californiabylagesson

 

I’m sorry I haven’t update in a while. I actually wrote an update Friday afternoon but for some reason I never published it.

I’ve been a bit down the last couple of days, I think the reason is too much sleep and also the calorie diet I’m on. I slept too much and the lack of sugar I’m so used to (for the last 20 years) makes me weird I think.

 

This week it’s spring break for all the kids in Scotch Plains and Westfield. This means I’m off and Svenjas has to work about 10 hours/day. My family goes to Colorado tomorrow to skiing for 5 days but Annie is going to stay home. All I have to do is take her to gymnastic and give her a ride if she needs one.Tomorrow the weather is going to be nice again, and from now on it’s just going to get warmer and warmer! It's summertime soon!!

 

Saturday afternoon we went to the city to see Daniel and his friend Chris. The evening included Swedish pancakes with strawberries and ice cream, a bottle of wine and our friend Captain Morgan. The night was thereafter spending at 2 bars and one club and I had a great time :)

 

 

Chris n Svenja

 

Me n Chris

 

Daniel n Svenja at the club

 

In the taxi home, getting a good night kiss?

 

 

Sunday evening I went over to see Dan after his 32hours of Dance marathon (for charity), he looked like shit haha. I told him to get a shower but all he wanted to do was sleep for.. probbably ...32 hours.

 

Sleepy?

 

Monday they'd let us know about the home assignment for the Dansish college, I'm both nervous and excited to see if I can figure it all out! Yeasterday I read it quickly through but since it’s in Danish I did have some trouble understanding parts of it, the important parts of course.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is a new day, a sunny day they told me. Tomorrow I’ll be fine, tomorrow I’ll take a look again at the assignment, and tomorrow I’ll do something that will make me feel better too. Tomorrow is not today.

 

 

Catch you on the flip side!

 Woke up this morning just before 2pm! I didn't go to sleep until 2am and since I still have a bad throat so I woke up several times coughing. When I finally dragged my ass out of bed, I spend about half an hour outside in the sun eating a ton of grapes. Í'm a bit amazed I got a tan already from these sunny days. Usually I'm white, or a Dan would say, as "snow on a paperplate". Well let's see who'll win this summer!

When I dropped of the kids at their activities at 5pm I went out for a short walk to enjoy the last sun for today, I'm soon about to pick up Brian again and tonight me and Svenja are going to get a coffee at Rock'n'Joe and talk about everything we didn't talk about earlier today:P

I talked to my mum today and she told me I got a letter, I hoped for two actually, one declaration letter (hopefully I'll get some cash back) and one from the Danish design collage. The last mentioned I got, which means I managed to fill in the application right in danish! (thanks Charlie!)
  The next step is now to do a home assignment and what the assignmnet will be they'll tell you the 29th of March, then you'll have until the 16th of April to get it done. You also could send in pictures on clothes you've made before so I'm thinking about sending in pictures on my feather-jacket, my pair of jeans and the red dress with suedeback.



The red dress with a suede back.



The Featherjacket,

 

The 23rd of April I'm going with Dan and his Fraternity to some formal dinner in Atlantic city! Whoo! I'm so excited, like a million times more excited than Dan are! Tonight I'm going over to ask Svenjas hostmum if I can borrow her sewing machine so I can do my home assignment for the collage and if I have the time I'll make a dress for Atlantic city too. It's been almost a year now since I've been sewing something and I go crazy everytime I look in a fashion magazine or something that just makes me wanna sew again!

When Collage is off for summer, me and Svenja have convinced Eddie to go with us on a roadtrip to Canada. I wanna see the Niagra falls and then either go to Toronto or to Montreal. It's going to be awesome! We just have to send our visas away to get stamped before we're allowed to go over the boarder, and since I haven't got my visa back from when I send it to get a stamp for Mexico, I'll do it in time before we're leaving!

 

The last two days, and so far today as well, I've kept myself to the caloridiet and stayed under 1500, actually under 1300 so far! Even though I still haven't been able to go to the gym or go outside for a run since my throat still can't be trusted. It's time to start living a little healthier and hopefully be able to fit in all those things that got a bit to tight the last couple of months. America just don't always do you well.

Catch you on the flip side!

