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 weekend in Vegas flew by so fast! I had so much fun and I’m already longing to go back. This time I went there with Lovisa, Nicole, Laura and we met up with a Swedish girl from Boston. Five girls in Las Vegas for a weekend, what else do one need?

The weekend started with many hours behind the wheel. My hostdad dropped me off at the car rental place and from there I drove down south to pick up the other three girls. A detour of 1 hour wasn’t too much fun. We stopped at Subway where me and Lovisa bought dinner and I bought chips and cookies, it was gonna be a long drive. But even if it took a long time and we didn’t get to the hotel until like 1:30am it wasn’t so bad driving. The road was just straight all the way and with cruise control it was super easy.

Louise was already at the room since a few hours and we got to bed right when we got there. Five girls with two beds was no problem at all. There was a big arm chair and two footstools and we built a bed for Lovisa. I think she had it more comfortable than the rest of us. The beds were so hard…

Saturday morning started with a little walk to Starbucks where we had breakfast. And then back to the car and I drove us to Valley of Fire. Grand Canyon was closed so we went to another national park instead which was much closer, just a little more than an hour drive away. We weren’t there for so long, but we took photos and saw the extremely red mountains. It was really cool!

After that we went directly to Hard Rock Café for an earlier dinner at 5pm. I wanted to try something new, but the coward in me decided to have to normal California burger. I also had a Strawberry Mojito which I regretted. It wasn’t good, but on the other hand they donated like $1 to breast cancer research.

After dinner did the big tour of the Las Vegas Strip by foot. First we went to M&M’s World where a lady handed out samples of their Halloween flavor Candy Corn and White Chocolate. Me and Lovisa fell in love with that and bought a bag of it each. Then we saw MGM, Luxor, The Cosmopolitan, Caesar’s Palace and a tiny part of New York New York. It doesn’t sound like much but the strip is way bigger than it looks like and walking from Luxor back to Ceasar’s Palace is quite the walk!

At the hotelroom I took a shower, got dressed, drank a glass of wine and at 10:30pm we went to Hyde Nightclub at Bellagio across the street. I was told to be there at 11, and we were there at exactly 11. I asked for the guy who were gonna let us in. But the bouncer looked like he didn’t want to go through the trouble of finding him, so he just checked our ID’s and gave us free cover tickets. And we skipped the line. My self esteem rose like I don’t know what, I’ve never been able to skip the line and the cover like that, we must have looked pretty. The club was small but had an amazing view over the Bellagio fountain. At first they played good music but after a while they changed, just like they have done at the nightclubs in San Diego. So we only stayed for one drink, we talked with a bunch of guys on a bachelor party and when our feet hurt too much to stand the bad music we went out in the casino to try and gamble.

I’ve never gambled in my whole life and I have no idea how to do it. So I sat down at a roulette table with minimum betting $10. At first I didn’t think it looked complicated, but the more I sat there, the less I understood. Louise stood behind me and understood the rules pretty fast but I didn’t understand when she tried to explain. But I guess that didn’t matter because I walked away with $140. I started with $20. I was super lucky and got the right number twice in a row and after that I started to understand the rules and realized how bold I had been with my bettings and walked away while I still had some piles of chips. But it was so much fun! The adrenaline was pumping and I really want to do it again someday. $120 is not super much, but it’s still money and I got super happy. I can imagine how glad I would be if it was ten times as much ;). We’ll see if I have time to come back this year.

We got back to the hotel room at 3am and I fell asleep right away.

Sunday started with a breakfast buffet at the hotel for $12. It was good and I stopped myself before I got too full. Right after that we took a quick trip to the Las Vegas sign and then dropped off Louise at the hotel, she was gonna go on a helicopter tour over Grand Canyon, and the rest of us went home to San Diego. The traffic was horrible but we came home not too late. I was home pretty late since I dropped everyone off. Chad picked me up at the car rental place at 7pm and I spent the evening with him. He invited me to his family’s Thanksgiving dinner in a little more than a month. I didn’t really realize what he was asking because I was so tired and my shoulder hurt again, but it made me really happy that he asked. It feels like that is kind of a big deal :). My hostfamily is also having a Thanksgiving dinner, so I hope they are at different times so I can go to both and get fat twice!

