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.

What a day! Awesome weather, a lot of cute animals and 14000 steps according to mom’s pedometer. And after two hours of surfing yesterday I am pretty sore right now.

We arrived there at 10am and started walking around. We found a very good way to go around and at the same time seeing everything without going somewhere twice. Last time I was there I walked around for four hours and I missed like everything I realized today! But after almost 8 hours in the park I guess we saw pretty much everything. There’s not much more to say really, I will let the awesome pictures mom took today say the rest.

A snail wishing to be fast? Spotted Hyenas. Sun Bear. Red panda. One of my favorite animals! The baby panda was high up in a tree sleeping 14h a day. He was still very small even though he is 11 months old now. Super adorable! Polar bear, another of my favorite animals! This one was dribbling with the ball under the water. Cutie! And this one was eating a carrot?! I’ve never seen this animal before and it was really cool! We didn’t get a good picture of the real animal. Jaguar. Capybara. African elephant. Secretary bird. In the same exhibit there was a magpie. What’s so exotic about those?? African meerkat. These guys are just too cute! Honeybadger. Siiberian Lynx. A baby koala. So incredibly cute you couldn’t believe it! Another koala sleeping in a tree. All the other koalas (like 14!!) slept with their face squished in the trunk of the tree. A giraffe baby, only 2-3 months old! When I was at the zoo last time this guy was still in his mommy’s tummy. Greater one-horned rhinosaurus. Angolan Colubus monkey baby! Gigantic hippos. Otters eating lunch. Mom really loves these guys, she took like 50 photos of these two ;). They are really cute, I agree! Parker’s snake-necked turtle. Humongous Galapagos turtoise. Fennec Fox, so unbelievably cute and tiny! Snow leopard. Gorilla.North Chinese leopard.

This was me and my mom’s last day together here in California. Hard to believe that it’s already been three weeks… It’s been so fast I’m not completely sure San Francisco even happened! I will miss her but it will be nice getting back to my normal working life again. And besides, I’m gonna see her again in no time at all :).

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 celebrated 6 months in the US today on a surfboard. I was expecting it to be hard, but at the same time I thought I was gonna have an advantage since I’ve been doing some snowboarding. But it was hard and I could stand up for a few seconds a few times before falling off. We were five au pair girls (me, Moa, Giorgia, Lucia and Hellen) taking a group lesson in La Jolla. Two hours, $55, pretty okay. I was the first one getting a push from the instructor Richard and I could actually stand up for a second. But after that I fell as soon as I tried to stand up. But I didn’t give up and could actually stand up for a few seconds once in a while and the last wave I stood up for 5 seconds for sure!! I didn’t really have any technique though, but I guess you have to lean backwards and bend your knees more than I did. But I have 6 more months to practice, so I will figure this out eventually (hopefully)! Moa was really awesome! She could stand up almost every time and looked really professional for a first-timer.

It was exhausting and the toughest part was to get out from the beach to catch a new wave. There were currents and of course the waves. I think both my arms and legs will be like noodles tomorrow. Good thing we’re just gonna hang out at the zoo all day tomorrow…. Not ;).

After our two hours we drove to the Cheesecake Factory. Delicious as always! Today me and mom shared a Wild Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake.

We were supposed to bake vanilla buns today (since I kinda accidently told the kids that my mom makes the best vanilla buns in the world and then promised them she would bake some for them before she got back to Sweden). But we were too tired and will do it tomorrow night instead. Which is, by the way, our last night together here in California. Time flies by! I mean, six months in USA, already?! And everyone keeps saying that the last six months are the fastest ones. I know I have seven months left before I must leave for cold Sweden again, but for some reason it feels so soon. But I am living to the fullest here, seeing the things I want to see, experiencing new stuff and developing as a person. So I will definitely have no regrets when I get back. I just have to continue what I’m doing :).

Super hard to carry! Moa was a natural! 🙂 There were a lot of funny falls. Lucia was really good too. Getting there… Did someone say you can’t surf and bowl at the same time?! Lucia, Giorgia, Moa, Hellen, me and the patient instructor Richard.Wild Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory.

It was a really great day today and I really look forward to the next time I will get out there in the waves :).

We are back in Carlsbad again and these last upcoming days will be really lazy. Today we went to Ponto Beach so I could play some beach volleyball but I was too tired to play anything at all except some peppering with Moa.  I hope we will have more energy on Wednesday.

