I forget so many things that I should write about that are actually important. For example, I got my grade on my German class and I was a little bit surprised to be honest. I got an A+! Since I was a little bit sloppy on my homeworks I was expecting like a B. I know the grade doesn’t matter but it still feels very good to have a good grade.

The other big thing that I forgot to write about yesterday was that I and my thesis partner got an offer from a company! It feels so good to have the thesis worked out. And it is a really interesting one. We are gonna make a model for more efficient data collecting before calculation of environmental effects at Veidekke. Now I just hope that everything will work out with CSN too so I can keep my apartment.

This day was very short, like almost every day.  In the morning I finished unpacking and now I can start my normal life again. My next big project is to wrap all my Christmas gifts. I have one more to buy but I better start wrapping them before the kids accidently find them in my room.

For dinner I cooked fishpudding and it might have been the third last night I will cook in this family. Next week is Christmas Eve, the week after that is New Years Eve and then it’s the 7^th and 14^th left before I leave. The boy requested homemade pizza next time. A very good idea since I’ve only made that once this year.

Last night I went to the new Cheesecake Factory in Escondido to say another goodbye.  It feels like there is so many hellos and goodbyes this year. This time it was Christin who was going back home. She is really sweet and I will miss her. But my plan is to go to Germany next year and visit her and Sarah! For once I didn’t have any cheesecake. Unbelievable, I know…

Tonight I had another dream about Sweden. But this time I was back for good and I was happy about it. But very confused. I was running around on Korsvägen in the middle of Gothenburg. It was right after I had landed and I have no idea what I was doing up and running after 30h of travelling… The horrible part about this dream, as one I had earlier, was that I couldn’t remember anything about my trip to Hawaii (the first time I dreamt that I was back in Sweden and forgot to go there). Stupid dreams.

It was really warm today, like 85F (29C). I was supposed to change my Abercrombie dress and then unpack. But it was too nice outside so I spent a couple of hours at the pool instead. I read some and have now read like 80 pages in Divergent. It’s not at all like I expected, but it is good.

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 had a really great time last night. A couple from beach volleyball were having a beer party because the husband works at Stone Brewery. I don’t like beer but they had cider, it was such a long time ago I drank that. Some people from beach volleyball were there and they were the only ones I talked to, boring me. But it was really nice because you don’t really have time to talk to people when you’re at the beach playing. Several thought that I should have like a goodbye dinner before I leave in a month (in just a month I will be on Hawaii!!). So I will have to pull something together for them too. Don’t know if it will be too many for a dinner or maybe we should just go to a bar since everyone is over 21. I have been thinking about having a goodbye evening with them too and when they suggested it too I have to do it.

It was cold but that didn’t stop me from sitting outside talking to Mary and watching the guys play basketball on the court in their backyard. After a while I was forced to play 3 on 3. I have no idea how to play that so I thought I was gonna stand on the side for a while and watch and I couldn’t figure out how it was played. I wasn’t very drunk but two glass of cider is probably the nicest explanation. I thought they were playing three teams and I couldn’t figure out why one person was passing to more than one person. I asked Chad why he passed more players than was in his team and he answered that he just passed to the ones in his team. And then it occurred to me, aha, they are two teams. Gaah, I feel stupid. So after that I played a game to five and I was really bad at it. I scored one point though, but I couldn’t guard Chad, he was too fast and too silent for me to follow. But he cheered me on every time I got the ball and encouraged me to shoot. It was really fun!

During the evening I saw two shooting stars! I just love that! I can’t remember seeing shooting stars more than once in Sweden, but since October I’ve seen it twice! That’s another thing I will miss when I leave this place, the starlit sky every evening and the upside down moon…

This morning I got awoken in the best possible way. Breakfast in bed. I can’t remember ever getting that except this year’s birthday and maybe some birthdays when I was young. I was so happy and surprised. So very sweet of Chad :).

Rest of the day was spent in bed watching football and the evening was spent with Lovisa and Johanna in Del Mar eating Panda Express, Chinese fastfood. Yummy!

Now it’s really late so I don’t have time to start fixing up in my room, but I did get a lamp in here, it would have been pitch dark otherwise. Tomorrow the unpacking will start!

