Das Capitol

The last day in NYC we went to MoMA. It's one of the best museums of modern art in the world, the only one in US that I've encountered that can compare with European art collections. They have the really famous paintings of the really big names.

The entire family packed into an over AC:d bus to DC, drove for 4.5 hours and arrived at Union Station. Unfamiliar with the public transportation system, we received a lot of help from kind locals. Within an hour we had concluded that the population of Washington DC is the most beautiful and kind people anyone of us had ever encountered. NYC is supposed to be full of fashionables and models, but the only beautiful people we saw there were Swedish tourists. Swedes on the other hand are reserved and not very kind to strangers. DC is clean, they don't leave the trash in the streets like in NYC. The black population is not marginalized, but rather rich middle class. Seriously, I had not expected that.

Under the blazing sun in 34 degrees Celsius we wandered on the National Mall. The White House had snipers on the roof but no protesters in front of it. The Washington monument was huge ( What part of Washington was the monument modelled after...?). There were all the places you use to see in the moives: the reflecting pool between the Lincoln and WWII memorials, the Capitol with its impressive dome, Arlington cemetary with the rows and rows of stones rised for soldiers who'd died in battle. However, the thing that gave me thew chills was "visiting" Pentagon. We took the metro to the station with the same name, submerged from the underground scanning the bus stops for signs to Pentagon. Then we turned around and saw the gunmen, the do-not-enter and no-photography signs and behind all that the beige wide-angled walls.

Another pretty cool thing was the Smithsonian museums. The Air and Space museum had the Apollo 11 lunar lander and space shuttle, the Wright brothers flight and The Spirit of St. Louis that Lindbergh used to cross the Atlantic for the first time. I really wanted to see Enola Gay, but it's displayed at Dulles Airport instead of the museum downtown, and there was no time this morning when we flew from Dulles to San Francisco for a detour like that.  The Museum of National history was awesome, with the blue Hope diamond and big dino skeletons, but we had way too little time to enjoy it in the way the exhibitions deserved.

Disclaimer: The last 10 days I've been sick, with a nose running like the Niagara falls, shaking with coughs and with respiratory problems of somebody mustard gassed.  Hence, if you noticed lack of rationality and ease in my posts, that's the reason, I'm more or less brain dead at the moment.  

These Boots are Made for Walking

We hit the streets. We hit them hard. Manhattan is best seen on foot, so the Pirate and I walked. We've followed the guidelines of the "Bible", we went on a pilgrimage to to the UN building, Empire state, Central park and Strawberry fields, Guggenheim, which had a lovely architecture but nothing worthwhile inside, we crossed Times Square and strolled on Broadway, it even dictated what to eat in Chinatown and Hell's kitchen...

Monday night we partied with six other Swedes, three of Turtle's friends, the ones he lived with, and one friend of mine and his cousin, who just happened to be here right now. We started off in Aquavit, a fancy Swedish restaurant where Turtle and his friend new the waiter, Jonathan. We ended by closing the bars in East Village.

Tuesday night Mom and my three younger siblings arrived. Some people say that it's weird to meet your family after so long, but for me it was as if it was yesterday. My littlebrother, the Comedian, told entertaining anecdotes, the Spartan, on the other hand, doesn't talk too much, my baby sister, the Fashionista, was more concerned about matching her outfit than wearing comfortable shoes, and Mom, well, she is Mom. Without any ceremonies, I turned into a domestic dictator, telling the Fashionista to get different shoes, pushing them to walk up and down Manhattan, only allowing them breaks every once in a while when they started to complain about hunger or hurting feet. Look, this is the Flatiron building, it is very beautiful, there we have the Library, watch the ceiling, over there is the Statue of Liberty, take out your cameras...

My camera started working again, it was the moisture that had killed it, it improved my mood dramatically. Still, we went to B&H and bought a camera for the Comedian. Almost everyone who works at B&H are orthodox Jews and buying a camera is a mere procedural, they have to many expensive stuffs so you don't get the camera before you've payed it. There are four stations, first you look at the display items and make your decision and get a printout of the camera you want from a Jewish worker, then you go to a counter where they send for the camera from the storage and it arrives on a conveyor belt, you order the memory cards and everything is put in a bag and sent on the belt to an elevator downstairs where you pay and then at the last stop you pick up your bag. 

PICTURES (from the days when my camera actually worked):

The UN building is ugly as fuck...

...but it's a beautiful idea of peace.

This is the ceiling in the public library:

Most of the streets looks something like this with crazy traffic and yellow cars: 

From Empire State Building we got a pretty view of Manhattan...

 

More cabs.

 

The intersection of Broadway and Fifth Ave, with the Flatiron Building and the Manhattan skyline in the distance, first before dusk and then after dark.

Manhattan by night.

 

The Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island ferry and the Manhattan skyline

And the photographer...

...wearing her San Francisco T-shirt, tsk.

A Swedish Woman in New York

Our heroine arrived in New York at midnight on the same plane as Turtle. She will live with her family in a hotel in the countryside of New Jersey, while Turtle stays with his friends one block from Times Square. Life is fair. This is out in the bush, so the first night she had a hostel close to the airport. In fact, the hostel even picked her up from the airport, which is nice after a long trip. She mused about the fact that she seemed to know the English language better than the driver and the hotel receptionist, but the area was called Jamaica after all. When she entered her shared dorm room, ready to crawl into bed, someone was already lying in bed number 5. What on earth? A very unsuccessful communication with the Asian girl followed, after repeated excuse-mes and some poking, she murmured something, got up, and wandered out in the living room area. Strange. 

At the airport, when asking for directions one man (you know the anonymous white middle-aged business looking guy) who'd noticed the confused look in her faced and helped her out, asking her in a true New-Yrkian way: "Why are you staying in Jamaica?" It was not before she got up and out early Sunday morning, that Vanilla Ice realized why he'd asked it with such an emphasis. Jamaica, just like it would turn out, New Jersey, is very multiculti, which is the politically correct way to say that it's a segregated area with mostly Spanish speaking immigrants and African-Americans. She was uncomfortable in her skin. Walking around with a too thick sweater saying "University of California Santa Barbara" she was probably the only one who had attended college. Underneath, she had a T-shirt with neon colored "Las Vegas"-print, and showing that, she would probably had not received God's blessing from that self-proclaimed preacher in the corner. On the subway to Manhattan, she got acquainted with a tall colorful young man from Brooklyn, who very kindly offered to show her around the city and make her "Experience things she'd never imagined". Vanilla Ice felt terribly prejudiced when the first thing that popped into her mind was getting robbed in an alley. She wants to be tolerant and open-minded, and anything but racist, but today, she got extremely aware of the color of her skin, just like that day a long long time ago in Los Angeles. However, there was a difference between Chinatown in NY and Chinatown in LA, here there wasn't at all poor and many tourists walking around, in LA it was a ghetto.

