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!

SEAFOOD AND JAZZ (Thursday March 28th)

The second part of this vacation has started. I’m in the hotel room at Venetia in Houston with Hanna, Lovisa and Alex. We have made big plans for these two days and it will be really nice. Tomorrow we will eat breakfast and then go to NASA space center. After that some walking around in downtown and dinner at a barbecue restaurant. Saturday we will go to an outlet mall and then eat at Hard Rock Cafe. I hope we have time to see the Bay area and maybe Galveston Island. Those places seem nice!

The weather here in Houston, TX is awesome! We arrived at 10pm and it wasn’t cold at all to walk around in shorts. It’s high humidity makes it feel like we are in some tropical place and that is awesome! In New Orleans it was really really cold except for today and mostly yesterday. We all walked around in t-shirts and tank tops and everyone except me and Martina got really sunburnt! I got a little red on my chest, but that went away today.

It was kinda too bad we were in New Orleans when it was super cold and left when it got warmer. But according to weather channels it’s gonna be like 26 C tomorrow and on Saturday, yay!

So, yesterday, after my first Spring Break update we went out for dinner. There were huge lines outside every resturant with seafood. The only one that didn’t have any lines that would take us like two hours were one called Bourbon House seafood. We figured out why when we saw the prices. But we thought it would be a nice experience to eat at a fancy seafood restaurant in New Orleans. I had Crab Crusted Fish which was served with mashed potatoes, a white sauce and steamed vegetables. Really good! I also shared a desert with all the other girls and in total, with tax and tips I paid $50 which is kind of like a normal dinner out in Sweden. It felt really fancy when three different guys were taking care of us. One talked about the courses, one served and one talked about drinks. A nice experience and totally worth it!

After that we went to a really small Jazz club on St. Peter St. Jazz isn’t my type of music but I’m glad I went. I think you have to go to a Jazz club if you are in New Orleans. The band we saw playing was Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

The last stop of the evening was at a bar. One of millions on Bourbon St. You got 3 drinks for 1, it sounded too good to be true and it was. A redbull/vodka cost $36 and P2 $24. But the drinks were HUGE! So 9 bucks for a  big-ass drink was really nice anyway.

Got to bed around 2am.

HOUSTON

This morning was really crazy. Check out at 11am and before that we had to pack up all of our stuff and eat breakfast. We went to IHOP again and I was prepared to have the oatmeal again, but they were out so I tried the crepes instead. Really good too!

After check out all the Swedish except for Alex and Lovisa went to Garden District. The houses were big and we walked around there for a bit. It was nice, but my calves started to hurt and now I’m afraid that they will hurt tomorrow too… Stupid calves!

The houses were really big and looked old and very special. Some of them looked like the mansions in True Blood but most were thin and long. Wonder how the rooms were placed inside.

After a while we noticed some changes in the houses. They weren’t so big anymore and they looked like they were falling apart. We got to the real burbs of New Orleans. It looked sad. I’m glad my burbs in San Diego is the way it is, big and rich :).

After that it was time to go to Houston. I got in the car with the other ones because of our different departure times. We have difficulty communicating with the ones who came from Sweden this week so I’m not sure I will meet them more on this trip. They are not coming to NASA space center tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens after.

The drive here was five hours and we made some stops on the way. When we got here, me and Hanna went out looking for food. It’s crazy how hungry I am all the time… We tried Church’s Chicken and it was spicy, but yummy.

Now it’s really time for me to go to bed, it’s 2am and I have to get up in 6 hours…

Three days of this spring break is already over. The days go by so fast! I thought that everything Hanna told me we would do, we would do this week in New Orleans and Houston. But I found out today that they are gonna do all that fun stuff in California when I have to get back to work. And that sucks so much. I won’t get the typical spring break but I get a week of vacation in the south.

The pictures from this week will be posted when I get back to San Diego on Sunday, can’t transfer them to the computer right now.

THE AIRPORT (Monday March 25th)

That day was really boring… I had to check out of the hotel room at 1pm which meant that I was at the Houston airport soon after. I got news from the Swedishs that their flight was delayed with about 1,5h which was reallys ad to hear. Two hours alone at the airport is managable, but almost four! I sat down, picked up my eReader and started reading. I continued on A Dance with Dragons on it, because the book was too big to bring. It was pretty okay to sit there, watching people arrive and at the same time read. The book is awesome and now I’m almost halfway though the 1100 pages thick book. Four hours at the airport wasn’t enough, because they had to go through all the security. In total I sat there for five hours.

When Martina, Malin, Jens and Henke finally arrived they looked really tired. We went to the car rental place a once but we had some troubles finding a car because our cards didn’t work. You had to have a real credit card to be able to rent a car. And in most of them you had to be over 25 which only two of us were. But after a while we found a minivan for a reasonable price.