I was too tired to write anything last night. And I have been super tired this whole day too. After a couple of naps and long nights of sleep I will probably be fine again!

Nicole, me, Louise, Laura and Lovisa The Strip in daylight… … kinda different from the Strip in the evening! The pretty view from the club!

My day today was nice and went away fast. I skyped with mom this morning, then I slept for a while. Picked up the kids, drove them to soccer practice, finished my book The Power of Six, started on the next one The Rise of Nine, and then spent the evening at UCSD Extension. The teacher talked a lot about grammar today. I didn’t think the grammar was too bad in 8^th grade, but that was probably because I was studying Swedish grammar at the same time. Now I don’t remember anything at all and it’s confusing. But I guess I will get a hang of it eventually!

I’ve started with my CalPoly application! I’ve found courses I want to take and I have written down them in the motivation letter. I just don’t know whether to write down that I am currently living in SoCal. It could be crediting, but they could also think that they should give the spot to someone who didn’t already had the opportunity to live a year in America. It’s a good thing the deadline isn’t until Dec 1^st. And I really hope my break from school is gonna affect their decision.

Today much didn’t happen except that it was super cold! And my room was really cold too, so when I took my nap I had a fluffy hoodie on and a blanket on top of me and I was still freezing.

The afternoon was spent at Swedish School and for dinner we had real Indian curry, it was good!

Now I will head to bed and continue with this too-important-letter some other day. Much depends on how well it is written so it will probably take some time to write it and it will probably be rewritten many times before I send it in…

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 I was stuck at the parking lot in Encinitas yesterday I was really sad. It felt like everything was wrong. But that changed this morning. I called Orbitz because I hadn’t gotten any money back yet. There was a woman (I tried to remember her name, but after the call was done I had completely forgotten it) today and I tried to explain my problem, it took some time, the connection was really bad today. But I got her my message and she told me that Orbitz didn’t do anything wrong, she could only see one transaction. Excatly like the other guy. She told me she could call my bank (thank god they had 24 hours phone hours) and let me talk to them while she waited because I can’t call to Sweden from here. So she called all the way to Sweden, waited while I was talking in Swedish with the bankman from Nordea. He saw what I was talking about and within a minute he gave me my money back. I was so happy! And I can’t believe Orbitz would do that for me. It’s not much money, but she was so nice, and she went through all that. I think she heard how happy I was to have my money back and I guess that is why they are so nice and friendly here in America. People here care.

The service at Orbitz.com isn’t all, they are cheap too and I’ve never had any troubles with them. Love them!

That made my whole day, I was so happy I accidently ordered some clothes online from Angl and American Eagle Outfitters… When I was in LA with Sarah and Christin I saw a really cute top but they didn’t have it in my size. So I tried looking for it online but couldn’t find it. But today for some reason it was right there on their webpage. And since I don’t have any skirts or shorts to go with a top like that I ordered that too. The only thing missing from that outfit was a bandeau (the top is almost completely open in the back and is made of white chiffon, super pretty really) and the only place I could find a nice and reasonable priced one was at American Eagle. And they had free shipping, awesome! It’s too bad I won’t get them before I got to Vegas on Friday though… Guess I have to go back there then, hehe!

After my shopaholic spree I calmed down, read a little and then took a nap for about an hour. I couldn’t pick up the kids from school so I was off until 2:30pm. In the afternoon it was just me and the boy, the girl was at a friend’s house. We did some homework and when the girl got home I had to give her something to eat before her soccer practice. Then I waited for my hostmom to come home so we could go and get my car, they changed the battery and it is up and running again.

When I got home I made dinner, broccoli- and bacon pasta. But I forgot to put cheese in the sauce so it didn’t get as creamy as I am used to, but it was still very good.

Today was also the first day it really rained in a long long time. It’s been a little drizzle other days, but today it was pouring. And there was also a really big lightning and thunder right after. But that was the only one. Was a while ago I heard thunder so it was a bit scary…

Now I’m sitting here reading my old novellas. I used to write a lot when I was younger and I think I will start doing that again. I started on one last spring and I think it is time to finish it.

