californiabylagesson

Got over to Dan’s house around 6pm yesterday and Svenja didn’t show up until 7pm, because she had to work a bit longer than usually. Thing was she got all the stuff with her as well so we couldn’t start to bbq without her.

When she Did arrive she told me she had eaten the whole bag of chips we had got since she was feeling really sick earlier that day, a whole bag! But that was about all she had eaten for the whole day. Crazy!

Anyway, we started to chop down the potatoes and boiled them for a while so they got softer, then we put the salmon in ten foil with olive oil, lemon pepper and a piece of lemon. In another wrap we but the potatoes with copped onions, some olive oil and salt and pepper.

It all didn’t take longer than 10-15 min on the grill, and it turned out really good.

Oh, by the way, did I tell you what Dan had?

-Hot dogs! Not even real sausage, but hot dogs. Uwwe!

I offered to get whatever he wanted but Nooooo. For “desert” he had toasted waffles with syrup and also a bag of popcorn.

- So now you know where I get my bad food habits from!

Today, after dropping of Brian at school, I’m going over to see my local au pair, -whatever it’s called. She’s going to help me to fill in the paper I got for going home. When that’s done I can send them in and hopefully soon find out what my options are what date I can go home. I’m aiming for the middle in August.

Some might already know there’s going to be a party when I get home, it’s going to be the 21^st of Aug. My mum already booked the local, same as for my goodbye party, but hopefully we can be outside too and bbq.

I thought it was a bit too early on to invite people but I guess it’s good to tell them already though, since its summer and they are planning to go away sooner or later.

I’m so excited!

Catch you on the flip side!

Friday we had plans to finally go out in Brooklyn one last time together. After work, I went to see a French au pair me and S met when we played mini golf. His name is Kevin and comes from Paris, so cool. He has been here for almost a year now but is going over to California, San Francisco, for another year. I know there’s one girl I went to the au pair school who’s going to stay for another year as well, but in the same family.

Anyway, back to Friday evening. After meting up with Mr French I went to pick up Svenja and then we picked up some dinner at Panera bread and went over to my place.

We had our delicious sandwiches and salads. I’m really going to miss Panera!

Around 10.30pm Fatma picked us up to take us to the train, but of course Svenja had looked up the train for Saturdays instead (not on purpose, of course) so we had to wait till 11.20pm before the train came. Just after midnight we got in to Penn station and from there we decided to take a cab to Brooklyn.

Since I’ve been to the bar twice before with Kathy, I knew where to walk from the subway station, but we ended up further down the street with the cab. We got out and though it must just be around the corner. Time was now about 1am.

We walked around, asking people but I had forgotten the name of the bar, so we tried everything to get near the place.

At one point we stopped an asked a man on the street where the subway was, but he was just to ask the same And he was also German as Svenja noticed right away. Next person helped us finally and around 2am we stumbled in to the bar, with the man of directions.

Lunchbag drinkin

At the Royal oak

Outside the bar, when closing. Svenjas two friends and the tall one is Ben

Me n Svennybanan

We had a good time at the bar as usually and Svenja made friends with someone she thought looked like Obama (trust me, he didn’t).

At 4am we got kicked out and where about to take the subways back to penn and wait for the first morning train at 7am, but the directions guy, Ben, said we could just crash at his place until the train were running again. Since he was a 31 old middle school science teacher and the sun almost were up by the time we got back, I though it couldn’t hurt (and American horror movies always takes place during the night, and not in Brooklyn).

We crashed on the sofa for a few hours and didn’t got all the way back to Westfield until 2pm, takes about 2 h to get there from B-town.

Our feet were hurting so much and when walking home from the train station, the ground was so freaking hot from the sun we got burned. We know we looked funny as hell running from one hot spot to a piece of grass, since people were laughing at us!

Back in westfield

Around 4pm Svenja dropped me off at Dan’s house, then I took a quick nap an around 6pm we went over to his fathers house where he had a bbq for Ryan, Dan’s brother who just graduated from High School.

We had pina coladas and I kicked Dan’s ass in some game where you throw beanbags into a wooden plank with a whole in. We had tons of food and were all sitting outside in the garden. At night you could see all the light bugs, something I though was only in the cartoons, like Robin Hood, but it’s something that really exists. All of it was really nice and American to bad I was still really tired and exhausted from the night in Brooklyn.

Next morning I got picked up at 9.30am by Janis parents. My host family went down to their beach house Saturday morning, so we just went down there for the day to celebrate father’s day.

It took about one hour to get there and the weather was really nice, warm and a little bit breezy. It was the first time I saw the house, before I’ve only seen pictures.