We had dinner at McDonalds and at 10pm we were on our way to New Orleans. It was a five hour drive! I was prepared to drive, but since I’m only 21 I couldn’t drive. But that meant that I had to be the awake passenger the whole way. I was so tired! Fortunately I had my bag of swedish candy that kept me awake!

At 3:30 am we were in our hotel room in New Orleans. Five people in a room for four. But it works really well. We built a bed out of a lot of pillows.

ALLIGATORS (Tuesday March 26th)

The day after everyone except me and Martina went to a civil war museum at 10am. It was way too early for us, so we slept until 10 and then had brunch at IHOP. It’s so good! After that we went for a walk along Canal Street. Not much but I think it’s the biggest street here in French Quarters.

At 3pm we were out in a swamp by the Mississippi river. $25 for a two hour tour on the river with a guide. We saw three alligators. The first one was the biggest one, 13 feet. It was lying in the sun, very still… The next one was a very tiny one, about 2 feet. And the third about 6 feet. All of them were really still so I hope they weren’t stuffed or made of plastic! The guide was really nice though and told us a lot about the animals and many other things as well. For example he told us about the big hurricane some years ago. The houses here in Luisiana are built on pillars. I have no idea why and he didn’t tell us. But he said that after the hurricane one of the houses next to the river, where the pillars were about 3 metres high, had 4 feet of water inside the house!! That’s crazy. I can’t say that I’ve seen damages after the hurricane here because I don’t know what it looked like before. But it must have been really bad if the water was that high.

After the alligator tour we went to a beach by the Mexican Gulf. In Mississippi! The beach was really nice but it was so cold yesterday! I thought it was gonna be like in Cali but it’s way colder! I regret that I didn’t bringa ny jeans…

For dinner we went to Hard Rock Cafe. I’ve started to collect glasses, had a hurricane drink with my local legend burger with shrimps on it. I was really dissapointed in the burger because there were only two shrimps. I should have had the California burger with guacamole and ranch dressing on it… But now I have two glasses, Hollywood and New Orleans! Kinda fun (or something) that it says ”Hard Rock Cafe, Hurricane, New Orleans” on the glass.

After dinner we went back to our room talking for a while before we fell asleep.

NEW ORLEANS (Wednesday March 27th)

Today was a really nice day. The temperature was higher which meant that we could walk around in tank tops. It is very windy but it’s going in the right direction and I’ve heard that tomorrow is gonna be really warm! Maybe a day at the beach :).

Up at 9am and braeakfast at IHOP again, but this time something more healthier than scrambled eggs, bacon and hash brown, oatmeal. It was really good. But I had pancakes for dessert… Tomorrow I’m just gonna have oatmeal!

After our breakfast that took ages we went out in New Orleans to see the town. We got some ideas from a tourist information store, kinda hard to know what to do when you’re a tourist. So first we went to St. Louis Cemetery. It’s famous but I have no idea why. So when I get back to Carlsbad on Sunday I have to google it. The Internet at this hotel is so bad you can’t even connect to it.

Then we went to the river where the French Market were. It was okay to walk around there, but nothing extraordinary. We tried gator on a stick and beignets (French doughnuts). It was fried dough with A LOT of powder sugar. We ate them outside and watched a street show. It was really nice, four guys dancing, doing tricks and talking funny in between.

Back to the hotel. I took a shower, the other guys worked out in the gym. Soon we are going out to eat seafood. Apparently New Orleans is famous for its seafood. I’m starting to get hungry and I love seafood so this night will be awesome!

2013-03-27 18:12

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’m finally here, Texas! But I’m not so impressed yet. So far it just felt that I’ve spent A LOT of money for nothing… I’m all alone in a double room which I payed for all by myself. The Swedish missed their flight in London but luckily they didn’t have to pay for the hotel for the night or the new tickets. They are gonna be here at 15:15 tomorrow instead. Check-out for me is at 12pm, but I told the hotel about my situation and they could add another hour. But at 1pm the shuttle is gonna take me back to the airport which means that I have to sit there and wait for more than two hours… Kinda sucks. But at least I have my eReader! Surprisingly easy to read on. I have read the whole way here and it’s better than the big, fat book! I love it!

The first flight was only 50 minutes and then I had to stay one hour in Phoenix, AZ. Then two and a half hour to Houston, TX. I don’t understand why there has to be stopvers all the time. Houston isn’t that far from San Diego, and a 50 minute flight, that’s kinda ridiculous. But there were no problems and it was actually pretty nice reading that whole time.

Breakfast is at 9 tomorrow and the next hours I think I will just be in my room, maybe take a warm bath, it was such a long time ago! Or maybe sleep some more.

Before I got here I was at my second LCC meeting. We were at Boomer’s Park in Vista where we played mini golf and laser tag. We bought three tickets but we didn’t have time for go kart. Waste of money…

I think it’s time to go to sleep now, Texas is two timezones away from California, so it’s 1:30am now…

  My au pair group!