After that me and my mom drove to the phone repair shop to turn in my phone again. It took a few hours but now it’s working again!! There was a crack in the circuit or something. But now it’s fixed  and two weeks without a phone is over.

We had brunch at The Broken Yolk while we were waiting and after that we sat in the backyard reading for a while and then we started packing. I hope everything I want to send home can be sent, it looks like it :).

And now it’s time to sleep, a big day tomorrow! 😀

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.

Home sweet home! A week of adventures has come to its end. Our last stop was Los Angeles.

I slept so bad last night. The hostel was better than in San Francisco but up there we had a 4 bed dorm and in Santa Monica we slept in a 10 bed dorm. First of all there was a big group of young girls in our room. And they made a lot of noise both in the evening and in the morning. And one of them tried to steal from my mom when she forgot her camerabag in the room for two minutes. We locked everything in at all times after that. Anyway, in the middle of the night, or the morning, I don’t know, a guy outside was screaming his lungs out for an unknown reason. And then there were a construction site just outside the window too and they started working at 7am. It will be nice sleeping in a real bed tonight, and alone in the room!

As I wrote before (or did I?), we’ve had really bad luck with the weather and today was of course no exception. I’m not sure if it was fog or smog, but probably the later. Our first stop today was Griffith Observatory to take a look at the famous Hollywood sign and get an amazing view of the whole of Los Angeles. We saw the sign at least but hardly anything of the city. Too bad, because that view is really something.

The next stop was the Walk of Fame. We walked around for a bit, mom saw the star of Hugh Jackman and his cement prints outside TCL Chinese Theatre and then she was satisfied. We had lunch and then drove back home.

We returned the car and then drove to the repair shop where my phone has been these last two weeks. The new part had come in and they put it in and it worked. But when I got the phone I saw that the power button was wry and he fixed it. But when I got home I realized he forgot to put in the simcard holder and it didn’t charge (which was the main problem to begin with)… So f-ing typical! So I guess another visit tomorrow is in order. But first some beachvolley at Ponto Beach!

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 didn’t really experience a typical American Fourth of July but it’s okay. I spent most of the day in the car on I-5 S from San Francisco to Santa Monica. The freeway was super boring, it looked exactly the same for 160 (or something) miles. It was a beautiful landscape but when the road just goes on and goes on and goes on… you could have more fun. In total, it took 8 hours with a few and short breaks and we arrived in Santa Monica and the hostel at 4pm.

We showered and then walked to the Pier. First time I’ve been there and I wasn’t so impressed. The beach was nice and big, but nothing more. We walked around on the Pier for maybe an hour (dinner was included) and then to 3^rd Street Promenade two blocks away. It was as pretty as I remembered. Walked inside a few shops, mom bought a new mascara and I finally found the perfume I’ve wanted to buy for a while, Bond no 9. But it was expensive, 1.7 oz $104. I will wait.

When we were heading back to the hostel we heard two street musicians and stopped to listen. Two guys playing guitar together and that was seriously the best guitarplay I’ve ever heard. I had goosebumps! We listened for a long while and then we decided to buy a CD. Unfortunately I couldn’t listen to it now while I’m writing this because I’ve lost my headphones. That makes me really sad because they were awesome! I really hope they are in the car, otherwise I have to buy new ones as soon as possible. And I hate that. I’m always afraid that I won’t find as good ones as I had. Stupid clumsy me, I usually never lose things…

Anyway, tomorrow is our last day on our big roadtrip, Los Angeles. I think we will see the Hollywood sign, Walk of Fame and maybe the Universal Studios CityWalk. And then I think it’s time to head back home to Carlsbad to get some rest. Now I will lay down, read a little and then get many hours of sleep for once!

Oh, btw, we didn’t see any fireworks today. I thought they were gonna have a show at the Pier, but the closest was in Venice beach and we couldn’t drive there, we would have lost our parking spot right next door… Too bad, but I guess I will have my big firework show at New Years instead. I just have to figure out where I’m gonna see it.

2013-07-04, 22:12

Ten minutes later…

I’ve found them! They were in my hoodie pocket (the one I apperantly didn’t look in), silly me…

This is what we saw for almost 8 hours on the I-5 south to LA from San Francisco. This is why California is called The Golden State. It is beautiful and looks so soft and fluffy from a distance. First time at the Santa Monica Pier. 3rd Street Promenade.These two guys, Seis Cuerdas, were amazing!!

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.