As yesterday wasn’t enough with oversleeping, doublecharging of flight tickets, expired driver license and long phone queues. Today was pretty bad too. For some reason I snoozed twice instead of just once so I was a little stressed out this morning too. It’s so weird. I have no memory whatsoever of pressing the snooze button twice! Then I had to wait three hours at the DMV, and it only took two minutes to print my new temporary driver license. And of course I forgot to ask about my real driver license and I remembered as soon as I walked out of the office… And lastly, my car broke down when I was gonna drive to Chad’s after buying some stuff at Target. It seems like it was the battery because it was up and running when Chad got there and helped me jump start it. So very sweet of him to come out there and help me! Who will I call when I’m in Sweden and in trouble? I called my hostdad too and felt a little bad. All these things happen to the car all the time. It can’t be my fault, but I still feel bad, but he was so nice about it and sent me instructions on how to jump start (the battery is in the back of the car) and then met me at the Swedish automobile specialist to leave my car there. Chad followed me there and he drove us to his place after where I did my homework. And then he drove me home again before we both accidently fell asleep.

I feel much better about everything now. My only concern is the doublecharge. I have to call them tomorrow again and tell them I never got my money back and ask for a refund. Hope they are as nice tomorrow as they were yesterday. It’s really bad I never remember the names of those service people…

Since I won’t have a car tomorrow morning I am hoping that me and the boy can take a walk to his school. I feel like walking, so I hope he won’t protest as much as he did last time my car was at the car service…

There was one good thing about the three hours at the DMV. I got a lot of time reading. I almost finished I am Number Four. Now I have 5 pages left and it was a really good book! Next up is The Power of Six.

Here we are again, another month passed and one less before I’m in Sweden again. Time, why are you running away from me? But I am enjoying myself to the fullest so I don’t think I will have any regrets.

This morning started in the worst possible way. My alarm didn’t go off, the kids were outside my door whispering my name. Like that would wake me up? I had braids in my hair so I had to take them out quickly before I could show myself outside my bedroom, and I had to put on clothes. I made lunch and breakfast super quickly just to find out like three minutes later that my hostdad would drive the girl to school which gave me an hour extra at home. I watched Oscar’s Oasis on the iPad with the boy until we had to leave for his school.

When I got back home I got a notification from my Swedish bank on my phone telling me there was a transaction from it. $700 from Hawaiian Airlines. Great, the morning just got better. Hawaiian Airlines made a double charge, both on Friday and today. So before I did what I was supposed to do today, I called Orbitz, from where I bought the tickets and asked them what was wrong. They said they couldn’t find two transactions. Awesome… They also said that since the money charged weren’t connected to a flight I should get the money back automatically today or tomorrow. They apologized for the inconvenience and told me to call them again tomorrow if I still didn’t get my money so they could give me a refund.

After that I called the DMV to ask about my driver license. They said I have to go to a DMV office and ask for a new temporary driver license. How could I know that when they sent me the last one? So that means I can’t go to UCSD tomorrow either, but I have to go to that stupid DMV office again, where they have so long lines… They guy on the phone also gave me a number to call if I wanted to check the status of my real driver license, but that number didn’t work so I’m gonna ask them at the DMV office tomorrow if they know something. The guy on the phone told me it could take up to 6 months, which it has been pretty soon. But for him it took 3 temporary driver licenses before he could get his plastic card. So maybe this is normal. Complicated California!

Then I read some and picked up the kids from school. As usual it was stressful after but we made it to the boy’s soccer practice on time. I’m more than halfway done already, I should have read more if it weren’t for those two phone calls I had to make this morning. Before both of them there was a long line too…

When I got up this morning and were gonna use the kitchen sink for the first time today I noticed that it was a new one. When I tried to switch it on I just lightly touched it and it started pouring water out of it. I didn’t give it much thought, but then the girl told me that the whole thing was touch sensitive, so you can just lightly touch it wherever and it will start. Pretty cool!