I received an email from my mum last night. She hasn’t heard from me in a while so I think it’s time to update her and everyone else what I’ve been up to.
     Apparently my brother is going to help our mum to redo her kitchen since he has a couple of weeks of from school. It’s going to be fun to come back to the apartment and see everything new and redone.
   She also wrote to tell me that my grandparents got wireless internet now and are surfing around the internet as a couple of teenagers :P

So this Friday, me and Svenja dropped of Staffan at the airport, before we left, we went and get some Asian food. It was a bit sad he could only stayed for a week but we had time to do a lot of things still, and it was really fun he came over to visit!

 
A last 'walk' (dance?) in SP





  When we got home I went over to Dan´s house and hung out since he’s going back to collage this week. I wished to see “Napoleon dynamite” but he couldn’t get it to work so we could download it. Next time!
   Saturday morning me and Svenja had a nice breakfast on our porch and got a little bit tanned, it’s been over 20 C from Tuesday to Sunday – just like a Swedish summer! Nothing to complain about! 
     
Later that Saturday afternoon we went over to Eddie and hung out with him and his brother(s). We went to KFC (Kentucky fried chicken, it’s a fast-food restaurant) and I will for sure never put my foot in there again. UWE!! We also got ice-cream at “Ritas” and it was for free since it was the first day of spring- the day they opened the store again.




Eddie n Svenja at Rita's



Ich und Svenja




Later at KFC

 On Sunday I went to NYC. I walked over to Fanwood station to take the train at 11.45am but no train arrived at that time. Apparently the 11.45 train only ran on Saturdays, so I had to wait for another hour among all the other people who also thought there was a train arriving at that time. It takes about 25 min to walk to the station so it wouldn’t make sense if I’d walked back again, so I just went over to DD instead and got a coffee.

When I finally got in to the city, I took the subway down to Tribecka and met up with Daniel. We took a long walk through Battery Park, passed the Statue of Liberty (who looks much smaller than I thought) and then went to some restaurant where we sat down out in the sun with two Margaritas. It was a perfect sunny and nice day.



All the way out there, a little to the left.. Statue of Liberty



"Close up"


Later we went back to his apartment and started to watch “Brooklyn finest” but after 3 minutes I stated it was a boring movie so we just hung out until I took the train back around 9pm.
We realized it was much closer if I’d took the Path from World trade center to Newark and then the train back to Fanwood from there instead of going up to Penn station and then taking the subway down to Tribecka.
  Svenja was supposed to pick me up 10pm at Westfield but about 5 minutes before I got there I got a call from her saying her car was blocked and she couldn’t come. Luckily the weather was still nice so I just walked back home instead. It was a little creepy because there’s only a light every 50 meters and between it’s almost pitch black. Svenja kept me company on the phone so it was no problem really.


Today when I woke up I saw it had started to rain again. It’s still warm though and it’s suppose to be nice again later this week.
   Today is also the first day of my "calorie diet". I’ve been thinking for a while what kind of diet I wanna try but I think I’m going to try to just count the calories. If I stay around 1500 cal/day and exercise at least 4 times a week I will see results soon. Right?








Catch you on the flip side!

This morning after dropping the kids of at school, me and Staffan took the 8.27 train to the city. This time we didn’t got stuck thank God!
   When we got to Penn station, we took the subway down to the first stop in Brooklyn and walked the Brooklyn Bridge. The weather was beyond great! After taking a hell lot of pictures at the bridge, we walked into Chinatown, little Italy and Soho. We made a stop on Broadway to go into "Hollister" where we found a shirt and a jacket to Staffan. In this store only (stupid) models were working. It took us almost half an hour to pay and it was 4 people behind the counter to serve and the line wasn’t that long at all, they we’re folding, daydreaming and just looked totally high on happy mushrooms and pink elephants.

Luckily we got out in time and started walking uptown on Broadway, at Union square we went in different directions because I had to get back to Penn and take the 1.37pm train home (since I had to work). I told him to walk up Broadway and go to Rockefeller and go up on the roof to see the view over central park, empire state building and, well the whole city generally.
   I got on the train and went back and we had decided that he was supposed to take the train back at 4.17pm. 5 pm I went to pick him up in Westfield, but do you think there was a Swedish dude standing and waiting for me there?- NO, not at all!