Words cannot describe what I’ve seen today. It was the most beautiful and amazing thing I’ve ever seen! I haven’t even seen pictures of it before, or maybe like one a very long time ago so guess if I put on my “wow-face” when I saw the Yosemite Valley!!

But first we saw something else. The Giant Sequoia, the world’s biggest living things. They weren’t as tall as the Coast Redwoods we saw yesterday but they were way wider. The biggest one had a diameter about 15 feet (4,5m)! And one of them you could walk through, it was dead though, but still very cool. It was supposed to be an easy hike, 1.6 mi. But the high elevation (we were almost 6500ft (2000m) above sea level which made it a little harder to breath. The place was called Tuolumne Grove and was placed below the parking lot. And that meant a pretty rough uphill hike on the way back. My calves didn’t like that, but I made it!

The next stop was the tunnel view from where you could see the whole valley (the most beautiful part of the valley). El Capitan is the big granite wall on the left side of the valley and is one of the world’s favorite challenges for rock climbers. Yes, I’m not kidding, crazy people climb up that 3000ft (900m) wall! Normally It takes about 3-4 days to climb and when they sleep they hang in cocoons from the wall. The speed record is in 2h 33min which is just ridiculous! Half Dome is the most familiar rock formation in Yosemite Valley and is the only thing I kinda recognize from pictures I might have seen a long time ago. It is also made of granite and is 1,700ft (1400m). To the right there is a small but tall water fall called the Bridalveil Fall. Now in the summer the water flow isn’t so heavy because of the dry climate in California this time of year. It is almost 200m high and was really beautiful. The wind sometime turned the flow backwards and up.

After that we stopped at tiny Vista Points and had a bigger lunch break at the Yosemite Lodge (a hotel on the valley floor) by the Yosemite Falls. We saw it up close and it was also breathtakingly beautiful! It is the highest waterfall in North America, more than 700m. We were one of the last to see the water flow, because in the middle of July (normally middle of August) the water stops flowing. Lucky us! We could’ve taken a swim in the water right at the end of the waterfall but we totally forgot about bathing suits. So we just stepped in the water to cool of our feet. The water was really cold but felt so good against our warm feet. They weren’t very swollen though which was good. It was very warm today actually, don’t know the temperature but it might have been close to 90F at its warmest point. All the trees were really big down there in the valley so it was no problem walking around in the shade.

After our lunch break we got back to San Francisco and we landed at our hostel at 8:30pm. I was tired but I couldn’t wait writing about this. I’m still in awe!

The tour was with Extranomical Tours and was really good! Our guide Kurt told us a lot of funny stories along the way. Among other things he pointed out the track field Mythbusters use by the Bay Bridge. Me and the boy love to watch that show! He also pointed out George Lucas’ inspiration to the AT-AT Walkers from the Star Wars V movie. You know those big machines walking on four legs? Right by the Mythbuster track there were a big container dock and the cranes lifting the containers looked like those Walkers. He also told us that the almond production in Oakdale is 1/3 of the worlds production of almonds and that California is called The Golden State because of the gold-brown grass that cover most of the state more than six months a year, not after the gold rush as many people seem to think. He told us a lot about the gold rush too. But I missed most of that because I was asleep.

On the way back we stopped at Treasure Island in San Francisco and had an awesome view over San Francisco’s skyline, both of the bridges (Bay Bridge and Golden Gate), Alcatraz and the sunset. Beautiful!!

This was an amazing day and I am so glad we went to Yosemite. I have to admit I was a little skeptic to that long bus drive (3,5h in each direction) for a National Park, but it was totally worth it and I would suggest all of you to go there if you ever get the chance!!

Tomorrow we are heading back down south to the warmth and palm trees. It’s weird that California looks so different in the north, south and east. I think we will just drive south on I-5 most of the way so we can spend as much time in Santa Monica as possible. I hope there will be some 4^th of July celebration at the pier. High time to sleep now so I have energy to drive tomorrow!

Apperantly Sequoia trees need fire to reproduce. Two years ago the rangers started a 100 acre fire for the better of the forest. A fire takes away the duff (flammable stuff) on the forest floor so if a sparkle hits it wont spread too much. But the wind changed and the fire burnt down 5000 acres instead… First view of Yosemite Valley from the bus. Everyone on board: WOOOOW! This was taken from the vista point called Tunnel View. The picture doesn’t do the real thing any justice at all! It was the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. The big granite wall on the left is El Capitan. The Half Dome is visible far away in the picture and above the nearest trees is the Bridalveil Fall. Grand Canyon was nothing compared to this! Bridalveil Fall. Half Dome. Yosemite Falls, sixth highest waterfall in the world. El Capitan where people are stupid enough to climb! Merced River and Bridalveil Fall. Star Wars inspiration. Bay Bridge and San Francisco downtown skyline.

