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.

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 first day in Las Vegas is at its end. It’s very late and we kinda just got home from a night tour with the most important things to see here in LV. We saw the Venitian, the Volcano show outside of the Mirage, the Freemont Street Experience (a super big LED screen as a roof over the whole street which shows a show every hour) and the Bellagio fountain. It was a little stressy so we didn’t really get a good look at everything from outside but I guess we will have plenty of time for that tomorrow after the Grand Canyon West Rim Tour.

Our day started with a bus tour from Los Angeles to Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas and then to Circus Circus. I didn’t expect me to buy anything at the mall but I couldn’t resist, so I  bought two pair of new jeans shorts, Levi’s and American Eagle Outfitters. And after all the walking in the heat I’m glad I bought a pair of a little bit longer shorts. Even though we’re not walking especially much it hurts more in this heat when my thighs are rubbing together.

We arrived at the hotel at 3pm and we had three hours until the night tour. We decided to take a walk and first look around in the hotel. I had no idea how big the hotels here are. We were walking around for two hours just looking at everything! There is a big amusement park in the pink dome outside our window, who would have known? There are a lot of games to play for kids and of course the casino. It looks exactly like it does on the movies, a lot of one-armed bandits and poker tables. I want to try something tomorrow but I have no idea what. And I don’t know how to play cards, so I guess that narrows it down a bit.

Then we went on the tour and it was as annoying as the busride here. Almost everyone on the bus were Asians so the guide spoke in bad English and some kind of Asian language. Since I’m used to how Americans behave and how nice they are it was hard trying to keep up the good spirit when all the tourists behaved like stupid tourists. But I mean, it’s common sense to apologize when you step on someone’s foot or push them into the spinning door… Just two more days and then we’re on our own in San Francisco, can’t wait!

Tomorrow we will be getting up at 5am to see the amazing Grand Canyon, and which we have to pay $80 per person extra because of some stupid scam thing or whatever. The tour is called: “3-day tour to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon from Los Angeles”. It should be included…

The weather today has been a little unusual. The temperature has been higher than it usually is and it is gonna be hotter these next three days. Today it was 113F (45C) which I thought was okay as long as I didn’t stay outside for too long but they are telling us on the news that it will be 117F three days straight. I hope it will be 118F tomorrow, that means I will be part of history since it never have been warmer than 117 here in Las Vegas!

The Mojave Desert. Believe it or not, under this dome is a big theme park! Part of the Circus Circus casino. The Venetian. Inside the Bellagio hotel. The Bellagio pool.

The roadtrip has begun and we just arrived at the hotel in LA after a horrible busride from Oceanside. First of all the bus was 1,5h late, the seats were really uncomfortable and it smelled like pee in the bus. First and last time I’ll ever go with Greyhound.

But now we’re here and tomorrow morning at 7am the tour bus will take us to Las Vegas and I think the hotel Circus Circus. I can’t believe I’m gonna be in Vegas tomorrow.

We had a very calm day today. We went to the library and printed some things and then we spent three hours reading at the pool. It was a very hot day but when we were waiting for the bus it was cold instead. The weather is weird here.

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.

After my second hiking trip up Mt Woodson Trail to the Potato Chip Rock I’m barely alive. I definitely had better clothes on today, shorts and very comfy sandals. But it was horrible anyway. It started with a blister on top my left foot under the leather strip. I tried putting on a band-aid but in 90F it fell off pretty soon thereafter. But as soon as the broken blister got full of sand it stopped hurting so it was okay. But when we were like 50m away from our goal I felt another blister break on my right foot and I couldn’t walk in my sandals at all so I actually went barefoot for a while but the sand was too hot so I bit my tongue and kept going anyway.

On our way up we stopped a lot of times and took a ‘fika’ consisting of water melon, Singoalla and graham crackers. We got new energy but it soon disappeared again. I didn’t have as much trouble with the heat as mom and Moa had. I actually really enjoyed it almost all the way up tp the top. But then it just went downwards… First the blisters and then my balance decided to give up and I stumbled on a rock and almost faceplanted. Fortunately I saved myself with my hands so I didn’t hit the face in the ground but my left leg is all messed up and it started bleeding from the knee. Now I can’t bend it properly and it stings like I don’t know. I think there is a lot of sand in there still, but I couldn’t get it out in the shower.