My German class today was a little bit harder, but not by much. It was about descriptive words, so next week’s Hausaufgabe is to do some exercises in the book and write a descriptive text about yourself. Shouldn’t be too hard. After class one of the girls came up to me and complemented me on my pronunciation. I know it is awful, but that made me really glad, and when I told her I was part German after she asked me if I was, she told me I looked German too, and she is not the first one to say that, haha. The grammar is really hard, but I’m not a quitter, I will continue :).

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 finally seen Maroon 5 live and that was awesome! I can’t say that my mood was at its very best the whole night but I had such a nice time and it was so nice listening to good music with a pair of warm arms around me.

What wasn’t so nice was traffic. Yesterday I really hated Americans because of their love for cars. It should have taken like 50 minutes to drive down to Chula Vista normally but last night it took us two hours!! I kept my my mood pretty high, but I felt so bad for Lovisa whose ticket I printed for her. She was waiting outside for almost 1.5 hours for me and all alone. I can’t believe the other girls left her there for an hour!! She was happy when we got there at least and she didn’t miss Kelly Clarkson, just the other two artists who I don’t even know who they were.

Kelly Clarkson was really awesome. I used to listen to her a lot when I was younger but she still makes awesome music and she really knows how to sing live.

Randomly, we ran into the other girls between Kelly Clarkson and Maroon 5 and they were sitting in front of us. Lovisa joined them and me and Chad stayed so we could be alone. I’m glad we did, it was so nice just him and me.

Maroon 5 wasn’t as good live as Kelly but it was still amazing. I’ve seen Adam Levine in real life! Can’t say I saw too much of him from the back, he looked like a tiny ant, but it was still very cool. Couldn’t get any good photos though…

Driving out of the parking lot was hell. It took us 45minutes just to get out of there. And my GPS was stupid and wanted me to take road that didn’t exist and wanted me to drive around in cirles. It’s too old… But the freeway home was nice, it always goes so fast driving the I-5 north. Didn’t get home until 1 am and as soon as I lay down I fell asleep.

This morning Chad let me sleep while he got up to study and when I was awake at 9 or 10 we made breakfast and the rest of the day we sat in his couched curled up together, him studying and me reading and finishing the fifth Mortal Instruments book. And I’m okay with the next one not coming out until March next year. First time I’m not upset that I have to wait. So now I’ve started reading I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore. I saw the movie like ages ago and really liked it. I think I will like the book too. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book I disliked, haha!

Yesterday morning I skipped beachvolleyball. I’ve been sleeping like crap this last week so I thought I needed a really long sleep in, which was awesome. But when I woke up at 11:30am and everyone wrote on FB that it was over 30C I regretted it… Couldn’t it have been cloudy and cold the one morning I decided to stay in bed?!

Anyway, the weekend was fast as usual and very nice. Things going on all the time and the next big thing is Vegas on Friday!! I’m so excited. Today I finally booked the car for the trip, but not with Hertz 24/7, but the normal Hertz. But I got a pretty good deal but now we have to pay for the gas. The problem was that on Friday my second Temporary Driver License expired which means that I couldn’t rent a car with 24/7. DMV should have sent me a new piece of paper but I never got one. So I guess I have to spend my freetime tomorrow in a phone line… I will ask about my real plastic card while I’m at it, but it might be that I have to call the immigration center instead. But I will call, so irresponsible of them not to renew my temporary driver license. And why is it so hard to send me the real card? It’s been five months now!! I hope I will get it before I go home to Sweden…

Kelly Clarkson

Maroon 5

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 day of the cinnamon bun. If it weren’t for all my Swedish Facebook friends I wouldn’t have know it was today. I bought some buns at Albertsons and even though they are good they’re not Swedish. The kids really loved it for snacks though. And I think this day comes from Sweden?

In my freetime I did some homework, still haven’t figured the second exercise out yet. And then I sent some emails to UCSD asking if I could talk to a counselor about applying there for next fall. She said in the answer that they didn’t have a building and civil engineering program but a structural engineering major. Maybe they are similar. I will also send an email tomorrow to Chalmers asking for help if I want to do this whole thing on my own, so I hope I will get some good answers. But to be honest I think I’ve taken on too much and I’ll probably end up with the exchange program from Chalmers up in San Luis Obispo. I mean it’s still California, not SoCal, but still. I’m not giving up yet though!