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 could to sleep until 9am today and that felt soo good! We had a tiny breakfast at the hostel and then set the GPS to take us to Muir Woods north of the Golden Gate Bridge. We didn’t have luck with the weather today either. Very foggy but I guess that’s the typical SF weather. So we didn’t see all of the bridge, only the lower half of it. I think we should have done this trip the opposite way around. SF first and then LV. On July 4^th my favorite band (Three Days Grace) will have a free concert in Las Vegas. Unfuckingbelievable! The weather in LV was the worst in ages, and would be better this week. The weather here in SF sucks and probably was better on the weekend. It’s still very nice though and it is cool to have experienced such heat and the foggy SF.

At the Muir Woods National Monument we had to walk a long way from the parking and I was a little afraid that my feet would swell again (they are still swollen, but they are getting better and I can walk today, I just have to walk slowly and careful). But they didn’t and I think that might have been because of the 70F instead of 117.

The forest was really awesome. The Coast Redwood trees were unbelievably big. I felt like an ant walking around there. I can’t say how big they were but the biggest of this kind is 379ft, 115m with a diameter of 22ft, 7m.

We were there for two hours and then we drove back. We stopped at the bridge again and got a few pictures, but it was still very foggy… Next stop was Lombard Street which mom never even heard of. And then Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39. We were walking around for a bit and then had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe, of course!

Back to the hostel where I’ve been looking through the millions of pictures we’ve taken these two days. Sorting it out and then upload it to the blog have been taking more than two hours now. I will probably sleep like a baby tonight too.

Tomorrow we are gonna get up at 5:30am and get on a bus tour to Yosemite National park.

It was very sad that we couldn’t go out to Alcatraz to see it up close…

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 was soooo exhausted last night I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow here at the hostel in San Francisco. So today there will be two posts.

Yesterday was really long. We picked up the car at 7:30 am in Carlsbad and started our roadtrip to San Francisco. My feet were still super swollen so we drove to a CVS to ask a pharmacist what to do. She redirected us to another CVS where they had a Minute Clinic, but it hadn’t opened yet so we decided to go for it anyway. Mom drove the whole way and I can’t believe she did it. But I am very thankful that she managed to do it because my feet were way better after 15 hours of elevation.

We did a lot of stops, the first one in Santa Barbara where we had brunch at IHOP. We drove through Malibu but we didn’t see any fancy houses and didn’t want to pay like $15 to see the beach for maybe 5 minutes.  But we did see a film crew along the road. No celebrities though.

We also took a tiny detour in San Luis Obispo to take a quick look at my maybe-future University CalPoly. I wasn’t so sure if I wanted to do it anymore, but after seeing it, confirming it was real I now again want to do it. I will start with the application soon enough and then we’ll see if my grades are good enough for Chalmers exchange program. I will be fine with whatever happens and that feels really good!

We stopped at a Vista Point in Point Piedras Blancas because on the sign it said Elephant seal viewing point. I’ve never seen that animal before and neither had mom. We stayed for a while just looking at the huge seals throwing sands on themselves. It was really cool!

The most beautiful part of the Hwy 1 was the part between SLO and Monterey. The last part of that zig-zagging road in the mountains right by the coast was in the sunset, and oh my god it was beautiful! At the end we did a lot of pullovers to take pretty pictures. We didn’t have luck with the weather at all. Cloudy the whole way…

We had plans on stopping in Monterey too but it was too dark and foggy (when we drove out of the Pfeiffer Big State Park it was very foggy!) so maybe on the way back on Thursday.

We arrived in San Francisco at 11pm and the first thing we noticed when we got out of the car was the smell of urine. Eeeww! I think this area of City Center is the worst part since the receptionist at the hostel gave us a map and marked this area as an unsecure neighborhood.

We got to bed directly waking up the two other in the room. The bed was very comfy and I slept like a baby the whole night through!