It’s a two floor house with everything you need in a permanent staying and a big porch and backyard. Best of all is the lagoon right outside the house, you can go for a swim there too, it’s a bit warmer than in the ocean.

Just a 5 min walk away is the beach and it was really nice, reminded me a lot of our Swedish beaches. Since not many people know about this place it’s only those who have beach houses that goes there so it was far away from crowded and most people knew eachothers.

After 5 hours on the beach we went back to the house and I took a shower before dinner, outside! So nice and there was both warm and cold water.

At the beach, Janis n Louise. (around 5pm, so it doesn't look as sunny anymore).

The beach

Outdoor shower, best shower I took in a while

"backyard" and lagoon

Lagoona

Louise, Annie, Brian, Thea, Janis and Jerry

Dinner was barbequed ribs, steak and chicken, with salad and potato salad. Really good! We also had a big plate of fruit before we packed everything up and went home.

Great day!

Today and the rest of the week it’s going to be around 30 C, one or two days of thunderstorms but usually it’s only for a few hours, if even that long.

Tonight we planned on having a bbq at Dan’s place, we got stuff this Friday but we canceled it so way not tonight when it’s going to be nice all day long.

For me and Svenja we got fresh salmon that we going cook in foil with potatoes, onions and butter. For Dan we got gross hotdogs and bread. Not even real sausage, no he only eats hot dogs filled with so called meat. Well, his choice.

Now I’m going back for a few more hours of sleep so my ears can chill down a little, see I got a bit burned yesterday because I forgot putting sun lotion on them.

Catch you on the flip side!

This morning I took Janis to the train, got back, woke up Annie and made her lunch, and that’s about it. 20 min of work today can’t complain!

Brian is going with Curt to the city that’s why I don’t need to work any. Thought I have no idea what to do with my day off. The weather isn’t the best today; otherwise I’d just go outside and enjoy the sun for the day. Maybe it’s actually time to start studying for the driving license…

Monday evening my host parents went to a car dealer and ended up buying a new car, I call it the batmobile because it’s black and awesome. It’s a Nissan and that’s pretty much all I know about it. I wonder who’s going to drive it, since this is out third car. Right now I’m driving the van all the time but I’m not very fond of it, also it feels stupid driving a 7 persons car all alone, and I don’t mean it as I don’t have any friends (I got about a million of those), but all the gas and it’s so clumsy!

After dinner, Monday, Svenja picked me up and we went to one of hers au pair meetings. Today the, sk. Meeting, was at a mini golf course in Scotch Plains, just about 3 min away from me. We played together with two other girls, one from Kina and a new girl from Germany. The Chinese girls English was really good, I was impressed! Usually they have a really bad accent but she was way better than me and Svenja. The German girl by the other hand had the typical German accent, but she was new so I hope she’ll get over it.

After playing we were on our way to the car when a guy au pair started to talk to be and asked how the game was. We started to talk and he told me he was from France (not very had to notice from the very hard accent). Funny thing was he told me he noticed me when we were playing because I was so tall! I felt like a was two meters tall at that point ( you see over here, being tall feels like to be called a freak, since everyone, women and men, usually only reaches up to my chin).

Anyway, we talked all the three of us for a while before we decided to all go to Rock and Joe’s for a late coffee. The whole way over Svenja and Kevin, the French guy, spoke French all the time, Svenja learnt French for about 4-5 years if I remembered it right and seemed to understand most of what he was saying. I understood about 1%.

Yesterday, Tuesday, we had breakfast with a Swedish au pair, Madde, at my house. In the beginning we used to hang out a lot but then we kind of went different ways but we always stayed friends of course. Madde is going home in about 2 weeks; it’s crazy how everyone is starting to leave now. Svenja only have 20 more days and that just sucks!

Talking all about this; going home stuff, I felt a desire to go to Ikea. So yesterday after work I went over to pick up Dan, and having some discussion with his mum about his bad food habits, we went to pick up Svenja too. I think we got to ikea just before 8pm, because I had planned to get some meatballs for dinner but almost right when we got there, there was an announcement that the restaurant was closed! I got a bit upset so instead I bought some stuff down in the Swedish foodshop; “Kexchoklad”, “Kardemumma skorpor” and “mjölkchoklad” . And there’s still some left, believe it or not!

My homemade suit..bag? Last july, in our old kitchen apparently!

I had some mail discussion with my au pair organization lately. They have their head office in California so I never met the “boss” or whatever she is. The discussion mainly was about me going home and what airport I’m going from, they say JFK, I say Newark, I think she said I can go from Newark now actually. Also I complained about that the new airline rules are that you are only allowed to bring one suitcase. How brings ONE suitcase after one year over here? I got al least 3 check in bags plus hand luggage and computer bag.

