Last week

I have had a lot of parties during the last few weeks, but there is not much to tell, or I’ll tell you when we meet…Hahaha!! In the meantime I had to write papers and finish up with my finals. For the first time I was writing a paper with my group until 6:40 am…the presentation was soon after! That was fun!!

Also, we went to see an Angels game…that’s baseball, and I liked it actually, everybody said baseball is boring, and ok it kind of is, but still it was fun!!

So I have my last days here in California and I start to feel a little bit sad for leaving…I have met a lot of very nice people and had a lot of fun here, so I will miss this place for sure. Next stop – Toronto!!!

Cheers!

B-day!

For the second time in a row I was not home for my birthday, and again it was a lot of fun, even though I missed my friends!

My friends here really tried their best to keep me in dark and make everything as a surprise, which I really enjoyed! I’m used to being the one organizing everything for my party, so it was nice to just sit back and enjoy it!

On Thursday when it was my birthday officially in Europe, they took me out to this great gastro-pub place called Haven, and even though we didn’t get served beer because of the lack of id, apparently our EU driving licenses are not good enough because they don’t have physical appearance on them (e.g. height like passport)…not going to miss all the rules they have about everything here in US…oh yeah back to the story…food was amazing, I can see why this place is 3rd best in the country in their category. And as it was Thursday we continued to have some drinks at our place and went to the local club (only one!! ) The District!!! Fun night…

Next day when it was my actual birthday here, I really thought we wouldn’t do anything, but of course during the dinner I got a message in Morse code, which when I translated said: „Take your pillow with you take the swimming suit and smile”, right after I got a knock on my door and there were some ten people (I didn’t really know) singing happy birthday for me…funny!! J After that i had to put on a blind fold and get in the car. Then we drove for about 20 minutes and the surprise was there – I was at our friend’s Courtney’s house. It was a great, nice party by the swimming pool and in the hot tub. We partied till quite late and stayed the night. Thank you so much to Courtney!!!

On Saturday we went to Huntington Beach for a bonfire party! J A lot of other friends came out and it was a nice beach party…only thing you can’t have alcohol on the beach, and a policeman came to us, and we had to pour it all out…well almost all of it!! He let us off with a warning this time, being international can become handy sometimes…I loved to be by the ocean at night!

So three days of partying was a great way to spend my birthday and thanks to everyone who made it happen!

Cheers!

After Spring Break it was time to go back to studying because it was mid-term time again, so at least for a week it was all business, ok and some parties!

Also the day we came back from San Francisco we had the second big earthquake I have encountered here. When I say big I mean one you can really feel (4.4 or smth), but, of course, not a one that makes any kind of problems really! Still interesting feeling when the doors is shaking.

On Friday April 9^th it was Skit Night at Chapman…every fraternity and sorority put up a dance/act number, and I have to say it was better than I thought it would be! I’ll try to add some videos, but the quality is not great!

Cheers!

Pokemon..gotta catch ‘em all!

Aladdin <-winners!!!

Spring Break

Spring Break!!!! Yeeeeey!!!

We decided to go the sophisticated route for Spring Break, I won’t lie – we did considered going to Mexico and having the crazy party experience of Spring Break. But eventually we decided that we really want to see San Francisco!!!

Our friends Laurin and David were driving down there, so we joined them on a little road trip up to Northern California. First half of the trip was nice, seeing LA again, mountains…but after a while it was only farmlands for quite some time. Nevertheless the trip was nice. We were lucky enough to not get heavy traffic, which would be appropriate for LA, so we made good time and were in San Francisco in late afternoon. We went for nice lunch at the Haight District where we also visited famous record store and continued to Golden Gate Park. I was surprised how much I liked that place as it was just bizarre. A big drum circle, people doing whatever they were doing, smell of weed everywhere…a real hippy place. And I loved it, so relaxed and fun…  After that experience it was getting late and we still needed to find a hotel, so Laurin dropped us in the centre of San Francisco and we found a hostel there. Laurin and David had to go to a birthday wine tasting party at Napa Valley.

For the next two days it was just two of us – me and Dirk, so we just spent those days sightseeing and enjoying the city. The sights are just beautiful in San Francisco, hill after hill and nice buildings everywhere, just a nice place to be. We went down to coast, where we visited Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf – great place to try world famous Clam Chowder in a sour bread bowl, which I did, and it was delicious.  Interesting place to see is Lombard Street – the crookedest street in US.

