Halloween

 It's Halloween weekend, and the celebrations started on Thursday with a party for all international students at SF State. The night before we made the living room into an "art and crafts" room where we made a boat, fishing net, cloths etc. Ah, gotta love Halloween. 

Preparations. Maria and Stine

On the bus towards the party. We did get some weird looks...

Tone, the Viking, Maria and Stine, the Sailors.

Katja, the Burrito. 

The Boat

Medusa

Tone, me and Camilla. 

Svampebob

Viking

Hippie

 I wish we had Halloween more than once a year. 

*IDA*

Drive in - drive through

Taking our orders while in the line...

 It was due for some proper American lifestyle, so we decided to take it all out. Last night Genevieve took us (Stine, Hannah and me) to San Jose for a drive in movie. We started with drive through "In-n-out" burgers (did not leave the car) and then Puss in Boots, big popcorns and sodas and finished up with Footloose and more popcorn. We only left the car when we had to pee. Amazing!

Genevieve, waiting for the food. 

 No wonder this country has an obesity problem. If you don't want to, you don't have to walk anywhere.

Genevieve and me waiting for the movie to start. 

Celeb Hunting

 Another awesome weekend in California has past. After a three course meal with my fantastic flatmates and two guests, a testing of the nightlife of SF and three hours of sleep I met up with the other girls for the first real  road trip in a while. Destination: Los Angeles.

 We drove down Highway 1 which had an amazing nature. The weather was good, but the further south we got the fog was laying as a blanket over the sea. It was actually quite cool.

Sealions

 We stopped at different lookouts along the way where there were cute small cafes and cabins. We also saw sea lions. We did a small detour and drove past Solvang which is a small Danish town.

Solvang

Really late on Friday night, we finally made it to LA and our cosy hotel Motel6. No matter what people say (normally people don't like this city), I liked it. Maybe not to live in, but for a few days as a tourist; it's bloody awesome. I actually wish we had more time. The first day we drove to Hollywood Blv and had a walk around. Then we went up the mountains a bit to get a view of the Hollywood sign and the whole city.

We had lunch at Urth Cafe in Santa Monica. It was a busy place, but great food. Santa Monica has 340 sunny days a year, but fog the day we went there. Typical!

On the way we also stopped by Bevely Hills to look at houses. There are some seriously gigantic houses there. I wouldn't mind to have one of those one day.

Halloween-House

 Then, after a long day, we went to the Grove. It was a impressive shopping centre, outside. It was decorated with light and flowers everywhere, kind of like christmas. So I wouldn't mind seeing how it looks like with Christmas decorations. In the middle they also had a fountain coordinated with music from a live band.  

I don't have the photos yet from the last day, but I'll post another post when I get them. 

Ida

After 2 months and 6 days in the city, I made an escape...

It's Sunday and time for a little update. The weeks here fly past so quickly, it's almost insane.
Last weekend was quiet. Friday night, Stine and myself was watching gossip girl and went to bed early. Saturday I had school as usual and went out with the Norwegians to a local bar for a beer. Most of us in the house had midterms exams this Wednesday, so Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was spent studying. On Wednesday we decided to go out for sushi and Jazz. The jazz place ended up being too packed so we did it the Irish way instead.

Thursday night we redecorated the house.

Friday night we stayed home and played games, me, Stine, Maria and Maria's friend from Denmark, Signe. I'm really surrounded by Danes these days. 

Saturday, I went to school again to do anatomy. I'm really becoming a geek over here, but I actually enjoy it. Anatomy lab is just so interesting. And next week we will start with the digestive system. Later on Saturday night we took our dancing shoes with us to Temple in the city.

Playing "kortskalle" and dancing. 

The crazy Danes on the Muni. Maria and Signe. 

We have started a very good tradition over here: get out and do something on sundays. Normally Sundays are such a boring day, so why not do something fun. Therefore, we took the bart (train) over the bridge and to Berkeley. It's such a nice little town and the Berkley Campus was also very, very nice.

Anna - the real tourist

Genevive, me, Stine, Marte, Anna and Tone

Just the fire trucks here...

Coffee break. 

Then it started to get darker and we were tired after an amazing day - so home we went. 

I'm going to Los Angeles and Hollywood next weekend. I can't wait!

Bye for now,
Ida