I got off work pretty early, right after I got home with the boy from his soccer clinic at 5:15pm, that was nice.

An hour later I drove down to Fashion Valley for a Swedish dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with Moa, Sarah and Paulina. It was nice, but would have been nicer if my head didn’t try to bang itself into a thousand pieces. My eleventh cheesecake was the Pumpkin Cheesecake. It was simple and good and tasted like soft gingerbread. Now I saw on the website they had something called Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake which sounded even better. Next time!

I drove straight home and now I will go to bed and probably skip beachvolley tomorrow and stay in bed all morning. I haven’t had a real sleep in in sooo long so I might not even sleep that long, we’ll see. It will be nice anyway! And in the evening I will go to Maroon 5 with Chad, I’m really excited!

#11, Pumpkin Cheesecake

Hawaii is happening, for sure, it is real, not a dream anymore. I can’t believe I bought flight tickets to Hawaii today! And I can’t believe it’s just a little more than three months until I’m there! I am so excited it’s ridiculous. But at the same time that trip means that I will be back in Sweden right after it and I don’t like that thought. Not at all. I will have at least one day in California before going back home so I won’t go directly from paradise to coldness. I can cross my fingers and hope for a cold first week in February here in California, so it won’t be such a shock.

Now in the evening me and Caroline booked the flights between the islands together so all the flights are booked now.

San Diego – Honolulu, Jan 15^th
Honolulu – Maui, Jan 20^th
Maui – Kona (Big Island), Jan 28^th
Kona – San Diego, Feb 2^nd

And all that for $730. That’s not too bad. We decided to book the hostels next week, save some excitement, haha! I really hope Sarah can come with us, that would make it the best trip ever!

Today was really chilly, the first day of fall. I still have my Swedish instincts, September and October should be cold so I’ve been wearing sweaters and leggings, and since that’s been way too warm I decided to have shorts and a tank top today. And of course the weather changed and I was cold instead.

I haven’t been feeling too well either. My stomach has been bothering me nonstop since Saturday and today I also felt very dizzy and almost feverish. Maybe it’s a good thing to go get a flu shot with the family. I never had one before and I’ve never had the flu, but now when I’m around kids, maybe that’s for the best.

I tried doing some homework today but I don’t know if I’m too tired, but I didn’t understand what who says to who. Like if a woman addresses another woman, does she say “du”, “Sie”, or “ihr”. Okay, that one was easy, but not everyone is. And I know the rule, you say “du” when it’s friends, family or kids, “Sie” when it’s someone you don’t know or just want to be respectful to like a teacher or something. And “ihr” is the plural. But what says a student to another student? And what is a Sekretärin? I think I have to spend my freetime tomorrow reading in my textbook instead of sleeping. Bummer!

Today was a normal day, just like all the others. I drove the kids to school, skyped with mom, I took a nap, picked up the kids, we went to Starbucks, I helped them with homework, and then cooked dinner. I feel like such a housewives sometimes. But I really like that!

Dinner today was a success. I made spaghetti with meatsauce and tried to copy how I usually do it in Sweden, it tasted nothing like it… but it turned out really good anyway. I had bacon and feta cheese in it as usual, cream and garlic too. I added some ketchup today because I thought I used to use tomato purée in Sweden, but I’m not sure anymore. It was very good anyway and the boy said he LOVED it and he finished before me and my hostmom. That made me so happy!

When I skyped with mom I asked her if she could transfer some money I have saved in Sweden because I’m gonna book my flights to Hawaii tomorrow!! I’m hoping they will come like now so I can do it already, but I guess I have to wait until tomorrow… I’m so excited though and I find it so hard to believe that I’m going there after New Years! My travel partner Caroline booked her flights to Honolulu and home from Kona (Big Island) tonight and tomorrow we will book the flights between the islands together. It’s awesome also that it’s so cheap. It will be in total like $650 for all the flights. And then of course there will be all the hostels and maybe cars, and food. But I am sure it will be worth every single penny!