Staffan at Brooklyn Bridge



The jump



My jump



Broadway, Soho



View over Central park from Rockafella



St Patricks's parade





Since he only had his Swedish phone and I tried to call him once before and failed, It made me kind of worried. But 20 minutes later I got a call from an unknown number and knew it was him. I picked him up ten minutes later and he told be about all drunk Irish (and wannabe Irish) people he saw earlier while passing the St Patricks parade on his way back to Penn.


Tomorrow we have plans to go to a park on Mountainside (if we can find it).  The girls are coming too and if the weather forecast doesn’t lie, it’s going to be as nice weather as it was today, which would be a temperature around 20 C (70 F). Tomorrow night there’s a school-play at Annie’s High school I want to go see. Annie already saw it and said it was good, but long. Actually it would just be fun to go to the High school and see what it looks like.

 Friday will be the last day in America for Staffan, so I will make sure he feels like he have done everything he had in mind doing over here. I’m going to drop him of at Newark airport around 8pm and his plane departs around 10.30pm. He will be back in Sweden Saturday afternoon and Sunday he’s going on skiing vacation so hopefully he’s back in time*.
  Saturday we are hopefully going spend in the city, I can see myself laying in the grass in central park and just enjoy the sun the whole day. Hopefully there’s some plans for the night too in the city.




A Hollister commercial?

First of all I want to announce that the Swedish guy is still alive!
Friday morning we started his visit by having a really big breakfast together with Svenja and Thea. I had him trying everything from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to American pancakes with butter and after he was full with all this stuff we went out for some errands. We ended up at Target, Harmon and at the shoe repair guy in S.P. 
   In the evening after I finished working we went over to Panera bread to get something to eat and we also went to ShopRite to pick up some junior mints (similar to “after eight” chocolate) since I got craving for them!
Just before 10pm we went over to Mountainside on route 22 to catch the new movie “She’s over my league” which we all thought was really funny. When we got home around midnight we were all so tired we fell asleep right away.

 
At harmon , Friday.



Ping pong turnament in my basement



A soccer game, more fun playing with 4 balls at the same time!



Me and Svenja at Panera before going to the movies.



When we woke up Saturday morning the rain was pouring outside, but it didn’t stopped us from going in to the city. First I went to pick up my boots from the shoemaker, when I got back I had a big bowl of oatmeal and then we got a ride to the train station by Janis.
   I did have some hopes for smaller amount of rain inside the city but God wasn’t on my side! I had plans to show him all the buildings since then we didn’t have to stand outside in the rain the whole day. First we went to the Public Library, then to Grand central station followed by St Patrick church.The last-mentioned was the only place I haven’t visited earlier, and I must say I really liked it. The church is located on 5th av, 50th street if I remember it right, just across from Rockefeller center. The church was designed/build in a gothic style and inside it looked much bigger then from the outside I thought. Inside it was all big and quiet; I think I’ll go there again actually.


Usually you go Away from Sweden to avoid rain!



St Patrick church



St P



Hopefully this is culture enough for a while..


   
When we walked away from the church we passed Rockefeller and also a Nintendo store, we just had to go inside and see if we could find a “Nintendo 8-bit”, you know the one we played all the time when we grew up (super mario1,2 &3). I found it – on the exhibition of all the old games – I fell in love! 




Outside Rockafella ( hahahah)



THIS is culture!



We saw about a million unwanted umbrellas...




Last stop, Times squere



At this point we had about 1 liter water in each of our shoes so we thought maybe it was time to get back to Penn station and take the first train home again. On the way back we passed Times Square and I also took him to the M&M store before we, wet, cold and hungry catch the 4.14pm train at Penn.
   After about 5 minutes after the train departed it stopped. I thought this was just to wait for another train to pass or something like that. – It wasn’t!

At this point ALL the NJ transit trains was standing still. After a while we started to get really annoyed since we were totally soaking wet and we were also starting to get really hungry at this point too. After a while the train conductor told us they couldn’t get a signal at all and it would take a while before we could reach Newark Penn station. Suddenly the kid next to us puked all over their seat, at that point I though, -this is going to be a long night!- And I was right about that!
   3-4 hours later we finally reached Newark, a trip that usually take about 20 minutes. Our train was the last one departing from New York Penn and of course we ended up taking that one. If we would have waited for the next one we would have the opportunity to take the bus instead.