She was supposed to meet  her aunt at 2 pm on Sunday, but she was lost in the public transportation between her hotel and Manhattan and missed the reunion. She was standing all alone in lower Manhattan, with a cell phone with a dead battery, not even able to call Turtle. And then it started raining. She bought an umbrella and wandered alone on Wall St, looking at New York Stock Exchange, discerned the Statue of Liberty in the fog. There was some contruction work going on at Ground Zero. 

Further north she saw the a picture perfect view of Chinatown, pulled up her camera ready to shoot, and everything went wrong. Lens error. No, no, no, no, no! She couldn't take pictures anymore. This was sad, especially since her iPod had met it's Waterloo in a wave and it seemed there was an epedemy among her electronics. She tried to memorize the views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. Her brother, the Pirate was supposed to arrive Sunday night. He didn't. She tried to trace him for a few hours before she got to know that his plane was delayed. He arrived in the morning, together with a sore throat. The vacation couldn't have had a worse start.

The Power of Goodbye

This was our last night together. 

Today I cleaned and packed the last things. Tomorrow I'll fly to New York City with Turtle. It will be awesome, of course. My brother and I will come to Santa Barbara in two weeks, but it will not be the same, then almost all my friends will be gone. I got people to sign my skate board, Pokerface contributed with a heartfelt piece of poetry: "Everytime I eat something sugary, I get acid reflux. Everytime I drink beer & coffee, I get acid reflux. And everytime I'm with you, I get acid reflux." Eddie wrote a lasagna recipe, because he's always cocking Italian cousine. We emptied a way too expensive bottle of sparkling wine that Youtube (Trulli) gave me on our shared birthday. Then we hit the streets of IV and the house parties. In some sense it was a perfect last night, because I met so many people I've made friends with here. Some of them I'll meet again, I'll definetely go to Copenhagen for a visit, but there are so many people that I don't know if I'll ever see in person again. We'll keep in touch through social medias, but it will never be the same again.

This might seem like a sorrowful post, but I'm not sad, I'm merely reflective. I'm thrilled about my three weeks of travel, I'm looking forward to return to Sweden, hell, I could teach Candide optimism. In the future, I'll remember the good times we had together, not the last time I saw you.  

Time is (Undie?) Running Out

The last days of the quarter are vibrating of intensity. I'm aware of every moment that goes by. Every time I'll run into a person in the street it might be the last time we'll ever meet.

Last night was hilarious, it was the Undie Run. Each quarter, at midnight between Wednesday and Thursday in Finals Week there is an Undie Run. A couple of thousand gauchos gather outside the library in underwear and then run through Isla Vista singing and cheering. The underwear was more or less revealing, there was a couple of Borats, some lingerie, a lot of glow sticks and body paint. 11:30 the Davisdon Plaza was packed, techno music blasting while people stripped down and threw their clothes in a pile that will be donated for some charitable purpose. Singing "Olé, olé, olé, olé, gauchos, gauchos!". At midnight the horde stormed the library (that is open until 2am) and run around between desks and computers with studious wide-eyed people. Then the flood of people turned and run across campus, past Freebirds and into Isla Vista. There was a poor woman in a car stuck in an intersection, waiting for the mass of more or less dressed students to run by. There was much confusion what route to take and soon the runners split into smaller groups. The event was definitely on the bizarre side of my experiences, but it was not at all weird to walk through the center of IV in a neon pink bra and matching Converse when everyone else did it too. 

Check out pics from the event on Facebook. 

This morning I had one final in history, quite fast and painless, then I did my laundry and packed my bags, everything before 10:30. I have my last final at 4 and then it's time for one last dance down town. 

Live Like We're Dying

I have four days left in Santa Barbara and really need to get my affairs in order. I have a long TODO-list (of things, not people!). Sell back books, return books to the library and to a certain train wreck partner from last quarter that lend me one, get refunds on deposits and from my student billing account, do laundry, pack and clean, print flight tickets...

And yeah, I have to study for my finals too. At least I don't have to bring all my stuff to NY, since my return ticket to Sweden is from Santa Barbara (the curse of buying the ticket 10 months ahead).

I also have to maximize the time I spend with my friends. Tonight I went with Eddie, Turtle, MaryJane, Cleopatra and one more Italian guy to an all-you-can-eat-spare-ribs restaurant. We were so full that we fell into food coma at the table.

It's a little bit sad to leave and have to say goodbye to everyone. I'm really bad with farewells, especially when I might never see the people again. Eddie said something insightful today: "I'm not sad that I'm leaving, actually I'm fed up with Isla Vista, what I'm worrying about is coming back home". I think many exchange students think it will be boring to return to a dull normal life, after such and intense year abroad. Still I'm not sorry for leaving, I always look forward to new adventures and if I know myself at all, there will be plenty of adventures.

The reason we love it here is because we know it must end soon, so we live like we're dying.

Not Any Given Sunday

On this sunny Swedish National Day I went downtown with two fellow nerd girls, Lucky and Arty. I'll leave in less than a week and we wanted to hang out before I disappear to live my awesome Swedish life.

The plan was lunch, but in the beautiful and spoiled Santa Barbara a lunch is never just a lunch. We did a tour worth a Lonely Planet recommendation. First it was lunch at Something's Fishy – a sushi bar with half price sushi during weekdays and apparently a Sunday too. It is a nice little restaurant on State St close to the ocean where they prepare the food just in front of you, either at the glass bar or on a big metal frying plate at the tables. We got two rolls each and shared between us trying all the different kinds of sushi.