Almost at the bottom again, after nearly 6 hours, it started burning under our (at least mine and moms) feet. So I don’t think it matters if you have Converse, sandals or comfy tennis shoes, it still hurts after an 8 mile long hike up in the mountains.

Mom got pretty hurt as well, but in her ribs. When she was climbing down from the rock she needed help but she hit the ribs right into a rock and have some serious trouble walking now. I feel sorry for her and hope it will be better soon!

After the hike we all three went to my house, took showers and then me and Moa went grocery shopping for the bbq tonight. We bought a piece of marinated beef, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and corn cobs. The dinner was delicious and for dessert we had bananas with chocolate and vanilla ice cream which was way better than expected because we found chocolate that tastes almost exactly like Marabou!! I’m not sure if that is such a great thing though to be honest ;). It was me, mom, Moa, Kristel and Jessica and we had an awesome evening with really good food!

Yesterday we spent at Las Americans Premium outlet mall. We saw the Mexican border, a Swedish family (and I think we’ve seen and heard Swedish people almost every day since mom got here. It really is vacation times now. I just bought a $10 tank top from Levi’s and a tiny soccer ball to the boy. His birthday is coming up (in a month) and I think that would be a good b-day gift for him since he loves soccer.

After the shopping I wanted to show her Coronado Beach but that was a really bad idea. It was windy like crazy and instead of having a nice afternoon at the beach we got sand everywhere. It was sad because that beach is usually very pretty.

We drove home and then had dinner at Famous Dave’s. I love that restaurant, the food is amazingly good! We shared a ‘Feast for Two’ and now we have so much leftovers in the fridge I can’t believe it. That plate was like four dinners. Don’t know when we are gonna have time to eat it since we are leaving for Los Angeles and Las Vegas tomorrow.

I’m gonna bring my computer but I’m not sure how often I will be able to update the blog during the trip. If I don’t have access to Internet I will post everything when I get back to San Diego next Friday!

Good night!

The Mexican border at Las Americas outlet mall. Another disturbing thing at the beach yesterday was these planes circling above us. There also were like 7 helicopters. I think it might have been a drill of some sort.  Lake Poway Mom on Potato Chip Rock. It doesn’t look like much but it really hurts and I have a really big and long graze under the bleeding on the knee. Stupid mountain :(.
All of us were covered in dirt after and my shoes completely changed color from black to brown.

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

This day was amazing! I love animals and I love sea animals more. SeaWorld was definitely a place for me. We came there at 11am, left at 8pm and saw everything. We didn’t go on any ride except the Skytower but we saw all the shows and after this day I’ve changed my mind again about what I want to be when I grow up, a Sea World trainer! They must have so much fun at work.

When I was going to buy my Funcard (rest of the year for free) the line was at least 45 minutes long… They had some land animals too, like this armadillo. There was a show with trained animals, so adorable! The show Blue Horizon included bottlenosed dolphins and pilot whales. The dolphins were jumping super high and soaked everyone in the Soaked Zone. I love dolphins! The dolphin is not lying on the bridge, he is jumping from the water… Pilot whales jumping. I want to learn how to surf like this! “Goodbye and thanks for watching!” Beluga whale. A humungus walrus! Penguins that live in warm climate. Unfortunately we didn’t take any pictures of the emperor penguins. It was too dark in the exhibit, but they were really cool! Two types of puffin birds. Some type of shark. A tiny hammerhead shark. Nurse shark. Sea lions at Sea World and in the wild sunbathe in the exact same position. You could feed the sea lions if you bought fish and this guy was waiting for a very long time for someone to buy food and throw in his mouth. This show was amazing, Sea Lions LIVE! First it was a SLSI (CSI) where the sea lion was a crime investigator catching “the otter guy”. This guys name was Seamore and first he had the ball on his nose, then he jumped in the water, swam with the ball still on his nose and then jumped over a bar, still with the ball on his nose!! How can you train an animal to do that? And how can he do that?? Dancing with the sea lions was another sketch. And of course they did the Gangnam Style dance. That was just too funny!! The show One Ocean with the famous killer whale Shamu and his 5 friends (this isn’t Shamu, he has a bent fin). They are big, and they jumped pretty high! So amazing! People in the soaking zone were soaked. It looked like they had taken a shower with their clothes on. We didn’t sit in the soaking zone, it was a bit too cold and mom had her fancy camera. In February this year one of the killer whales got a baby. They were swimming in a pool next door. Here’s Shamu, and I can’t help but to think of the movie Free Willy where the killer whale also had a bent fin. Is she unhappy? The Skytower looked like the Lisebergstower in Gothenburg in the winter. A very funny turtle. Don’t remember the name but he looks like a pig. Black Nemos.