My feet are seriously making mes ad right now, I can’t even look at them without feeling disgust. After last night when I slept with them elevated it was a little bit better. But sitting in a hot bus all day only made it even worse than yesterday. I have trouble walking and I’m afraid what will happen if they don’t stop to swell. This thing is called edema according to my mom and after some googling I now have some things to make it better. I’m gonna sleep with compression socks with the feet elevated. I’m gonna move my feet as much as I can, avoid sun and buy a lightly diuretic thingies tomorrow before we begin our big roadtrip to San Francisco.

The day was horrible with way too many hours in the buses. We had two stops with the tour bus, first for breakfast and a tour at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory in LV and then for some shopping in 45C. The Ac worked but not so well since it was too hot outside. When we came to LA though and hopped on the Greyhound bus it was cold instead. But it was nice for my feet!

Now in the evening my mom and I have been planning how we are gonna drive tomorrow, what freeways and where. We also watched Cast Away with Tom Hanks, had some ice cream and I had my feet in cold water. They are still horrible, but after tonight it will hopefully be better. My body doesn’t like heat very much apperantly.

Time to go to bed, we are leaving the house at 7:15am tomorrow morning! I hope we have WiFi at the hostel, otherwise there will be many new posts on Friday evening when we get home. What awaits us this week is the big roadtrip tomorrow, Tuesday some sightseeing in San Francisco and Muir Woods (big Redwood trees). Wednesday  Yosemite over the day and Thursday roadtrip down to Santa Monica where we will spend the night and then do a little sightseeing in LA on Friday. After that we can relax for a few days :).

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 a really long day, but we did so much. This morning feels lika another day! First we got up at 5am after four hours of sleep. We spent 3,5h in the bus to Grand Canyon West Rim where we walked around for three hours. It was beautiful! And I hope we got some pretty pictures (I haven’t looked at them yet). The place was well organized or how to put it. First you came to Terminal 1 from where you could take helicopter tours. Then you took a free shuttle (well, we paid $80….) to Terminal 2 where the Skywalk was. For some stupid reason that wasn’t included in our price so we didn’t go on it. But I don’t think it matters, the view from the edge of the canyon was perfect anyway! Then the shuttle took us to Terminal 3 where we walked around and had a 360 degree view of the canyon. It was beautiful. Free lunch and then back to Terminal 1 and back to the hotel.

But first a short visit to Hoover Dam. I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open so I didn’t hear when the tour guide told us about the dam. It was like a million degrees outside so we just saw it real quick from the memorial bridge far away. I’ve never been in that kind of heat. It was horrible! 113F in Las Vegas yesterday was okay, but this was unbarebale. We were outside for maybe 10 minutes and during that time the sweat was everywhere, way worse than after 1,5h at the gym. And it didn’t go away in the bus either, because the AC didn’t work…

We got back at the hotel by 4:30pm and when we did I took a cold foot bath because my feet were a little bit swollen from all the heat. Then I took a shower and after that we went out to see Las Vegas. We took the Monorail to the station at the bottom at the Strip and walked up along it stopping on the way to see stuff. We went in Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, had dinner at Hard Rock Café (my 7^th), M&M’s World and after that we just walked. We watched the Bellagio fountain and I just love it, maybe it’s because I love water so much, but it’s really amazing!

Then we tried to find the Monorail but failed and spent A LOT of time trying to find it. And when we did it was of course half an hour walk from the station to the hotel. And it was that long because of my feet. I had the energy (weird, but I did), but my feet right now are like thrice the normal size and they hurt like hell! I’m actually sitting in the bathroom right now with my feet in a cold foot bath. Not helping unfortunately… I hope it will be better tomorrow, I am a little afraid  I won’t be able to walk at all… Good thing we only have like two stops on the way back to LA tomorrow.

Except for my disgusting feet this Las Vegas trip was really nice. I definitely want to come back but maybe when it’s not so hot.

This is Charlie, he and his wife are regulars at the restaurant at Terminal 2 at the Grand Canyon West Rim. Every day they come and get cookies. No wonder it was the fattest squirrel I’ve ever seen!! You can’t really see his big belly from this angle unfortunately… Hoover Dam. Circus Circus entrance by day. It’s kinda cool that I saw this exhibition in Sweden last November when I just got my Visa :). Inside the Luxor (the pyramid). Excalibur. My 7th Hard Rock Cafe visit so far! M&M’s World! Las Vegas Blvd, “The Strip”.   The Worlds’ biggest chocolate fountain inside the Bellagio hotel.

Circus Circus entrance by night.