Then we strolled along State St. Lucky needed a dress for her graduation, so we went  to Forever 21. However, I was the only one finding a dress, and what a dress it was! Flaming red, the fabric is folded into big roses, it's so pretty and sweet that I looked like a red cupcake in it.

Arty recommended the small art museum, so we went there, it was free. They had some wonderful Monets and amazing contemporary art. After the art we wanted dessert. We tried some gelato, but the goal was Crushcake cupcakes. It's a little cupcake place with the sweetest looking and tasting cupcakes you can imagine. We sat in the park devouring the delicious pieces, looking at the turtles and fishes in the pond.

On our way back we went up to the court house tower and watched the view over Santa Barbara. In the south there's the blue ocean, in the east the mountains. In the north and west the roofs are red, the walls white and the lush palm trees stick up between the houses.

When I got back I finished my take-home exam. Now there's only two more exams to go. What a wonderful Sunday, the last one in Santa Barbara.

Cred to Lucky for the pics.

Red Red Wine

Today I had my last day of classes and also the last day of the wine tasting class. Now it's time to summarize what I've learned. About wine, that is.

Wine is part of our cultural history, it was even excepted from the prohibition in the 30s because of the sacral communion. It's pretentious and classy. A label might describe the wine in words like honey suckle, licorice, apricot and vanilla, while the $2-dollar bottle might taste like ash and smell like a fish tank. Wine was quite a mystery that needed to be uncovered.

First we need some words to describe wine:

Red wine is fermented on the skin, white is fermented without the skin, the inside of the grape is always transparent. Fruity means that the wine is sweet, but you never ask for a sweet wine, that means that there is sugar added. If a wine is dry it feels like sand paper in the back of the throat. Acidity is another important factor, this should be balanced because otherwise it's like drinking vinegar. Tannins is an acid, it's supposed to taste like when sucking the skin of the arm, after the taste of salty sweat. A wine can be mellow: medium bodied or full-bodied, I would describe this as the density of taste, from watery to something more complex (:-P).

  

You have all seen them, the cultural snobs swirling their wine glasses, holding it in the foot, examining the color, sticking down their nose in the glass, sniffing, taking a sip, gurgling the wine in their mouth and then uttering some opinion about the vineyard, the year, the body, flavors etc, and you hate them. I've joined the club now, hehehe.

The reason you swirl the glass is to aerate the wine, adding oxygen to it. Oxygen brings out the flavors of the wine. Swirling it also increases the kinetic energy of the molecules, making them vaporize so that you can smell them. The reason you smell the wine is because a big part of your taste is actually smell. The form of the glass is also no coincidence. You might have heard about serving wine at different temperatures, if you like the wine chilled, then you should hold the glass in the foot, if the wine is too cold, you hold the cup in your hand warming the wine. Just like beer is served best cold, but tastes bad warm, the cold brings out the fresh and crisp taste in white wine, reducing bitterness. Even red wine is best served a little chilled , at "room temperature" from the old non-central-heated era.

You examine the color because it's beautiful but also to see if there is fruit left in the wine, fruit adds flavor, but might look nasty so usually wine is filtered. If there is sediment in your wine, then it's a "good" wine. You gurgle the wine to add more oxygen to bring the flavors forward. Then you're supposed to say what flavors you taste. This is personal. If you eat a lot of apples you'll recognize the apple flavor immediately. I almost never taste the apricot, but instantly notice flavors of blackcurrant, it's only a matter of what you're used to. Usually wines are described with pleasant flavors, but there is no need to keep it safe. I described one wine as "smells like corn tortillas". Corn tortillas smells awful. 

Since the weather varies from year to year, wine from the same vineyard from different years taste differently. So if you really liked a wine, try to find more bottles from the same year. If it's the first time you taste a wine, the year doesn't really matter, unless you remember how many sunny days and the amount of precipitation there was in Australia, Chile, South Africa or wherever the wine comes from. The reason you buy an old bottle of wine is not because it tastes better, it will almost certainly be undrinkable, but it's part of our cultural inheritance, just like art. A white wine can be aged 4-6 years, a red 8-10 years, they will oxidize if they stay longer. In rare cases (:-P), like in the cold at the bottom of the sea, carbonated wine like champagne might last longer, because cold and carbon acid is preservatives. Thus wine bottles like dark,  cool and humid environments, like a cellar, they don't like to be shaken (maybe all the earthquakes make Californian wine bad?).
 

In class, we talked about how wine affects the body and mind. First: don't drink and drive. Don't drink too much. Don't drink if you're on medication. Excess drinking or mixing alcohol with for example painkillers can cause liver failure. If the liver fails, you  need a liver transplant, you're a dead man walking. Women should not drink if they're pregnant unless a retarded child is on the wish list. Women should not drink if they have a family history of breast cancer. Simply put: don't drink if your doctor tells you not to.

Well, that said, let's get juicy.

Our teacher had his own winery so we tasted his wines. Every week we tasted three wines, one white, one red and one desert wine.

Whites

07 Chenin Blanc: this is the corn tortilla wine. It has lemon taste and is spicy in the end. The grape is very acid so it's usually mixed so it will be more balanced. 

07 Sauvignon Blanc: it has a little acidity and tastes like pear. The best Sauvignon Blancs come from New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Australia and Italy.

06 Semillon: like a bowl of dried fruit in it's fig and raisin taste. No freshness. Drink it with a baguette and gorgonzola.

05 Chardonnay: golden color, smells and tastes like syrap, it's like apricot juice with 14% alcohol.

06 St Emillion: buttery and wooden, which sounds pretty bad but is quite pleasant actually.

Reds

07 Barbera: Light orange-red color. Dry. Tastes syrup, raisin and blackcurrant. I can be chilled. I liked it.

06 Cabarnet Franc: Mild and fruity. Tastes like plum.

06 Carignon: smells like blackcurrant, tastes like plums and have an acid aftertaste.

07 Cabarnet Sauvignon: fruity blackcurrant aromas. Wow. I. Love. It.

99 Syrah/Shiraz. Usually I like shiraz. This was awful. It tasted green olives and salty. It was hilarious watching the row of people tasting it, when they one by one got a disgusted facial expression.

Desserts

Forgiveness (a mix of grapes). This wine was dedicated to the teachers mother after her death. I tastes like a melted strawberry lollipop.