It was a really awesome day and the next time I’ll go, I’m gonna swim with the dolphins :).

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.

Now I’ve finally seen the sea lions in La Jolla. It was such a wow-experience. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen them at a zoo before. But that was in the afternoon. In the morning me and my mom sat down with my computer and booked everything for the big roadtrip. It took many hours but at last at 2pm everything was done and we are ready to leave on Thursday evening.

First we are going to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon combined in a $100 tour. So we have two nights in Las Vegas and a tour from there to Grand Canyon South Rim.  That’s a three day tour and we will go back to San Diego on Sunday just to stay the night at the house. From Monday morning we have a rental car and we will drive up to San Francisco along Highway 1. We are gonna stay in SF 3 nights and while we’re there we will go to Yosemite National Park for one day. We have also planned on seeing the Redwood and maybe Alcatraz, we’ll see about tickets when we get there, online they’re sold out :(. Back to LA on Thursday to spend the night there and see a few things there before driving back to Carlsbad on Friday. It’s gonna be so fun to see everything and after we still have some days here in San Diego. I’m really excited! $1300 for everything is a reasonable price.

At 3pm we drove down to La Jolla. It was amazing to see the sea lions lying there on the cliffs like dead seals. I’m thinking about going back to snorkel there, that would be cool! There were also a lot of pelicans and squirrels. I know they are pests, but they are cute! When we had walked a long time along the water we decided to return to the car and when we did we saw dolphins out in the water. There were a lot of them! And I saw one jump high above the water again. Unfortunately mom missed it because she was taking pictures but I guess we will see plenty of jumping dolphins tomorrow at Sea World.

We had dinner at Stone Brewing in Escondido. The food was really good, don’t know about the beer since I was driving. It’s really nice atmosphere there and I kinda wished we would have gone a little later when it was dark. They have a big garden outside where you can sit down amongst a lot of lights. Last time I saw it, it was so pretty. But I had a nice time anyway. But I have to admit, I am exhausted, I’m not used to this tempo when it comes to doing things. I’m having fun though and can relax rest of the year :).

These were pushing eachother off the cliff all the time. Mom got to see wild dolphins after just four days here in California!

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 summer continues and every day so far has been filled with fun stuff to do. This morning started with beach volleyball as usual but this time my mom was with me. She didn’t play but enjoyed hanging at the beach for a few hours. At noon, when I felt like I was done playing for the day we drove to the phone repair shop and they had found what was wrong with it. One petal inside the charge hole was completely broken off. They ordered a new piece to fix it and they would probably get it by Monday and hopefully to a not so expensive price.

Back home, had a small lunch in the backyard and then did some planning. We have a lot of things to see and do this upcoming week, like Swedish midsummer celebration, La Jolla Cove, Sea World, Potato Chip Rock, Julian and barbecue. And on Thursday it’s time for the big roadtrip. First we are gonna start with a three-day trip to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon from LA and then drive up to San Francisco and Yosemite and then back to Los Angeles and San Diego. We are gonna make all the booking tomorrow morning before Balboa Park. This vacation is going to be the best ever! I hope mom doesn’t get totally worn out.

We had a little ice cream in the backyard and then drove to Del Mar to San Diego County Fair. When we got there and were one of a million car we realized it might have been a little stupid to go there on a Saturday evening. We got a spot in the very back of the parking lot but we were inside by 7pm and started the night with a pig race show. So cute!

Then we just walked around, looking for something to eat. There were too much, it was so hard to decide. I was boring and had a pizza slice. Some more walking and for dessert I just had to try the deep fried ice cream. The kids have told me so much about it. I liked it, but I thought it was gonna be better than it was. So next time I’m gonna skip it and maybe try the deep fried cookie dough ;).

The fair was huge and there were so many food stalls and attractions. I had no idea how big this thing was. But apperantly it is Americas fourth biggest fair and during that one month they have more than 1.5 million visitors.

At 11pm we drove home and now I’m so exhausted I can’t see straight. A good and long night of sleep before another eventful day tomorrow. Good night everyone!

I didn’t try any of these weird American things… Bacon is good, cotton candy is good, but together? I find that very hard to believe! I think it was Big Time Rush playing. That would make the young girls’ screams make sense. Deep fried ice cream.