californiabylagesson

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!