I told her the organization should pay for it since they send me over here with two suitcases, it didn’t went very well, she just got annoyed by me, it was worth a try at least!

I already had to pay $ 50 for the one bag Pontus took with him home, and then I’m going to have to pay about $100 more for the two extra bags I’m going to bring back with me. Sucks!

Within a month I have to let them know what date I want to go home, I think I know when but I’m just going to wait a week or two before I let them know, and everyone back home. I still got about 2 more months so no rush! Right?

Catch you on the flip side!

An hour ago I had 8 chocolate chip cookies and one cheese thingy. I’ve felt sick ever since!

This week have past by fast even though I haven’t been doing very much. I wonder if we ever will take the driving license, I really hope so, it’s a cool memory to bring home with me.

Today I send a old co worker from Lindex and email asking for the email address to my boss. She didn’t have it but I’ll keep looking and see if I can figure it out somehow.

The plan is to get some hours in a store, hopefully in Malmö, for the fall and winter. I’d like to be in the boutique in Malmö city because I know there’s a different tempo and it would be fun with a different flow.

Tonight we had some plans about going to the city, well actually, b-town (Brooklyn) but the weather is kind of boring witch makes me not in the mood to go. So right now we have no plans yet, if the weather allows we’ll go to the city tomorrow during the day though. Hopefully we can go to b-town a weekend before Svenja leaves at least.

Btown, dec last y. With Kady n Svenny. Good old times!!

For you who don’t know, Svenja is going home to Germany the 6^th of July. You probably know my feelings about that too. Not very happy!

I’m working till end of July, actually my contract is till the 20^th of August, but since my family are going down to their beach house in the end of July they don’t need me working any more.

I guess plans so far are to hang around for at least 2 weeks, maybe more, I’m allowed to stay legal on my visa here until sep 20^th.

Time will tell.

At least I made up my mind for my new “plans”, but I won’t tell yet, I haven’t even started to start. But I will!

To quote bike mike;

Don’t hate the flow

__________________________________________________

Catch you on the flip side.

First a short summary about Pontus last days;

Thursday we went to six flags as planned, we got there at 10am when they opened and before we went in I had one toasted bagel and one and a half glazed donut.

After the first rollercoaster we got on I thought I’d see my breakfast again but I was fine.

Of course the guys had planned to go on the world’s highest rollercoaster, “Kingda ka”, but I told them I would never go on it. You should google the name and see yourself on youtube, it’s insane! 139 meters high!!

The six flags park contained mainly  rollercoaster’s, and I think we tried almost all of them, some, Dan told us, you shouldn’t go on if you didn’t wanted your neck to snap. Though I already had neck problems since 2 days back and I can tell you that later that night I had to move my whole upper torso to be able to turn my head. AJ!

Friday we went to the city and the weather was great, we did some uptown sightseeing and around 8pm when we got back, we went with Svenja and Dan to “outback steakhouse” and then to see the premier of the movie “Take him to the greek”. Great movie, funny as hell!

Saturday we had no car around so we mainly chilled and around 6pm, when we got the car, we went to Jersey gardens mall for some last minute shopping.

Sunday it was time to pack the bags, P had brought a smaller bag for me to pack some stuff for him to bring home. I thought he was allowed to bring two bags á 23 kg each, apparently not, he had to pay $50 for mine, but rather that then leaving half my stuff back here.

This week, so far has been calm one. Yesterday we went to see “Sex and the city 2”. Everyone said it was soooo bad but I thought it was fine. 2 hours and 27 minutes… so at least we got our money worth it.

Hopefully we’ll make up some sweet plans for the weekend, but I just saw it’s supposed to rain, so we’ll see.

Now I’m going to take Brian to school and then go over to Svenja, for lunch, we’re going to a sushi restaurant, yummie!

Catch you on the flip side!

We picked Pontus up Friday around noon and managed to take a detour on the way home, but not as far as Dan did when we got home from Mexico; he still got the award for getting lost the most!

Already that night we went out on adventures. Dan had a frat brother how rented a beach house down the shore so around 9pm he picked us up at Svenjas place and we drove almost 1,5h to get there (thought it was closer). When we finally arrive Dan tries to call his friend, but no one answers!

Later we found out he had started to drink around noon and was more than done by now. Since we drove that far we though it was a shame to just go home, so we opened a beer/Smirnoff (closest I can get to cider around here) and it didn’t take long until Svenja got a potential husband- well according to him at least!

