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 whole weekend has been amazing. Lots and lots of things happened. And Poly Escapes gave me what it promised, a weekend away from Cal Poly, a weekend with no worries about school. But the weekend started way before that. Friday was full of fun things, like my errand trip with Kelsey. We returned a pair of Kelsey’s shoes, bought “costumes” for the frat party (Kelsey bought a Jane-like dress and I bought face paint), I got a gel manicure, we went to the post office so I could send a little something to one of my hostkids who turn 11 in five days and a thing for my brother, we picked up our Poly Escapes rentals, and went to the Health Center to leave my proof of vaccination (which isn’t even necessary since I won’t be here more than one academic year, but I still did it since they asked). It was a long run, many stops, but not more than four hours in total. We also did some snacks shopping for the trip. I always bring too much to trips, but better safe than sorry.

This is what my nails look like after two days of surfing. Good job “@Nails”.

Back home I made two mudpies (=kladdkaka), one normal chocolate but also a white chocolate one. Apparently it was the Swedish national mudpie day. So I made two and they were delicious and very popular.

My plan after that was to study some, but that didn’t work out. I had to take a quick shower and then get ready for the party. I went to Phi Psi’s pledge party (the pledges organized the whole party) with a jungle theme. It was a great party, the decorations were awesome. The costumes not as much. I think I went most all-in with my tiger face paint. Other people just wore clothes with animal fur designs. The guys were Tarzan or just any other jungle dude. I got a lot of compliments but the hot house smudged it out later… I had a great evening but a little bit too much to drink. We were planning on taking it easy since we were going on the surf trip early the day after. And we stayed way late, but it was so much fun! I like that frat.

I was just invited to another frat party tomorrow night, the one Luka, the Swedish guy from Chalmers, joined. It would be fun, but I think I have too much studying to do… We’ll see.

I slept for I think two or three hours before going on the trip yesterday morning. Not the best thing I could have done, but it was worth it. We left Cal Poly at 9 am, got to Mondo’s Beach north of Ventura at 11am and started surfing right away. I felt a bit nauseous, but I still managed to catch one or two waves. It was hard, the waves just died under all of us. I didn’t manage to stand up, only half stand one time. But it was still very fun. We had lunch break and I ate my whole footlong Subway sandwhich. Then we went out again. So much fun. But the small hangover mixed with waves and salt water wasn’t the best and I did feel a bit crappy, but it was still very enjoyable. I got some nice pictures with my GoPro as well. We played a game where we put all of our surfboards together so they formed like a boardwalk. Then one at a time ran across them all and jumped in at the end. It was hard! Then it was time to go to the camp site which was up in Carpinteria, like 20 minutes away. It was a nice camp site very close to the water. We made a fire, the leaders made amazing dinner for all of us, chicken wok with pineapple and rice. Very very fancy and good camp food! We even got desert, homemade brownie and homemade ice cream. So delicious! Before we ate though, we took a walk on the beach in the sunset. It was so beautiful. The beach was really wet so the sunset was reflected in both the water and the sand and made the sunset enormous. So very very pretty! But this was at 5:30pm so it was both dark and chilly for many hours before bedtime.

Most of our group. We were 4 leaders and 8 trip-takers. Johanna. Success with my GoPro. This will be so much fun in the Caribbean.  Julianne and me at Carpinteria Beach. I love this picture of Kelsey! The sunset was truly amazing! The kitchen we had at the pitch-dark camp site.

After the desert, we played games and sang campfire songs with a guitar. So nice. But I was so tired so I couldn’t stop thinking about going to bed, which we did at 10pm, not too late which was good.

The games we played were so much fun. One of them was called Interview. One person left the group, the others decided on a person and an action that the person who left were supposed to be. When the person who left came back we all asked questions, the guy answered the questions without knowing the answers and was gonna try and figure out who he/she was. Tigger flossing his teeth made some very funny questions. Does it hurt? Do you bleed when you do it? Do you do it in the morning, or evening? Does things stuck? What do you do best? Haha, so much fun. Another game we played was a game of questions. One person asked another one a random question and the other person answered with the first thing that came to mind. And then that answer would be the answer to all the questions asked after. Everyone could ask anything. And I mean anything. The person had to answer with that same answer but without laughing. When the person laughed that person asked a random question to someone else and it started over. Like if someone had the word Tortilla. What do you put in your burrito? Tortilla. What turns you on? Tortillas. With what do you brush your teeth? Tortillas. And so on. Hilarious!! Another very funny game we played was rapid questions. We sat in a circle and one person started by asking the next person a random question, it could be exactly anything. Then the next person is supposed to ask another question to the next person, without answering, laughing, hesitating or repeating a question. If you do, you’re out and the game goes on until there is only one left. Also very funny and a lot of laughs!

I decided to sleep in a tent tonight. Four people in each tent and I slept like a baby through the whole night. Some people, like Kelsey, slept under the stars. It would have been cool, but I wanted a good night’s sleep. I woke up a few times from the very noisy train, but fell asleep fast again. We got up at 7am, got served breakfast; scrambled eggs, bananas, sausage patties, Canadian bacon and tea. Yummy!

Back to the beach where we started our day with a yoga session on the beach. Very needed! Then 1.5 hour in the water before going to lunch in Ventura. We went to a tacos places in East Ventura and the shrimp/crab/avocado burrito I had was the best burrito I’ve ever had. Oh my gosh!! Ventura by the way is so pretty. I was in love with North Country San Diego before seeing Ventura. But now I totally feel like I want to move to Ventura in the future. Then the two hour trip started back home. I fell asleep for a little while but it was hard staying asleep. I will go to bed as soon as I am done with this super long post and get around 8 hours of sleep before a full day of studying tomorrow. I think I am gonna have to survive on caffeine pills this week if I am gonna have time to do everything on my to do list for the midterms on Thursday.

I got home, had some mudpie, talked to my roommates, looked at the GoPro pictures and uploaded the best to Facebook and now I just found myself a travel companion for Jamaica. Yay! It is a guy I got to know in Los Angeles last year, who now lives in San Francisco. That will be fun.

Now I just have to convince my mom to come to Puerto Rico and someone else to Dominican Republic, or maybe mom there too. The flight between DR and PR is very cheap and so is the accommodation costs (which will be my Christmas gift to her, and maybe some of the flight cost too). I am crossing my fingers. But I know that I will have a great time anyway.

I don’t look forward to this week, it will be horrible. But this upcoming weekend will probably be as good as the last one after the midterms. No worries, just fun activities like Six Flags and skydiving! Yay!