Jolie: the wine is a golden blend of symphony and muscat, like liquid honey and tastes like honey too.

Lady in Pink: it has a beautiful pink color and tastes like strawberry lemonade.

07 Symphony: this is an American grape, the best contribution UC Davis has done this world. It's a hybrid of Muscat of Alexandria and Grenache Gris. Overwhelming taste of mint.

05 Muscat of Alexandria: there are two more kinds of muscat, Black and orange Muscat. It's hard to find in stores so if you see them get a bottle and dry. It's heaven on the tongue.

The most important thing I've learned from the class is that the best wine is the wine you like, and if it's a cheap German import, then it's perfect. If you like ice cubes in your white or like to add spices to your red and heat it, it's all up to you, wine is meant to be enjoyed. The wine can taste like BP's oil spill and still be the best wine you've ever had, if you drink it in good company.

Rolling on a River

I went on a four-day canoe trip with the excursion club to the Colorado river on the border between Nevada and Arizona. It was quite an adventure.

It started off Friday morning 6 AM when we gathered outside of Embarcadero Hall. It was 24 people on the trip so we got into the cars and drove off. After an hour we got a call from one of the other cars, their vehicle had broken down, it was oil all over the floor, so they had to rent a car and would be delayed. 

Well then, we drove happily to Las Vegas, stopped on the way for lunch. There was an outlet just beside the restaurant so I added two more pairs of Converse to my collection, the classic red and some pink-orange-ones with bright blue laces. I cant help it, they cost $15 each.

After Las Vegas approaching cars started flashing their lights at us, we didn't know why until the car started wobbling. There must have been sparks from the wheel. One of the tires was almost blown away. Something had stuck in the wheel and cut up the tire so it was almost falling off. We called the others and told them what had happened and that we would be delayed. 

There was a full-sized spare tire and it took only 10 minutes to change it, so soon we could continue. It took us 8 hours to get to Colorado river, 12 miles downstream from Hoover Dam. 

It was already late so we didn't start paddling the first day but cooked dinner and camped  instead. We slept  under the stars. In the middle of the desert the nights are warm and dry.

Saturday we paddled 7.5 miles upstream. It was hard, especially when the dam was open and the current strong. We paddled two and two and we soon figured out the necessity to keep close to the shore to avoid the strong current in the middle of the river. The sun was cruel and I wore my hippie hat and classes and one of the leaders soon gave me the nickname Residental Hippie. It was beautiful. The water was deep green like a melted red wine bottle. I stared into it mesmerized. The canyon walls rose infertile on both sides, yellow, reddish and gray. We found a nice little camping ground along the river. There where hot springs, one of them had a waterfall with hot water that worked as a shower. The water was warm and clear like a jacuzzi. In the dusk, the air swarmed of bats. Other animals we saw were snakes and mountain sheep. The excursion club had planned the meals for the entire weekend and brought gas stoves and pots and everything. It was pretty advanced, they had even taken two gallons of pancake mix with them for breakfast. We had a campfire and were taught the art of making s'mores. The recipe for s'mores is the following:

two graham crackers

one mashmellow

chocolate

there are two ways to make them, the traditional way is to roast the mashmellow until it's golden, put it on a cracker, add a piece of chocolate on top of the melted mashmellow and then add the second cracker creating a biscuit. The improved way is to put the chocolate inside the mashmellow and then roast it.

I slept in the open close to the rock wall. In the middle of the night there was a loud bang, like a gun shot, and sound of some scattering. I thought the rock wall was bursting and falling down on us. In the morning one of the leaders got up to make breakfast, then there was another bang. It was the pancake mix that exploded. The baking soda had been heated for one day so the containers were full of high pressure gas. There was pancake mix all over the camp.

On Sunday we left all the back packs and some of the canoes at the camping ground and paddled upstream to Hoover Dam. We were three people in each canoe without any load. The current was very strong. Our team consisted of two girls and one guy, we were not very physically powerful and rather unexperienced paddlers, but we were cheerful, kept close to the shore, planned ahead before attempting to round a corner with strong current and kept the same rate when paddling. We even had a motivating song "Na na na na, oh yeah!". This was a winning strategy and our power team was one of the first boats to reach Hoover Dam. Only half of the teams managed to do that.

On the way back we stopped on a small beach and totally randomly found a long deep cave with a hot spring inside, it was like a sauna. We needed a flashlight to explore the 20 m deep pitch black cave.  Even more downstream we went hiking. We walked along a little stream of hot water that sipped from the mountain walls. The rocks were covered with brown-green algae that was soft as jelly and hot from the water that fell like soft rain. The path had ropes so that we could climb steep passages, some of them were vertical walls and we had to walk on the rock with the legs pointing horizontally out from the wall, pulling us upward with the rope. 

During the second night we sat at the campfire. Most of the group had gone to sleep, but a few of us stayed for a while. One Norwegian guy wore "capris", shorts that end on the calves, which is very non-American. An American dude with the old-fashioned German name Hans, mercilessly teased the Norwegian for it. Whatever the Capri said he got a retort from the American about the trousers. They were not manly enough, obviously foreign and simply ridiculous. Finally a German guy intervened: "Some people wear capris, some are named Hans, it's OK". Not much later, words were abandoned and the fireplace turned into a no man's land in a marshmellow war. In the morning the entire hillside was covered with small white pillows, as if the marhmellow trees had shed their seeds.

We had dreamed about the last day, when the current would carry us all the way back to the cars without a single paddle stroke. Something went wrong.The dam was closed and the wind blew in the wrong direction, turning the waves upstream. We had to fight against the current both up- and down the stream!

It was Memorial Day, but we avoided the traffic jam on the 15 between Las Vegas and LA and took a detour through the Nevada desert. The air conditioning in the car was on -40, it was cool as long as we were in the desert but I woke up in the car freezing. Now I got a cold.

My camera battery died on me, so I will add pictures when I manage to get some from other people.