We stayed for maybe 2 hours before we went home.

Dan, a dude, Pontus n Svenja

Saturday morning we sat outside on our porch in the sun and were talking about what to do. Since my whole host family was away for the weekend I had no car.

We decided to go to NYC for the day and an hour later we sat on the train the three of us.

When we got in to Penn station we took the subway all the way down to Brooklyn, to walk over the bridge. It was warm but not too warm, the weather have been and still is, either really, really warm or rain and thunder.

After the bridge we went through Chinatown and had a snack at a bakery. Then we walked over to Broadway and from there to the Westside to walk on the highline.  The highline and the Brooklyn bridge are two of my favorite places in the city, at the highline I saw they are renovating so there will be 2 more parts all the way up to 30^th St, right now it starts around 10^th St if I remember it right. Sweet!

By then we walked for a few hours and it was time to walk back to Penn and go home. I think we got home around 8 and directly started to cook some dinner. We made tacos and sat outside since it was still nice and warm, before we went to bed we had the time to both go in the hot tub and watch the movie “The proposal”.

Sunday we got up early to go to Washington D.C. Dan was so nice and had promised to drive us when I gave him a deal that me and Pontus would pay for gas and food.

It took about 4 h to get there and I drove the 2 first hours and then Dan the two remaining, though it didn’t feel that far at all. We got there around noon and managed to park really close to everything we wanted to see.

First we went to the Washington memorial, a big tower, kind of cool actually. From there we went straight down to the WW2 memorial (I think this was the name of it) and then walked along the reflecting pool to get to the Lincoln memorial. If you have seen the movie “Forest Gump”, this is where he holds a speak or whatever he does and when then Jenny runs up to him, through the pool. It’s also a place where the president holds speeches of course.

To see the Lincoln statue was really cool, it was one of three things I really wanted to see in D.C.

From the Lincoln memorial it took more than half an hour to walk to the capitol complex, I don’t know if I told you it was about 30 C the whole day and for some reason it’s never windy around here. We took a break before it was time for the last stop, the White house!

Every time we went under a tree or something else that gave us shadow I had to stop and wait for a few seconds, it was really warm but still far away as warm as in the jungle in Mexico.

When we got up to the white house it was mainly just to take a few pictures and have a look. It was really cool to see it, even though we only stayed for maybe 5 minutes.

White house

Before we went home again we went in to an Aquarium and saw for example the biggest lobster I ever seen!

Back home in Jersey we had plans to go to ‘Outback’ an Australian steakhouse, but when we got there they were closes because of memorial weekend, though someone told us T.G.I.F was opened so we just went over there instead.

Monday I was still of since it was Memorial Day. We had plans to go to the city but when we looked at the weather it said it would start to rain later that afternoon so instead we went over to Dan’s and a couple of his friends were over there too. They were bbq-ing but since we just had breakfast we just had some Rita’s we bought on the way over.

We played something similar to baseball but with like no rules at all, mainly just to hit the ball they through at you and then try to catch it. Apparently I didn’t do to bad but I never really got what was going on.

Just before 5pm we had to leave to go over to Svenjas for a memorial bbq with her family and family friends. We had good food and good desert and Jason was almost, almost a little tiny bit nice to us.

Today, Tuesday, I’m taking Pontus to the Menlo Park mall for some shopping. We were suppose to leave in half an hour but a while ago a man came to fix a  leak in the ac so I have to wait for him to get done before I can take a shower and get ready.

If everything works out we’ll go to Six flags on Thursday, and tomorrow or Friday (during the day) we’ll go to Jersey gardens mall for more shopping.

Saturday, probably the city and maybe we’ll go out with Svenja and Chris. Looks like we got some plans going on!

Never had the time to update yesterday so here’s the plan for the rest of Pontus staying.

Thursday we Are going to six flags, I’m only going to work the morning and Friday I

don’t have to work at all!

Friday we’ll all go to Jersey gardens mall, Thea’s hopefully driving. At night it’s the new movie “Take him to the Greek” and also dinner at Outback steakhouse.

Saturday we decided to go in to the city during the day for some sightseeing and at night we’ll go in again to meet up with Svenja and Chris. Sunday it’s time to pack everything and we’ll go to the airport around 3pm.

Wow, I don’t think there’s a hour we haven’t planned! :P Though it’s not stressful just well planned! Sweet!

Now I’m taking Brian to school, then pick up Shoprite gift cards at the temple, ShopRite, and then we all going over to Dan to hang by his pool, hopefully get a nice tan since then one from Mexico is gone going!

Catch you on the flip side!