So back at Newark we got a coffee to share and some weird cookie dough bar (Staffan got it and of course, not knowing what it was :P ) so we got enough energy to end our unpleasant adventure! Next step was to find a way home from Newark, there was still no departing trains from Newark so we had to find a bus, and there was one, somewhere 4 blocks away which departed 40 minutes later. When it was time, we got out in the rain again and ran over to all buss stop we could find to try to find the right one, this made us soaked wet AGAIN! Finally we got on the bus and it took us to Scotch Plains, well S.P route 22!
   On the way I texted Svenja asking if she could come get us but her host dad refused to let her go, both because of the weather and also because she's not allowed to go on the highway. Very thoughtful of him after she told him we’ve already been trying go get home for 5 hours, neither did he offer himself to go get us! My host parents had a wine club dinner at our house so none of them couldn’t go get us because of the wine and of the guests. I couldn’t get a hold on anyone else so I ended up calling Dan. He totally saved our asses when he picked us up from the busstop. The whole trip to get back took us 6 hours instead of 1, but it wasn’t the waiting part that was the most annoying thing- but because we were wet and cold!

When he picked us up we went over to get Svenja, who had been waiting the whole day for us to get home since we had plans to do something together, she had to work earlier that day and therefore she didn’t come with us to the city- lucky girl!
   We all ended up at Dan’s house, where we got warm clothes, beer and pancakes. They didn’t have any electricity because of the weather so they had lit up several candles all over the house- was nice and cozy. We all fell asleep on the couches and the next morning we all went back to my place to get changed and to get some breakfast before we went over to Menlo park mall.
   Staffan found a pair of jeans, some shirts and a hoddie and I ended up with two cardigans (I guess I was still cold the day before and wanted to be ready for the next storm?!). On the way back we went to Five guys, a hamburger restaurant, go get something “American”. I think we all rolled out from there when we were done, but it was good! We catch a movie, went over to Svenjas house and it took me about 3 minutes before I fell sleep.


- All this was because of the spider that I smashed in the bathroom the night before!



At Menlo park mall, first stop; Coffee!



They were waiting for me :P


Today we went to the Jersey garden mall during the day with Svenja and Thea. We only had about 2 h before we had to get back but I spend the last of my weekly salary there. I ended up with another cardigan, a shirt and some other stuff.
  When we got home we went over to ShopRite to get some stuff for the dinner tonight, I made the Thai wok as usually, only because they asked for it, next time I’ll ask if they trust me to make something new. Staffan wants to make a "Flying Jacob" before he leaves.

We had plans to go to Rock n’Joe café  tonight but Svenja had to work the whole evening and I’m honestly really tired so I’m just going to take Staffan to a close by mall to see if we can find a pair of pjuks for him since it’s the only thing he still wants to get before going home.

Around noon tomorrow we're going to a diner for breakfast/brunch and at night we either go to Rock n' Joe or to play some pool, I'm going to ask some other friends too if they wanna join us.





Catch you on the flip side!

I just wanted to say that Staffan is here and that I didn't ignored picking him up on the airport yesterday!

Janis train ran late yesterday so I picked her up just before 7pm and dropped her of at home, then I drove straight over to Newark ariport, terminal B. I stod just outside the "pick up" and waited for about 15 min before I started getting worried (after all I was the one who was a bit late now). I asked a cop if I could leave the car for just a few minutes, I went inside, I ran upstairs and I Finally found him, well first I passed him and then I heard a swedish dude calling for me and there he was!

We got home, got some dinner (the dinner I made earlier) and then went downstairs and just hung out. Today Thea and Svenja are coming over for breakfast and we're also going to target to pick up something for Svenja. Tonight we might go watch a new movie called "She's over my league" and probably get something to eat before too. I just looked outside and I can see the rain just wanna drip down as soon as I'm going to step outside! Next week it's going to be a couple of sunny days at least and we were talking about me letting Staffan in to the city himself then... Maybe he should go in the beginning of the week so he have a couple of days to find his way back again.



Me and Staffan Midsummer -07 (couldn't find any other pic on us actually)




Catch you on the flip side!

