s time to leave HTC and try something new? They are very similiar… We’ll see, but I think I have to buy one before I get home to Sweden at least, way cheaper here ;).

April is already here. The nice warmth isn’t though and that sucks. Today was super windy! The same with yesterday. But eventually it will get warm, according to everyone else. Maybe the weather wants me to use all my jeans before it gets too hot.

Today was really nice and I can’t explain it but I was just so happy! I felt like one of the family a little extra today. Nothing special happened really though. I’ve been super tired since the trip back to SD very early yesterday… I wanted to go to bed at a decent time tonight, but then I wanted to update my blog with photos from New Orleans and Houston and since I took like a million photos it took some time to pick out a few. It was just a good day!

This week will be a lot of extra work for me since the dad is in Brussels for a week. But I don’t mind, I love my kids :).

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.

I took ridiculously many photos this week, these are just a few of them… More will be posted on Facebook as soon as possible!
Click on the photos for better resolution.

TUESDAY March 26th

    The houses in Louisiana were built on pillars and it looked funny.   During the hurricane Katrina, the water level in the Mississippi river was so high this house had 4 inches of water on the first floor…   13 feet!!  2 feet!  6 feet!   We also saw Russian boars on the alligator safari.  

WEDNESDAY March 27th

THURSDAY March 28th

  Interstate 10 through Louisiana was amazing!

FRIDAY March 29th

  Nasa Space Center Houston   Astronaut Ken Cameron talking about space. A real Texas barbecue, delicous!

SATURDAY March 30th

  I loved the black skyskraper with the “hole” on top 🙂  My third Hard Rock Cafe visit. I’m thinking about having my birthday dinner at Hard Rock Cafe San Diego instead of The Cheesecake Factory. But on the other hand, they sing for you at CF… and they have Cheesecakes! I have a week to figure that out :).

SHOPPING (Saturday March 30th)

The last day of our springbreak came and went ridiculously fast. Outside of Houston there is a really big outlet mall, the same that’s here in Carlsbad, but so much bigger. I didn’t want to buy anything but I walked out of there with four shopping bags. I hate myself… I shopped for a total of $260 but it’s nothing when you’ll learn what I got for that money. A pair of Levi’s jeans ($40), Levi’s sandals ($20), Levi’s tank top ($12), Calvin Klein bra ($20), 4 Calvin Klein panties ($30), a black party dress from Diesel ($40), leather wallet from Diesel ($27), a black long dress from Bebe ($37). Now I don’t have to buy anything for a very long time. Although I’ve seen a very nice jacket at the outlet mall here. I think it’s time to buy a new spring jacket, the one I have now, I’ve had since I was 15.

After our shopping spree we drove to Houston Downtown where we walked around for a while. It was dead, but I think it was because of Easter and that it was a weekend. My hostdad said that Houston downtown is a business district so the most people are there on the weekdays. I still love the city though, the buildings were amazing! My h-dad also told me that Houston is a very new city, before the 50s and the oil, there was nothing. I don’t know yet how many photos I took, but I guess it was A LOT!

We had to return our car at 8pm which meant that we had to have an early dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. I got my third glass, wiie! Our waitress was super nice. She had a paper airplane contest with us, told us funny things and were more helpful than usual. We’ll se how many glass I’ll have at years’ end. And how I will get them home…

It took a while to return the car because the car rental company, Dollar, had charged us way to much. So after one hour of waiting for the manager we got $400 back, so that was awesome!

Back at the hotel we pakced and went to bed, we had to get up at 4am…

BACK TO EVERYDAY LIFE IN CA (Sunday March 31st)

Last day of March today and tomorrow it is 12 weeks ago I left Sweden, crazy! Californian time we got up at 2am today, so I’m more tired than usually now. So the photos from the week will be posted tomorrow. Some photos. I can’t upload too many photos here, I have limitations, so most of them will be on Facebook instead from now on. But some will be here, of course!

My h-dad picked me up at the San Diego airport at 9:30am. I had the whole day ahead of me which was really nice for once. The kids were really happy to see me and I them. I really missed them this week. I think all my friends noticed when I kept talking about them all the time, haha! They had a really great time in Mammoth and they both went down hard slopes. I know that proud feeling they were showing me, I remember the first time I went down a black slope many many years ago. They were happy about the easter egg hunt I prepared for them. It was a little tricky, but with a little help they found their eggs. They were even happier when I brought them the gifts from Nasa Space Center. At first they thought it was moon rocks, but when I told them to get their dad and a hammer they got curious. And when they smashed them open and saw the crystals they were super happy! I’m glad kids are so easy to please :).