Falling Empire

I've made some small changes on this blog which made me realize that the Google Empire is falling apart. For example, Chrome and Blogger, both own by Google, are not compatible. Managing pictures, changing size, view them in the profile on your blog using Chrome - not working. I have to switch to Firefox. Fail. I wanted to add  a blog search box to the gadgets, but the gadget provided by Google doesn't work. Google no longer knows how to do search engines. Capital failure.  Finally, instead of followers, subscribe on updates to your RSS feed,  maybe by using Google Reader (!). I use it to get updates of webcomics, like wulffmorgenthaler and amazingsuperpowers, and other fun stuff I've Stumbled Upon on the internet. 

And vote on my poll! I want feedback.

Parentheses

My mood has gone to Hell and back during the weekend (no, it's not PMS). 

It's time to start planning the return to Lund. The first thing was to find somewhere to stay. Mom said that I could move back home, you know, compensate for being gone for so long. It has some advantages for sure, like no rent, free food that someone else is cocking. The disadvantage: it's the end of the world. It takes one hour to get to Lund, commuting is a pain, there would be no social life and as a 23-year old it's a matter of principle to have your own home.

So I was looking for housing via AF Bostäder. I found a pretty cheap dorm room in Parentesen (the Parenthesis) with move-in-date in July. The summer is free so I have to pay for July because it's the first month, but not August, and in September all the new students get prioritized. It was the perfect deal for me. Forty other people had tried to book the room, but I'd been three years in the queue and booked it 10 minutes before the time went out. Nice, I thought. Well, hold your horses. The rules are that if you book you use your place in the queue, and if you don't get the contract you don't get your place back. To sign the contract I needed to provide three documents. The transcript, registration info and a photo copy of my student's nation card. To get a nation card you have to pay a fee every semester. The rules changed while I've been abroad and instead of one bill where you pay for all the student fees, there's a separate bill for the nation fee now. So, after calling my brother, my mother, they are the ones opening my mail and paying my bill while I'm abroad, and looking into my bank account I realized that I hadn't payed that fee. Fuck. So I begged/ordered my brother, the Pirate, who was in the middle of writing a big paper (B-uppsats) to go to the nation and get a bill and pay for it. I emailed my transcript and registration info and explained the situation.

I got a not-very-polite answer that there was missing units for the fall and that I had to present a paper proving that I had passed 15hp during the fall, that is half time studies. I had until Monday to present this paper. Panic, panic, panic, I don't have a paper like that! With this short time I could only get an Unofficial Transcript from UCSB. Crossing my fingers that it would work, I attached it with a list of contact information to offices that could prove that I studied here. I was so nervous, I begged to nameless gods, cold sweat running down my back, wishing, hoping that they would accept it.

10 minutes later I got an answer. Since you're an exchange student you get excepted from the rules, you don't have to have any units registered or be a member of a nation, if you want the exception we can sign the contract immediately. They had probably not looked at the registration info, just the transcript. Yeah, I want that exception! Now the contract is signed. I will move to Parentesen. And now I've payed the nation fee of 200 SEK for nothing. I'm so happy it worked out.

If I Were a Girl

With just a few weeks left before I leave the calendar is full of goodbye-activities. Tonight I'll see Mr. Carrot and The Sober Guy for the last time at Woodstock, they are going back to Italy tomorrow morning. Yesterday I went on a boat cruise organized by the International Student Association. The dress code was fancy, "dress to impress", so I did. I've never been the girly type. I feel more comfortable in an orange jumpsuit than in a little black dress, assuming that the orange jumpsuit is the one worn by engineering students and not prison inmates. I had bought a brand new dress. It's as sweet as spun sugar. Girls are supposed to dream about pretty pink dresses, this dress is more of a boy's dream though, because it's really short. It's hard to sit or bend forward without constantly pulling down the hem. The front is not very extraordinary, the back on the other hand is more elaborate. The dress was, however, not the only unusual attire. I wore high heels, something that I almost never do, they are too hard to skate in. The last thing, the ultimate test of one's femininity, was faux eyelashes. It's messy to glue them onto the eyelashes, but what a change, it looks like Minnie Mouse-eyes. I almost felt like a drag queen, except this is socially acceptable and even encouraged. It was like turning into an alien, almost unrecognizable, still fun and interesting, like an anthropology study.

The boat trip was awesome, we had a DJ and a dance floor. It was pretty windy though, so the floor was rolling back and forth, but none fell into the sea. The sun set over the ocean and we saw lot of seals.

We got back to Isla Vista in time for my roommates 21st birthday party. One of her friends was DJ:ing in our living room, we had strobe light and the furniture was moved away creating a dance floor. Around eleven it was packed. The birthday girl was however hiding with her head in a toilet. The only unfortunate thing that happened last night was that someone punched a hole in the ceiling, which we have to repair.

Mein Herz Brennt

In history class we cover the first half of the 20th century. If you feel good about yourself in a shiny-happy-jolly way right now, be warned, this is quite a dark piece of commentary. Ignorance is bliss.

I've been reading works of von Treischke (The Greatness of War), Lenin (What is to be done?), Stalin (Liquidation of Kulaks), Mussolini (Fascism Doctrines) and Hitler (Mein Kampf). von Treschke glorifies the purifying battle, that kills the inferior and weak. Yes, what species doesn't befefit from killing itself? Lenin and Stalin seems to have thought that their deeds was for the greater good and that the end justified the means. We want worldwide communism, who cares that the peasants eat their children because we took their grain? I must say, Mussolini seems...lucid. Which is most horrifying since he despises pacifism and democracy and prises warfare and Italian expansion. There are people claiming that Hitler wasn't insane, that any human can turn into such a monster, well, reading Mein Kampf is reassuring. There is no such thing as rationality or reason on those pages. On the contrary, the Jews were both the bloodsucking exploiters of the working class and the Marxists fighting for the proletariat? That makes...sense.

During the last few lectures we've seen photographs of piled corpses and cannibalism in the Soviet Union, carpet bombings, Hiroshima, liberated living skeletons from World War II. And the numbers. Depending on sources they vary greatly. 37 million died in WWI. 9-18 millions in the Russian Civil War. Stalin starved and purged 20 million to death during his two decades in power, that is 12% of the Russian population. In the Lagers about 6 million people were tortured and killed (hey mom, what about visiting Oswiechim for the third time this summer? at least there the campgrounds have showers...). In World War II, the deadliest military conflict in history, 60 million people were killed, whereas 2/3rds civilians. After that one might think that humanity had learned from its mistakes, well, not, say hello to Pol Pot.