For the third day we were joined by Freddy who flew in from LA and all of us went to Alcatraz Island which was the place for maybe the most famous prison in history. It was an interesting experience to be there, see all the places which have been featured in stories and movies about this place. As I was going through all the cells and offices of the prison, it was exciting to hear what happened here, all the escapes and historic persons who were held here, like Al Capone, Robert Franklin Stroud (the Birdman of Alcatraz), George “Machine Gun” Kelly and others. After visiting the Alcatraz we had a nice wine/pizza/poker party at Stefania’s place, she is the friend of Freddy, also from Italy, doing her exchange program in San Francisco. Last two days we stayed at her apartment as well. A really nice place to live – 27th floor with a view of San Francisco Downtown.

On Thursday we were joined by Laurin and David again and we went down to Mission District, which is known to be a hippy district and a weird place overall… And, of course, I loved it! We went to Dolores Park with few bottles of wine and just had a nice day at the park. But it was also really weird… Freddy who was looking for a guitar for some time then, bought one just before we went to the park, but the problem was it was not tuned to play. Freddy asked the first guy he saw with guitar to help and the guy said nothing, just sat down and started tuning it. He had a dog with him – Harley – my best friend for a day! I was watching over him while the hippie guy started playing something and Freddy tried to keep up, but as he said later, it was hard as he had no idea what kind of song the guy was playing. After a while some other guy came by, I am pretty sure he was a homeless guy (which in SF does not always mean he has lot of problems, a lot of them seem just to have chosen that kind of life), anyway he started singing something…I KNOW!! Then some friends of the hippie guy came, they looked rather funny…and I was there thinking how very bizarre everything here is, but how much I enjoy it at the same time. On our way back we went through Castro District – San Francisco gay district and continued to Alamo Square, where the famous Painted Ladies are located (houses seen on Full House  )…overall just a great, great day!

Last day in SF we spent just walking to the really few places we hadn’t seen yet, most important being Golden Gate Bridge. Freddy and I decided that despite the not so nice weather we had to see it as it is the landmark which symbolizes San Francisco. It was wet and cold, and after we came down from the bridge I felt like I came out of a cold shower, and I had a cold two weeks after, but still so worth it! We once again visited Fisherman’s Wharf and had some sea food for lunch.

Next morning we caught the train to Palo Alto where we met up with Laurin and David. Before going home we visited the campus of one of the best schools in US, well in the World – Stanford. Amazing campus and a great place to be spending your study years. And that’s the end of a great week and a great Spring Break!

Cheers!

Week Seven & Eight

Week Seven and Eight was more about studying for everyone because it was the time of Mid-Terms. I did not find them too hard to pass as they are mostly multiple choice answers and few essay questions. I’m used to do long essay questions back home, so it was really rather simple to do well!

But everybody here was a bit worried and stressed about them, so not a lot of parties and fun those weeks. I believe we had our regular DollHouse Thursdays and few other things.

One of the Mondays I went to a local Stand-up comedy show and I found it rather good, way better than I expected it to be. Some of the comedians were really funny with fresh material. And now I go every month as they are monthly events.

Exciting thing for me to see was Ducks vs. Avalanche hockey game at Honda Center. It was way different than hockey back home; first of all it was so quiet in the arena and I didn’t particularly enjoy the commercialism here as well, but overall a great eventful game and nice experience for me! J And my team – Ducks, of course won so that was great as well…Thanks Courtney for getting the tickets and coming with us.

Cheers!

Week Six

Hey…I’ve been really busy, but here is week six.

This was the week of good parties, unfortunately can’t say that I have had a lot of crazy parties here, but I try my best to change that.  But this week was great!

First, on Thursday one of our friends, Sara, had her 21st birthday and as they always do we had a theme for the party – Hipster party. (Hipster is a slang term that often describes types of young, recently-settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstreem fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, indie rock, independent film) So that was really fun and interesting and maybe the best party I’ve had here. There are only some pictures I can actually show to people so see them at the bottom of the post…

Next evening we had “Get Covered” party which sounded a lot of fun and it really was. The idea is to come in clothes which you are not sorry to get covered with paint. Because you will! We had a good pre- and after-party as well. After the getting covered we got together with some new found friends at a house which we decided is pretty much meant for parties and has this 70ties feel about it…

On Saturday we had a nice day and evening at Santa Monica Pier, that’s the famous one in LA with roller coasters and Ferris wheel. The beach was beautiful and sunset amazing. We had a nice dinner and our week was over.