So I’m sitting here, down in my basement and it’s about 3 hours until Staffan gets to Newark and I can pick him up. This morning when I opened my emails I’d got one email from my mum saying Staffans first flight was delayed so he missed the second one from London to Newark. But I got the new flight number and been tracking it from the internet. He’s going to arrive around 7pm so I have the time to finish work and get there in time.

So I feel like I have to tell you other stuff than what I do every day/weekend. I heard complains from my grandparents that I don’t do enough cultural stuff :P. But I try, and there will be more. Most of all I just want to enjoy the American life, do all those corny stuff you see on in the movies. Like hanging on Collages, eat in Diners with jukeboxes, hang out with Americans, play pool and go on road trips.

 I got a question from my mum today; she was asking what a Fraternity was so I’ll see if I can try to explain it (and also some other things considering collage).
   When you’re on Collage (like Eddie and Dan) you can ask to join a club (Fraternity) and it’s only for guys (the club for girls is called Sorority). This club is like a club where they act a little like a family; they help each other out when needed and are all good friends, they teach people to better themselves and they also raise money for charity.
   If someone wants to join a certain club they firs have to pledge to get in. It goes on for a couple of months and they get assignments to do, like raise money for charity and they also have to learn about the clubs history and participate in rituals and so on. In these Fraternities they can also get work contacts and so on.
  
I hope I got it all right now, Dan helped me a little bit to explain it so I hope it’s not all wrong what I just wrote :P

So lately both Eddie and Dan have been not only busy with school work but also to do all these things their different Frats asked them to do. Like meetings, interviews, dinners and so on. I don’t know if I could handle doing all of those things in once.

   I should also say, here in America you go to collage 4 years but some people put their classes into 5 years too, so then it’s more like what it is back home in Sweden.

Haha I found a pic on the internet from a frat,
but I'm telling you, I've Never seen anyone
dress this well, the americans are known for
their ugly pants,shirts n ties! :P






My oldest host kid is turning 17  in about one month and only have one year last on High school. So next fall she’s applying for collage. We have a book at home with all the collages in America, the book is about 4 inches thick (10cm). It’s like the Swedish phone catalog! Let’s just say there are a hell lot of different collages to choose from. She told me she wants to go at least one or two hours away but still not to far. Annie and my hostmum (aka. Her mum!) have been around visiting different collages to figure out what she’s looking for. She still doesn’t know what she wants to study so she’s mostly looking for the collages itself. 
 

   There’s also a test you have to take when applying to collage, I think it’s a bit similar to the Swedish “högskoleprovet” and Annie been taking a class during the weekends to get help studying for the test and is now getting private lessons once a week after school too. So they put a lot of money and effort on trying to get in to a really good collage, which is really good I think. I still don’t know how she can do it, she have so many activities and schoolwork already so I must say I’m very impressed!

 

That was a little information about what I’ve learned about collage life so far :P

 
Now I’m going to prepare dinner for tonight, they asked me to do the Salmon again, I think I’ve done it once every week now for the last two months. But they like it and I really like it to so I’m not complaining at all! I want to try to make a potato casserole once, but I don’t think we have the stuff home I need to make it. I have never done one before either so it would be fun to try. I could need some help to come up with some “new” stuff to do since every time I cook I either make meatballs, Thai wok or the salmon. Please leave a comment and give me some ideas!

 




Catch you on the flip side!

I’m getting really bad on the updates nowadays. I’m sorry.

Here’s what happened this weekend:

Friday, Svenjas host family went to Colorado to go skiing which means we got the house all for us selves. So when I was off from work I went over to her with my big camel bag (the one I bought in Morocco, don’t know if it really IS camel skin but I tell everyone it is :P ). We went over to Shoprite to get some food and stuff before we went home again. Both of us were so hungry we were in such a bad mood, but as soon as we got some food back home it was back to normal. I seriously get in such a bad mood if I’m hungry or really tired, luckily that doesn’t occur very often over here ;)
  Before we went home from Shoprite we also rented a movie from the red box (where you can rent a movie for $1 and then return it 24 h later) but we forgot to watch it so we just kept it and watched the movie the next day instead. The evening was spend in front of  the TV, watching ‘Australia’ instead, first time for Svenja, maybe 10th time for me, but it a great movie! Didn’t I watch it with Pontus in the movies when it came out in Sweden?