This is a christmas decorated house where Johanna lives. Crazy Americans!

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.

When the alarm went off at 6am this morning I couldn’t stop telling myself ”oh no, this was a bad idea…”. But I’m glad to say that it turned out I was really happy I had to leave the house early on a Saturday morning. I was a little bit nervous about the running because I hate running and haven’t even worked out in months!

I picked up Lovisa and we got there at 8, an hour before the event started. We waited in the car for a while because it was so cold. When I was driving to Lovisa it was 35F at its coldest and a new symbol showed in the car, I think it was like a snowflake. That is like 1C! So that explains why I also saw frost in the grass next to the road. This is California! It was a very beautiful morning though. The morning haze was so beautiful in the morning sun. No clouds and the silhouettes of the trees in the haze/sun were amazing so I had to pull the car over and take pictures. This morning felt like a Swedish fall morning.

We stood in the check in line for a long time and met up with two of Lovisa’s friends I’ve never met before. When we were first in line we realized that the check-in was for people who didn’t pick up the package yesterday. So unnecessary. So we placed ourselves in the line for the race. They released like 500-700 people every five minutes and right before we started racing, everyone threw their bags full of different powder colors in the air and everyone looked like neon rainbows after. And right when we started there was a color checkpoint where volunteers threw yellow color on everyone. Later on they had white, green and pink. I was afraid that we wouldn’t get so much color on us, but we sure did. We had color everywhere! I got a really big green dot right on my nose at the green checkpoint.

The first kilometer or so we ran, but then we all got tired and walked the rest of the way. It took us about an hour to finish.

After the race there was like a stage with music and people working there, throwing color bags to us. And after a countdown everyone threw the colors in the air and that was so cool. I wish I could have taken a photo of it but my phone would probably have died of color poisoning if I tried. Even if I was careful it still got a lot of color on it. But it was easily washed off.

After the race we went to IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for some brunch. That was also my goodbye to the place. I love it, but for some weird (and good) reason I haven’t been there so often. Today I had a regular combo, consisting of two slices of bacon, hash browns, scrambled egg and Raspberry White Chocolate Chip Pancakes. Thos pancakes were amazing. The chips felt like they were roasted and it was just so good! Super unhealthy and it was food for two days normally, but it was the last time so it was okay.

Back home and threw all my clothes in the washing machine and myself in the shower. The color was indeed easily washed off and I’m clean again.

The best thing about today must have been the weather. Even if it was freezing in the morning it was above 70F and probably like 80F in the sun. So amazing and today’s December 14^th.

When I took my sunglasses from my purse this morning they were broken and I looked in vain after the tiny tiny screw that held the thing on the side to the middle glass thing. So I reached for my inner engineering skills and came up with this solution. It worked perfectly fine! When I came home and lifted a long sleeved t-shirt I haven’t used in a week, that tiny tiny screw fell out of it. Isn’t that weird? Now my sunglalsses are working as they should again :). Before the run… … After the run.

Raspberry white chocolate chip pancakes. One of the best I’ve had when it comes to American pancakes!

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.

Last night was spent at IKEA with Lovisa and Chad. The Christmas food was good, but nothing like the real Swedish Christmas food. It was still a very nice evening with good company and good food. Chad told me he loves to try new things and was really excited about the evening. At the end of it he was glad he came and he was surprised about all the different fish there was. He was expecting pretty much just meatballs and mashed potatoes. He said he liked it!

When we came there they had printed our names on a reservation sign. And that was just hilarious! They misspelled my name. So my name of the evening was Alexander. But the most fun thing about it was that Lovisa, whose real name is Emma Lovisa (the same as mine, Hanna Alexandra Camilla) so she always calls herself Emma because no one here knows how to spell Lovisa. But this time they couldn’t even spell Emma right, but they wrote Eumd. Seriously?
Cati was supposed to be with us, but both her hostparents were sick so she had to work…

It was a very nice evening even if it took forever in the traffic. At the end I bought a bottle of Julmust for Chad to try and he liked it too. I think he would like Sweden, except for the cold weather though.