We think that other people of other times were different, that we wouldn't let atrocities like that happen in our time. But they do happen, all the time, in different parts of the world. Genocide, slavery, oppression. We close our eyes, we do nothing, say nothing, deny it, don't care. Because if we cared too much we wouldn't bare to live. Like when we joke about Hitler, we have to laugh otherwise we would cry.

Extravaganza

Once a year the student association at UCSB organizes a festival, a mini-Coachella in the soccer arena. It's free for everybody. So last Saturday, everybody was going to the festival, everybody meaning thousands of people (approx 12 000). At the same time. There are two entrances to the arena and the lines were huge, five meters wide, hundred meters long, not moving significantly. We cut most of the line and stood packed in a crowd of people. Some jumped over the fence into the bushes on the other side. The line didn't go forward. Suddenly someone pulled the plug and everyone pushed forward. The fence was down and the flood of people carried us in past the cops in the entrance. No one could stop us.

The band were not that big, last year they had famous bands and then people from LA came and made trouble, someone told me. A Candian band, Chromeo was the best, you can find their low-budget music vidoes Night by Night and Fancy Footwork on Youtube.

Selected tales

The dizzling days of mid-May are lazy and laid-back. Nothing really big happens, but the small stories of everyday life piles up.

Simpleton math

Last Saturday I went to a comedy show. The main attraction was a comedian who had performed on Comedy Central and apparently was kind of famuos. He talked about life, politics, relationships, things that everyone can relate to. Some people in the audience was intoxicated, it was Saterday evening after all.

Comedian: "In Canada they have a good health care system. In Canada there are 500 murders per year. Do you know how many there are in the United States? 16 000".

Some drunk guy in the audience: "We have a higher population, so you can't compare the number. It's simple math, stupid."

Comedian to the guy:"OK. Let's compare the numbers. What's the population in the US?"

Guy in audience: "Do you know?"

Comedian: "I know, I was asking if you knew.

Silence.

Comedian: "So you don't know?"

This was embarrasing, the guy who called someone else stupid didn't know how many people there are in his country. Even I, a non-American, knew that piece of fact.

Comedian: "The population in the US is 300 million. In Canada it's 30 million. So you see, there are 3 times as many murders in the US."

The guy in audience could not accept the defeat though: "If you think USA is so bad, why don't you move to Canada?"

Comedian: "I think this is the best country in the world. I think so because of things like MIT and the constitution, not like rednecks and Sarah Palin who're eating burgers and jerk off watching nascar. Now look, you've woken up the girl who was passed out in the front row. "

By the way, the comedian was an Russian immigrant.

What's the frequence, Kenneth?

The most disgusting thing happened on Tuesday during the Numerical Analysis lecture. A lot of people have a cought or allergies right now and have running noses. The use of paper towels is not widely spread tho, so during the lecture the other students sat and snorted loudly. We're not talking a silent little sniff, we're talking full on cocaine snort- sound. Especially the girl just infront of me had quite an allergy. *Snoort*, and I imagined how the snot traveled back up the nose, up toward the brain. Every time I heard the sound a cold shiver ran down my spine and I winced. I counted how often this happened, the frequency was one snort every 3 seconds, during 75 minutes of class. When I left I had goose bumps and wanted to puke.

The art of getting free drinks in bars

Most guys think it's easy for a girl to get free drinks in bars, just shake some body parts and the tap is open. Well, that's true, in theory. I have never gotten it tho. As an independent and modern woman it's a matter of course to buy my own drinks. And if I'm talking to a guy and he asks if I want a drink, I say no, because, well, if I'm talking to that guy I probably don't need more to drink.

Yesterday, it was Thursday night and we went downtown dancing. Soleil, broke after weeks of travel, is an expert on how to get free drinks. She taught me the trick. It helps if you're two, because then the other one says to a random guy close to the bar pointing "She needs a drink, buy her a cocktail". Few men can resist one women, even fewer can resist two. I developed an own stragety. Talk to a guy, ask if you can try his drink, help him to finish it and when he gets a new one he will get you one too. Talking is actually enough, if you don't have a drink he will ask if you want one and get one for you. So I talked a lot. Then we have the thing about rejecting people. The guy only gets you drinks because he wants into your pants, you only want the drinks. The solution is to go to the bathroom with a "See you later" that's not gonna happen. Or see a friend on the other side of the room and go and say hello before he offers to come with you. You don't need high heels or a skirt, or even make-up. Life is unfair. Especially the next morning when you have a drum orchestra with ADD beating in your head.

Sunburn

During the winter I almost forgot,
how nice it is when the weather is hot.
Now there's no question, the sun has returned,
with vengeance I say, 'cause the lesson is learned,
always wear sunscreen or you'll be burned.

The lush vegetation withered and died,
if you're out in the sun soon you'll be fried.
You ask every morning: what should I wear?
The answer is simple, legs should be bare,
a smile on your face and sun bleached hair.

You lay on the beach, or surf on the wave,
put on a bikini, but wax and shave.
Not looking good is an aberration,
lipstick, shades, mascara, foundation,
lack of brains needs compensation.

Sunny days, it's like a vacation,
still I'm loosing my fascination,
with what we call Californication.

Ticket to Ride

Hippie skulked out in the dead of the night and after some suspense caused by a missed flight he returned to the Mother land. Now I have to amuse myself...with midterms. Still the class that gets most of my attention is my wine tasting class. Every Thursday for six weeks we meet and talk and drink wine. Last Thursday we had the first two-hour session. Each time we try three wines, one white, one red and one dessert wine. This time we had a Chenin Blanc that smelled of corn tortillas, an orange-red Barbera with raisin and blackcurrant undertones and finally, a wine so sweet that the toes curled, like melted strawberry lollipops. When the class is done I will dedicate an entire post to temperatures, swirling, acidity, you name it, but you'll have to wait for it.

Saturday morning-ish, I lay blind as a mole in my bed, when I was woken by some stir in my room. In the nearsightet fog I saw four figures approching slowly, all carrying something big and colorful in their hands. I recognized Maryjane and Eddie. What do you do when the maffia wakes you up with four pistols pointed at you? You:

A) Reach for the gun under your pillow and cherfully (!) call them out: "C'mon baby, show me what that loaded gun is for!" and fire loose.

or

B) Make a whining sound and hide under the blanket.