Saturday morning we went to the city, we had made an appointment at a salon uptown. It was a special offer we got a couple of weeks ago when we were walking on Broadway. I was so sure it was a rip-off when they asked us but somehow it sounded as a good offer when she told us about all of it (both me and Svenja needed a haircut and new highlights). It was included a haircut, manicure, highlights and some other stuff. We paid $60 to the promoter (the girl who sold the offer to us) but when we got to the salon we had to pay another $20 and then $20 more for some more highlights. I can’t believe I was so stupid. It was the worst thing ever!! The cut took like 5 minutes (seriously!) and the manicure I would have done better myself! So 3 hours later we walked out with a smile (not a good smile, but a “are they seriously these guys?-smile”).
   On the way to the salon we walked all the way from Penn station and it took us more than an hour to get there so on the way back we grabbed the subway instead. The train back to New Jersey was delayed since they had trouble closing the doors so we thought we would miss the train to Westfield which we change to in Newark but luckily they waited for us.
   When we got back home we started making dinner, chicken and some German potato-something and some veggies. Dan came over too and later we watched the movie we rented but forgot to watch the day before.


Outside Nwe York public Library



Outside the Library, took a brake from the walkin n just sat down in the sun!



Svenja



The "awesome" manicure



Dan, Saturday night



If they only knew..



Enternainment



Sunday mornings we always have waked up early (around 11 am) because the cleaning lady comes to Svenjas house. Svenja had a friend over around 10am, so she was up anyway. The girl, she knew from school back home and was an au pair in south New York, so only 20 minutes away by car. I could hear them talk German upstairs while I still was in bed, it’s so weird hearing Svenja talk German sometimes, for me she should talk English: P 
   A couple of hours later we took Izzy (the friend) downtown Westfield and showed her around. I felt a bit tricked because I though we were only going to Shoprite so I was only wearing sweatpants (which I hate wearing, and only do when I’m home or take the kids to school). So I had to walk around downtown feeling like I was wearing pyjamas.
   When we got home again I had some breakfast and then I ended up in the sofa in front of the tv taking a nap. Some hour later I got a text from Daniel asking if I wanted to join him and his roommate for a movie around 7pm. Since I hadn’t done much that day I thought it sounded like a good idea so I got ready in like 20 min and then Svenja took me to the train station. It takes between 45-60 min to get to the city, so I arrived just before 6pm. I started walking down to Tribecka, where he lives and about half an hour later he called me and asked if I could grab a cab because we needed to be there at least 20 min before of something to get good seats (over here you just walk in to the movie salon and grab a seat that’s not taken). I who was looking forward for a nice walk in the (still) so nice weather was a bit disappointed but after a couple of blocks I succeeded to get a cab. The problem was this cab dude had no clue whatsoever how to get to where we were going. I’m just not a big fan of cabs in NYC, I rather walk or take the sub!


     

Me n Daniel in 3D





I forgot to tell you which movie we watched, it was the “ Alice in Wonderland” by Tim Burton ( in 3D). It was cool and I got a bit inspired but the story itself wasn’t the best, after all it’s a story for kids.
    After the movie we got back to their apartment and watched for about an hour on the Oscars before I had to leave and take the train back. When I got back to Westfield Svenja picked me up and came back to my place where she stayed the night. I understand her not wanted to sleep all by herself in that big house. We put all the blankets we could find on the floor next to my bed (I only got a small bed so we couldn’t share as we can at her place). It was an old fashion sleepover!


Today it’s Wednesday, and since Saturday it’s been freaking awesome weather. It’s been no-need-for-winter-jacket-anymore weather. So Monday and Tuesday we’ve been out for a walk and today I need to mail some stuff so we'll probably will walk all the way to the post office I guess (it will take about an hour or more back and forth).
  The last two days I’ve been at the gym too but I think I need a break actually since I got something weird going on in both of my legs, I don’t know if it’s a muscle who’s been overworked or something, but it hurts so I’m going to take some days of to see if it gets a little better.