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.

No bad luck today for me. First of all I could move back into my room. I didn’t have time to do it, but I have my sheets down here now and I will start unpacking on Sunday. Nice! It is very nice!
This means that they today started on the upper floor and it will be chaos! It was okay when I was the only one in the guestroom because I’m the only one who sleeps on the first floor. I don’t know the logistics about the upper floor, but I hope it will be done soon!

First on today’s agenda was to end my gym membership at LA Fitness. A sad moment, but if I have to be honest with myself, I haven’t been there in a long time…

Next was to pick up the packets for Run or Dye 5K tomorrow. When I was standing in line in the sun it felt like a warm summer day. More of that please!

In my bag I had a yellow color and in Lovisa’s bag was a purple. We got a t-shirt each, a number thingy and some other tiny things. We are probably gonna walk the whole thing tomorrow, but it will be fun! 🙂

When I was waiting in the car for the kids’ school to end I read, as usual, and today I finished Clockwork Princess. The ending was perfect and I almost cried because of the character’s happiness. That series was one of the better I’ve read. I think it was better than the Mortal Instruments, but I haven’t read the end of that one yet, so I can’t say. My next reading project is the Divergent series. I’ve heard that one is really good too!

Now I’m just waiting for time to pass. I’m hungry and in two hours I will be at IKEA with Chad, Lovisa and Cati to have a Swedish Christmas feast!!

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.

Lucia isn’t until tomorrow, I know, but the kids at the Swedish School only meet on Thursdays so we had an early Lucia today. Lucia is a Scandinavian tradition. A train of people sings songs and have white dresses on and a lot of lights to light up the darkness at this time of year. Eleven nights before Christmas.
It was so beautiful! The girl was the Lucia and she was so pretty, the boy was a “starboy” with his starry cone on his head and big golden star in his hand. All the songs were in Swedish and even if all the kids there are part American it sounded like a real Swedish kid’s Lucia train. The boy have trouble speaking Swedish, that’s known among my (9) readers I think, and he really tried singing and that made me so proud, because he really tried. And some songs he said he was singing along with. I love my kids!

When I came home I was hoping that I could move my stuff back into my room, because today the guys finished the whole first floor!! But we have to clean it first so the guestroom is still occupied by me. In the afternoon they started with the stairs, removed the carpet and told us to wear shoes when we walk on it because of nails and splinters. When my hostmom called me to tell me they were going out for dinner the boy reminded me to keep the shoes on when I came home after my Starbucks date with Lovisa. The Prius’ has a phone integrated so everyone in the car could talk to me. He is so cute!

In my freetime today I was feeling very bad, well, in the morning too. My head hurt like hell and as soon as I moved I almost got nauseous because of the pain. So I just lay in my bed, I skyped with mom, read and tried to sleep for a while. I’m almost done with my book now, only 40 pages left. And it is so good!! All of Cassandra Clare’s books are awesome! The Clockwork Princess is the last one in The Infernal Devices triology and after that there’s only like two more in the Bane Chronicles and one in the Mortal Instruments which will be publiced in March. Can’t wait for that one. She is gonna write a sequel series to the Mortal Instruments (the Infernal Devices is a prequel).

Tomorrow’s finally IKEA’s Julbord! It will be so nice with some “real” Swedish food. I’m also happy that Chad is excited to go with me, Lovisa and Cati.

This is what fall looks like in Cali, in December. Very beautiful!

35 days until Hawaii!! 🙂

35 days left in San Diego… 😦

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.

The new Cheesecake Factory up in Escondido has been open since November 26th and today I went there finally. I picked up Johanna and we actually got there before all the stores open, because the restaurant is in the Westfield North County mall. My bad. So we sat down at Starbucks for like an hour and talked. Her debut there, congratulations! Then came Lovisa and we pretty much went to the restaurant right away. It didn’t open until 11am so we had to wait outside for a few minutes. Inside was very similar to the one in Mission Valley, the same orange-brown interior but it was a little bit more fancy with cool designs on the lamps and stuff. What’s also very good about that place (except that it is much closer) is that it was divided, so it won’t get so loud. I liked that place, even if the view we had was over the stores.