I'm not proud over my course of action. I met my Waterloo in a very short water fight.

Later that night, one of the unknown Italians turned into a DJ in Eddie's backyard and we rigged speakers and colored lights and had a dance party. 1:38 is the new record. Then the police came and gave Eddie a ticket for noise violation. 200 bucks. It was Eddie's 9th ticket since he got here.

At the party I talked to a Spanish and an Italian girl about tickets. The Spanish girl had gotten two tickets á $200. One for urinating in public and another for carrying an open container of alcohol. The Italian girl, the one I went skydiving with, got the same for using someone else's ID in a bar. Another guy got a $1000 ticket for urinating in public, it's not even the same amount! You have to go to court and complain about the amount and then they might change it. The cops make money on tickets, so if you're stopped you'll get a ticket no matter what.

I only got tickets for a trip to NYC. Me and my big brother will travel for a few weeks before I go back to Europe the last of June.

The Return of the Hippie

I've been off the radar for a while, but now I finally made time to write a post.

About 2 weeks ago, a usual Friday night consisting of an awesome BBQ with my awesome friends, an old hippie suddenly emerged. After chasing powder snow in Canada and Who-knows-where Hippie had gathered his wits and returned to Cali. This is the story about our adventures.

Floatopia

For weeks there had been rumors about an epic event called Floatopia. It's a mix of alcohol, Pacific and home build rafts. About 10 000 people or so partying on the beach. It was scheduled for the Saturday after Hippie's arrival, but the police had effectively shut down every beach access to prevent the event. Instead it turned into a carneval on Del Playa, girls in bikinis, boats on wheels and water pistols blasting. Oh, yeah!

Solvang

In the valleys nearby there is a Danish town, with fake korsvirkeshus and a lot of pastries. The only thing genuine is the hunger for profit, the rest is a red and white fasade. But the pastries were good.

Jay Leno

A few weeks ago I applied for tickets to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It's a talk show on NBC that is recorded in Burbank. It was all Hippie's idea and it was a surprisingly good dito. Jay Leno was amusing, the guests were B- and C-actors and some country singer, but hey, it was free and fun. You can watch the episode until April 30 here.

Coachella

In the desert east of LA there is a giant music festival named Coachella during one weekend in April. It's a Mecca for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - and more drugs. The temperature was unbearable before 2 pm but the mild evenings were perfect for concerts. We borrowed tents from the Excursion Club. I got the most depressed tent ever. It was all scew, only the inner tent was left and the door zipper was broken. No privacy worth mentioning.

Some of the bands were cool, Jay-Z had a pretty good show with a visit from his (more famous) wife, Beyonce. The scene was build from big blocks where they projected ligths, e g in his New York song they looked like sky scrapers. The Gorillaz had a big movie screen and showed cartoons, the music was dark and the movies violent and morbid. How strange that I didn't get a hot fussy feeling from watching an anime girl being burned inside a flying windmill. Hippie was on fire during the Devo concert. He had seen them during the Olympics in Whistler and hence owned a blue Devo hat that attracted attention from other festival guests. Strolling around with a ziggurat hat wasn't very spectacular tho, not compared to some of the advanced hair and make up creations we saw. I was so jealous of the glittering fethered mohawks and fairy wings.

Grand Canyon

McConaughey came to visit from Vancouver and Hippie, Turtle and I picked him up at the airport and packed into the VW van and went on a road trip to Grand Canyon. On the way we stopped in the Mojave desert and climbed rocks. Arms and legs were scratched and sore afterwards. There's a reason why Grand Canyon is so famous, it is stunningly beautiful. It was formed during a couple of million years, first a tactonic

plate lifted up the sea shore and then the Colorado river and heavy rain carved the canyon.

The van had a bad cough and sometimes needed physical motivation to get started, and who doesn't love the smell of leaking gasoline in the morning. Miraculously it didn't shake into pieces on the 15 h drive there. A tip: always bring duck tape, in case something breaks, or someone (we don't have to point fingers at Canucks, do we?) gets word diarrhea.

There were beautiful campgrounds and, as always, paying was considered optional. McConaughey took the surviving in the wilderness very seriously and carried big jars of salt and peanut butter on our 4-hour hike. We found the perfect rock and sat on the rim watching the sun set over the landscape, the shadows growing pink and purple.

Easter

On Easter eve, Turtle and I made an Easter dinner and painted eggs with my housemates and Bomber. My egg is a påskkärring/ drag queen.

El Dorado

When I asked Raven if she would celebrate Easter, she looked perplexed: "No, do you? Are you religious?" Religious, me? HAHAHAHA. Apparently, the holiest week of the year is more celebrated in the world's most secular country. It has to do with Sweden's homogeneous population of Lutherans. Usually Pesach, Catholic and Lutheran Easter aren't the same week, so it's natural that there isn't any "Easter break" here.

Instead I enjoyed me first week of classes. I got back from Florida Tuesday morning and had to crash courses. Crashing is stressful because I'll loose my visa status if I'm not enrolled in 12 units by next week. Now I've settled for history: western civilization after 1750, robot mechanics and adv numerical analysis. I only have classes three days a week, actually I discarded all courses with Monday or Friday lectures. I especially like my history class. Ironically, it's taught by a Japanese professor. The first lecture he quoted Rudy Giuliani: "There has been no domestic terror attacks under Bush". Note that Mr Giuliani was mayor in New York City Jan 1 1994- Dec 31 2001. My homework for this week is to read Candide. It's one of the funniest books I've ever read, Voltaire is hilarious.

The first weeks of the quarter are always relaxed. Welcome-back bbqs, free movie screenings and lots of parties. One of my housemates, Sho turned 21 this week, which resulted in the usual multiday celebrations. But my liver has not yet recovered from the spring break madness, so I stay kinda sober (it might have to do with increased alcohol tolerance too after Florida :-/). The weather is lovely, people are friendly, classes are great. Life is good in the best of worlds.

East of Eden

Eddie: "Buuurp."
Me: "You don't have to signal all the details of your digestive system."
Pokerface: "If you're going on vacation with guys, we gonna treat you like a guy."