Tomorrow afternoon I’m getting a Swedish visitor over here!! My friend Staffan is coming over to America for his first time and I’m picking him up at the airport around 2pm! It’s going to be weird and awesome. The last person I had over was my mum in October, when she was celebrating her 50th birthday  here, and ever since I haven’t spoken much Swedish apart from on Skype. But I’m going to make sure Svenjas is around a lot so I don’t need to speak Swedish, it feels so weird. The only time I actually speak Swedish is when I want to annoy someone.

The plans for the following week when he’s here, is to take him to the city during the weekend and show him everything he needs to see and a little bit more. Unfortunately the weathercast says it’s going to rain the whole weekend and the beginning of next week too. Typical!
   During the week we’ll show him around in our areas and hopefully we can meet up with some of my other friends too. The guys from Rutgers collage have spring break next week so hopefully we can hang out with them and I’m sure we will run into a couple of the other au pairs too. I'm sure he will have a great time!


Me outside my house in Scotch Plains.

Catch you on the flip side Staffan ;)

I guess it’s both good and bad I haven’t updated the blog. I’ve had more to do this week but a late update is better than nothing I guess.

Anyway.

Last Friday, I and Svenja hung out at my place in the evening and were looking at the Olympics and eat all of the “Love mumms” that were still left. We wanted to go into the hot tub but since there’s still so much snow on our porch it’s freaking cold (and dangerous) to make it to the tub!



Saturday we went to the gym in the morning (noon) and had a hell of a workout. We went both to the gym and the cardio room. We also realized it’s the best day and time to go… because there’s so many people, which means many Heisse Junge!


After our workout we went back to my place to get ready and around 6pm we took the train to NYC. At Penn station we took the subway down to Tribecka and from there we walked over to Daniels apartment. His roommate had some old collage friends over and I think we ended up being around 10-12 people. We had all kind of wines and one of the guys actually had Made the wine. Crazy!:P It was really good and I think I started to enjoy both white as red wine from that day. After a couple of glass we went downstairs and around the building to get to the Sushi restaurant they had reserved a (big) table at. It was an “All you can drink and eat bar”. Sweet! I took about 2 minutes from we sat down till the first glass of beer was poured up in our glass.
Me who doesn’t even like beer joined in anyway. On top of your glass of beer you put your two china sticks (the once you eat with you know) and on top of the sticks you put a shot of Saki (I think it was warm vodka). The next step was to bang your fists in the table and make the shot of Saki drop down in to your beer. I never done it before but after 10 minutes the whole restaurant was doing it, so it wasn't very hard ;). It was Crazy loud in at the place but the mood was great!
   So we ordered in a ton of sushi each, I took California rolls and something with shrimps. The California rolls weren’t as good as I though so I tried to give them away and pick something else from the others luckily no one cared, everybody was picking sushi from everyone. I haven’t had such a good time in a while!
  2 h later we went upstairs to the flat again and dropped our jackets of before we took a cab uptown. We went of and went to some bar and had a drink and just chilled.



California rolls


Jim, Svenja, Daniel n Me

Some of the other guys at our table


Happy guy with two Europeans ;P



  
Next morning when we woke up, all of us who stayed at their appartment went to a diner closeby to have breakfast/brunch. Neither I nor Svenja were very hungry so we just had a bagel with cream cheese and a glass of juice. There’s never anything less satisfying than a glass of juice in the morning!!

Later we went to a supermarket to get some stuff for dinner, we promised to make Swedish meatballs for the guys. So meanwhile the hockey Olympic Final started, we started to make dinner. I must say it was an intense game!

I think this might have been a mix between Swedish, german n american Meatballs..
 

This week I tried to complete my application for the Danish School “ Danmarks Designskole”. I got some help from Ellens cousin, the one we stayed over at last year when we went to work and help out at Copenhagen Fashion week. He lives in Denmark but he’s Swedish- just what I needed. So now all I need is my grades from High school and Malmö Fashion School and I’m ready! But this is only the first step, it’s more of a check so you have finished High school and so you get put in to the system kind of. The next step is to get the home assignment and if they like it you might go to the third step, an interview. It’s going to be hard to go to the interview since I’m still going to be over here but I think we’ll figure it out, and they must have other international students (and I’m not talking about Sweden now).
   So if everything goes well I might have to start speaking another language too… a fourth one?









Catch you on the flip side!