I had my usual, the Roasted Pear and Bleu Cheese Flatbread Pizza. And for dessert, and my 16^th cheesecake, Chris’ Outrageous Cheesecake (A Cheesecake Factory Original – Layers of Moist Chocolate Cake, Chewy Brownie, Toasted Coconut-Pecan Frosting and Creamy Chocolate Chip Coconut Cheesecake). We all three shared it and it was as delicious as all the others I’ve tried.

Right after I dropped Johanna off and picked up the kids from school. The girl spent the afternoon at a friend’s house doing a history project and I and the boy did some grocery shopping. Then homework and I cooked tacos for dinner. I don’t have many Tuesdays left to cook so now I have to do all the favorites, so next week I will do the fishpudding again. And after that I only have to more Tuesdays in January, I don’t think I have to cook on Christmas Eve and the week after I’m not working, because that’s New Year’s Eve.

This morning when I was waiting for the boy’s school to start I was almost freezing to death. Last night after my class it was only 38F (3C)!! And this morning was like 50F, but the sun wasn’t warming at all. It was so cold my nail broke when I touched it. Brrr! And ouch!

And this afternoon when I was waiting in the car for the girl’s school to end, well, not just this afternoon, almost every afternoon. I laugh at all the Americans who try to parallel park with their humungous cars. They are driving back and forth so many times and it looks so funny. It reminds me of those funny movies of people who can’t park, haha.

This woman was driving back and forth like this at least four times!!
Johanna’s first Starbucks! Skinnylicious Roasted Pear and Bleu Cheese Flatbread. #16 Chris’ Outrageous Cheesecake.
My super amazing chocolate Advent Calendar my amazing mom sent me 🙂 <3. Sweden is becoming Americanized. Why not just say “pepparkaka” instead of “gingerbread” and “öppna” instead of “open”? I don’t think we will speak Swedish in Sweden in the future… This was by the way a real favorite with the kids, they loved it!!This car again! I don’t know if you remember that I saw this car like in the spring and laughed about it? In Swedish it reads “F(h)järta saker” (=fart things), haha!

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’ve now finished all my compulsory 6 credits. I am really glad that it was part of the cultural exchange program. It was a nice change of scene in my normally amazing everyday. I’ve been very satisfied with both my classes I took (Advanced Pronunciation and Fluency was the first one). And this last motivated me to want to continue with German. I wanna be able to speak a third language well and it would be such a good thing to have on my resume. I hope I have time to continue with it when I go back to Sweden. I had my final tonight and it went really well I would guess. I was done after 15 minutes, had a lot of time to look everything through and after handing it in I sat with my phone for a long while. We also got our tests from last week back. And I got another 100%!! I’m afraid I won’t get an A+ anyway, because I’ve had a lot of tiny stupid errors on my homeworks. And I know for sure that I misspelled Abendessen tonight. I added the Swedish S AbendSessen. But maybe I won’t get a minus for it, the teacher was really nice. I hope I will get an A at least as my grade.

This morning I spent in bed, studying for my final, reading and sleeping. When I went to pick up the kids from school I saw two packages outside the door and both were for me!! I didn’t even have to read who it was from, I recognized my mom’s handwriting. The contents according to the note on the packages were Christmas Gifts and Candy. After my German class I opened them. I was so happy when I opened and saw what she had sent me. First of all, Swedish Christmas Candy like Juleskum and tiny chocolate Santa Clauses. She also sent me gingerbread Gifflar from Pågen and saffron gifflar from Skogaholm. So yummy!  She also sent me real Swedish Fishes, and I guess she did that because I wrote about the American Swedish Fish, haha :). She also sent super cute santa clauses decorations for my hostfamily and a tiny glass angle for me. So very sweet of her! And last but not least, the chocolate advent calendars. One for each child in this household :). I was afraid that this year would be the first year ever without one of those, but now I have one and the best part is that I have to eat all the nine pieces that’s already been! Homesickness welled up after opening and I really miss mom now. But in just 8 weeks I will see her again!! Well, eight weeks and a couple of hours.