Eddie: "Actually we're restraining ourselves. With only guys it would be much worse."

Pokerface: "All that coffee earlier gives me an ..."

Me: "No, please, don't say it..."

Pokerface:"...acid reflux."

Oh. My. God. Acid reflux was the mantra of Pokerface and Eddie the first days. Their sensitive stomachs cannot handle nicotine, caffeine, tap water or beer. Or beans. Damn Cuban restaurant! They could have fueled a bio gas vehicle.

Most of the spring break is NC-17, but here is the censured version...

From the deserts in the southwest to the swamps in the southeast. The Sunshine state. Oranges. Alligators. And Dunkin Donuts in every corner.

The first few days we stayed in Daytona Beach. Daytona was popular among springbreakers in the 90's, but now it's declined, populated by white trash and low life. But it was spring break, and the alcohol was cheap so we partied as if the world would end.

We rented a car and drove to Key West. Key West is the southernmost point of US (except for Hawii, Turtle later pointed out). Hemmingway lived there for a while. It was incredible beautiful. Like the Caribbean, but rich. It's OK to drink in the street. So we did. The first night we went to a bar where they had a sexy bull riding contest. Women in all ages and shapes climbed onto the bull showing their natural and artificial bodies to the cheering redneck crowd. I've never seen so many fake boobs in one place before (until two days later in Miami beach).

We rented scooters and drove around the peninsula, buying fresh coconuts from the back of a truck, stopping at nice beaches. I had my new fashionable bathing suit which resulted in the weirdest tan ever.

The second night in Key West we went to a bar with ladies nights, which means free drinks for the ladies. I ordered beers and drinks and gave them to the guys, everyone got pretty smashed, I don't know... somehow we ended up in a strip club. Let's fast forward from there.

Miami is awesome. But expensive. We found a heavenly Cuban restaurant in Miami beach and ate us into food coma. Then we went dancing to Latin tunes. There was a huge outdoors electro music festival and neon colored ravers swarmed everywhere. We hung out on Miami beach though, people watching and drinking mojitos. I did spotted an inline skater in bikini, but the guys missed her. There were plenty of creeps there too. I went to the restroom, walking alone just for a while, fully dressed and with my usual "Fuck off" written in the forehead, and still attracted some unwanted attention. The most disturbing one was a fat middle aged guy, who after some friendly questions about whether I was in Miami for the music festival, suddenly asked how my money situation was. "Very good!" I proclaimed and hurried away. C'mon, models are hanging out on this beach, stop bothering me.

When we landed at LAX we all agreed upon two things. 1) It would be so nice to get rid of each other and 2) California is the best.

I Want to Break Free

The trials of finals week are over. Now I'm gonna do my best to totally wipe out my brain for the next quarter. The decomposition has already started. The last few nights I've found my self at Eddie's place drinking wine and (watching him) cooking pasta 3 o'clock in the morning. In 10 minutes Eddie and Pokerface is picking me up and we're going to the airport to catch a flight to Orlando. There we're gonna meet up with two other Italian guys, Mr Carrot and Maryjane. Spring break in Florida. Sweet. First a few days in Daytona Beach, then down along the coast all the way to Key West, and on the way back to Miami and Palm Beach. It's gonna be ÅSOM!

It's Not Over ('Til It's Over)

Dead Week. The week before finals. Time doesn't exist in the library. All watches on the fourth floor are broken. The gazes are fixed on the computer screens. No talking. The sounds of silence and keystrokes. Every once in a while someone rises to zombie to the bathroom. When the lights flicker at midnight it's a signal that the library closes. I move to the 24-hour study room. There is no air left inside. I push through the pain of burning eyes and lack of sleep. In a week it will be over and I will rise like the phoenix from the ashes.

Youtube is gone. He went home to Brazil two days ago. He was the first to sign my skateboard. Alvright will be next, he returns to Chile after the finals.

Party in the USA

In the US birthday celebrations go on for 3 days. On Wednesday was the dinner, Thursday we went downtown dancing, Friday we had a party in Eddie's backyard. There were burning torches and an ice bath with beer. In the future, if I'll be asked to define pure joy, I will describe it as speakers blasting, performing the moves of a Bollywood dance in sync with your friends. When I was 14, this would have been considered immature, and at the age of 23 you'd be ready for the grave, but at the age of 23, I've never felt so young and full of life. But maybe I'm getting old, because I'm exhausted after three days of partying.

I got really nice gifts, Youtube gave me Brazilian Havaianas and a bottle of expensive champagne that he "found" working in Aspen. For my tea addiction I got a UCSB travel cup and Pokerface and the Kid gave me a supercool hat that would've made me a Bob Marley lookalike if I'd kept me dreads. Mom and Grandma sent money, all gift packages were prohibited because of the weight limit on the flight back home. The money will be put to good use, I guarantee you. More precisely they have turned into a weekend in the desert at the music festival Coachella in April and a spring break in Florida in two weeks. I just booked the tickets. Delta Airlines gave me a hard time booking flights, with error messages saying "the card holder's name is not valid, prefixes Mr, Sir, Dr, etc should not used in the name field". I've had the same problem opening a bank account. Here I am, with peace symbol earrings, without ever touching a gun, with a name that is short for a military title. Some things suck major balls.

Birthday

It's said that in vino veritas, but in this case it was the truth of a bottle of Jäger. One of the first weeks of fall, the group that later would form the Expressos was located in a liquor store. Youtube and I bought a bottle of Jägermeister together. The cashier eyed Youtube's ID. The strange ID confused him and he asked suspiciously:"When are you born?" Youtube aswered: "March 3rd, 1986". I was jumping up and down waving my passport, singing "we have the same birthday, we have the same birthday!". That was how we discovered that we were born the same date.


Today we celebrated the double Expresso birthday. Youtube is leaving on Sunday and spent the day in LA, so we decided to just have a small dinner with friends at night and then throw a party on Friday. We invited a buch of friends (kept it small with just 18 people) and asked Eddie to cook an Italian culinary speciality, gnocchi, which he had promised Youtube for six months. It was a lovely dinner, where everybody helped cooking the potato dumplings, while drinking wine and chatting. My room mates had secretly baked a cake and made banderols, it was really surprising and fun. And thank you for the overflow of well-wishes!