I unpacked and at 1pm we had an Easter lunch with the whole family. Boiled eggs with shrimps, ham, potato gratin and Swedish easter drink.

The weather was pretty okay today so I picked up Vasoula after the lunch and drove to the beach. It was windy and cold, but we lay on the beach for more than an hour. Drove to Islands, a burger restaurant which was nothing at all like I expected. I thought it was a fast food chain, but it was a restaurant and it was super cosy inside. The bartenders were super nice and they were surf trainers. And since we talked so much at the bar, they are gonna give us a big discont, awesome! Then there was this very drunk lady sitting next to us and she fell in love with us. She thought we were super gorgeous and wanted to set us up with her daughter. That sounds all wrong, haha. The mum wanted us to be friends with her 24 year old daughter. And that sounds nice, I want American friends, so maybe I should make an appointment at her hair salon since I anyway want to get my hair done soon.

It’s nice to be home again, with my bed, my shower and healthy food. But at the same time I want to travel again. I love seeing new things! Next time I think I will take a weekend in Phoenix, Arizona :).

NASA SPACE CENTER (Friday March 29th)

I love Houston! We didn’t do exactly as much as we wanted today, but it was still an awesome day! We got up pretty early, had an awful breakfast at the hotel and then we drove to Johnson Space Center. But first we took a detour downtown because we had to put some more air in one of the tires so we got a close look at the skyskrapers. I was so amazed! Sure, New York is big and all, but Houston had good-looking skyskrapers. Every house was unique and it was just so cool. I took lika a million photos from the car and totally fell in love with the city. Unfortunately we were to tired after dinner to walk around downtown but I really hope we will be able to do it tomorrow so I can get better pictures and see more of the city.

Anyway, we got to the Space Center at noon. Started with a short live presentation about how the astronauts live in the station up in space. That was interesting and I learned that there are so many more possibilities up there with no gravitation!

Then we had lunch and I had the best chicken sandwich ever. Walnuts and grapes in a honey wheat bread. Awesome! And after that we went in to the big gift shop. I found a really nice shot glass that I bought. I also bought a key chain in the shape of a Texas registration plate with my name on it. The space center name was also printed. I’m not sure that I should show it to Alex though, because it says Alex on it, Alexandra was out.

I bought two geodes for the kids. Not much on the outside, but when you break it there will be a lot of crystals in it. I hope they will like it :).

At 1pm we sneaked in to the big seminar room where a real astronaut talked about his latest trip up in space. Ken Cameron was his name and it was pretty interesting.

There were a lot of child things to do at the center, but as adults we had a really great time too. There were two tram tours you could take. We took the one that was about the simulation testing area here in Houston. We saw big rockets too. We saw the Saturn rocket and it was ridicoulusly big!

The last thing we did at the center was going to another live presentation where the woman on stage talked about the international space station and how they manage it from the ground and stuff like that. She also told us about where all the space shuttles could be seen (one is in LA, I think I actually want to go there some day) and about the current missions. For example they will get a thingy to Jupiter in May and in 2015 another thingy will reach Pluto. Space really fascinates me, too bad I chose building and civil engineering instead…

Back at the hotel I googled up a barbecue restaurant. We managed to talk with the other four Swedish (we can’t reach them withouth Internet because of our providers) and met them at the restaurant in North Houston. I found one called Barbecue Inn and it was Houstons’ best barbecue restaurant according to best10.com and it was really good. I had beef brisket and ribs. For dessert me and Lovisa shared a coconut pie.

We said goodbye to the Swedish who are going to San Fransisco tomorrow morning and then went to the hotel. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and thought it better to go to bed early so we could go up early. We are going to the outlet mall first, then I think we will have lunch at Hard Rock Cafe and after that I hope we are going to downtown. It will be nice :).

Oh, I totally forgot to write one thing last night. When we drove to New Orleans on Monday we drove in the middle of the night and couldn’t see anything of the nature around us. But yesterday we saw everything and OH MY GOD! I’ve found my favorite freeway in the US, I-10 in Louisiana! First of all, it was a bridge, each direction on their own bridge. Underneath a huge swamp. It sounds weird maybe, but it was so amazing! And it wasn’t just for a mile or so, it was like that for like half an hour (or more)!!

I like America!