So much going on and I’m so excited all the time. It’s hard to focus on just one thing. So I’m just happy and excited in general right now, haha.

Maroon 5: 3 days
Las Vegas: 9 days
Avicii: 38 days
Hawaii: 105 days
Halloween: 29 days
Thanksgiving: 57 days
Christmas: 83 days

I’m really looking forward to Halloween and Thanksgiving. We don’t really celebrate Halloween in Sweden and here everyone apparently decorates their houses a lot. And I really look forward to go trick or treating with my hostfamily! And then there’s Thanksgiving which we Sweds hardly don’t even know what it is all about. So that will be fun, and the day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday which also will be a really fun experience!

I have a feeling these last months will fly away even faster than the previous 9 months…

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.

Yesterday was an eventful day. In the morning I went shopping with Sarah and her adorable baby. Her leaving also means I’m never gonna see him again so I said goodbye to him, but he wasn’t in a good mood so no smiles, too bad. I wasn’t planning on buying anything but I had two Victoria’s secret coupons, one giving me a free pair of my favorite seamless panties, and one giving me $10 off of a bra. I’ve been looking for a normal black t-shirt bra and found one that fit really well. Then I found a pair of grey leggings. It would be boring to only have black ones. And then I found a nice long sleeved t-shirt at Abercrombie. We couldn’t stay for too long so I had time to take a shower when I got home.

The kids had soccer practice as usual on Mondays, and as usual it was super stressful. And yesterday the kids forgot EVERYTHING so they had to run into the house several times before we could drive away. Sometimes I wonder if they would remember to bring their heads if it wasn’t stuck to their shoulders…

At 6:30 pm my first German class took place at UCSD. The teacher is French, lived in Germany for four years, worked as a German teacher and then moved to USA and now she teaches both French and German. She is nice, but she gives us homework every day and we are gonna have three tests in ten weeks. But I recognized everything yesterday so I don’t think this will be too hard for me. I’m not gonna move up a level, I want to learn the basics again. I don’t remember it, but I recognize it so I guess this will be good for me. I’m glad I decided to take this class!

Right after I drove to Sarah’s house and there were a lot of people, her hostmom, Moa, Kristel, Christin, and the two German Daniel’s. After Moa and Kristel left and the hostmom went to bed it was just me and the rest German’s so I was a little left out, but I understood some things they were saying when I was concentrating. I also tried to tell them what I learned in class, and Sarah just told me that it was so cute when I tried to speak German, haha! When they left an hour later it was just me and Sarah.  We ate s’mores and she didn’t buy the normal Hershey milk chocolate but cookie’s and cream and I have to say, that was really good! We talked, lay in chairs and looked up in the sky. No clouds at all so we could see all the stars. And there were a lot of shooting stars! I know for sure I saw two but then I thought I saw some in the corner of my eye. It was such an amazing evening! And the time didn’t want to work properly so before we knew it, it was already 1:30, so we cleaned up in the backyard, I give her a goodbye card I made and then we said goodbye. It didn’t feel like a permanent goodbye (which I know it wasn’t) but it wasn’t so bad. But when I left at 2am and started the car the tears welled up and I cried all the way home. I have had such a great time with her and I really thought I would have had at least three-four months more with her, but this came so sudden… but she is seriously considering going to Hawaii which means that I will see her again in about 100 days. And then there is Mallorca next summer.

I slept for 3 hours and I was like a zombie this whole day. My head hurt like crazy and I find it hard to believe that Sarah is on the flight back to Germany right now.

Another thing that’s hard to believe is that it is already October! The temperature is 80F during the day still, which is awesome! I wonder how long this warmth will last, I hope at least the whole of October :).

In the afternoon I went with the kids to a park south of here with Swedish School. They played typical Swedish games while I was watching them. There were hot dogs and they sold Swedish candy. As the sweet tooth I am (and when I’m sad I tend to eat candy) I bought some for me. So delicious!!

I will head to bed now, even with my three hour nap today I’m still very tired…