Cheers!

Week Five

Ahh…now that I start remembering, this was a fun, fun week!!

On Tuesday we decided to go to an event – Mr. UNiversity; which was way more fun than I expected, especially the talent part, some of the performances were rather good and humorous.

Chapman’s basketball team for the first time went to play-offs so we went to watch the game on Thursday and I got into spirit way more than I expected and screamed my voice off… And the team won, so it made everything even better! After that we had a little after party at the DollHouse and moved on to The District (one of the two bars/nightclubs here)..I know only two… But its kinda fun on Thursdays because a lot of Chapman students are there, reminds me of Gabanna Bar!

The following night we went to animal themed party, and people here take the dress code REALLY seriously!! One guy had a rug on him, you know the kinda that looks like an animal…but almost every single person had smth animal-ly!

On Saturday next party (I know 3 party nights in a row..def feels like Erasmus) – this party was former Eurotrash party, now Foam party without the foam…so just a party at the parking lot! It was not the best one here, but I had fun anyway…

And our week ended with gathering with some friends at the DollHouse and watching The Academy Awards.

Cheers!

Week Four

This week was most Olympic week for me! As school semester had been really started by now I had a lot to do every week from this moment, so not so many exciting things like Hollywood and San Diego were going on every week; nevertheless I seem to always find a way to have a lot of fun…

On Tuesday I watched the hockey game Latvia vs. Czech Republic, and most of you know how was it to watch the game, but for my foreign buddies – well in one word – intense!! These moments of course are of those few I miss being home.

Another party at the DollHouse on Thursday as usual, this time it was International Party…those Americans they sure like their themed parties! So we helped Anna to cook a German dish..and it was actually really good… Anyway Thursday have really turned into a fun weekday for me…

On Sunday we gathered at the DollHouse to watch the Hockey game USA vs. Canada for the gold. It was fun as we were cheering for the Canadians, we had two of them into our company, but the game was really good and exciting, and Canada won, that was good of course and I think appropriate because of the all Olympic hosting thing and all…

Cheers!

Week Three

On week three we decided to go and explore California outside the little towne (thats how they write it because its old I guess ) of Orange. Thursday night and on Friday two friends came to visit – Stephanie (friend of Freddy, Italy) who is doing exchange program in San Francisco and Rene (friend of Dirk, Netherlands) who is doing exchange program in Jersey city, close to NYC (my 2nd choice actually for ISEP). So all together we rented a car and let the fun begin! On Friday night we went to Sutra night club in Costa Mesa, not far from Newport Beach. We actually managed to get on the guest list, so getting in was easier and did not cost us. The place was kinda fancy and cool…and actually I really enjoyed the evening. Dancing was more…eh…normal – Europe style, and music was good as well. At the end we even discovered little dance floor with the glass wall and view on the city with even better music.

Next morning we woke up and decided to finally go to Hollywood. We started with visiting Walk of Fame with all the stars of celebrities, as well as Chinese and Kodak theatres and other sights there. After an hour or so there we moved to our next object on the agenda – Universal Studios. It is sort of entertainment park where one can find a lot of shows, attractions and the best part (at least for me) – tour through the studios themselves. So we spent few hours there trying to go everywhere. Visited many famous sets for movies and tv shows like Jaws, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Ghost Whisperer, Desperate Housewives and many others as well as saw many cinema memorabilia.

After all the fun we had there we finally went to Venice Beach – one of the most famous and visited places in LA; unfortunately we were there quite after sunset and it was not as pretty as I would have imagined; a lot of homeless people around and no street vendors or entertainers. But we did find a great place to have dinner; it was this small beach restaurant/club with the best food I had had in USA (not that its too bad), here it was just really good, great company and live music, so evening ended on a really high note.

And thats not all! On Sunday we went to San Diego, second largest city in California (I think ). It was a calm, nice day and we had a lot of fun exploring the city. We visited few sites like old ships in the harbor as well as big navy vessel which probably costs few hundred million dollars. Also we visited Little Italy, we did have to Italians on our trip after all. At the end we had nice lunch and did some shopping.

All and all I had a pretty great week! And weather also was getting better and better every week. Cheers!

Week Two

Heey!!! I now I’ve been lazy..

The second week was not that eventful because we. exchange students, had to get used to all the studying, which is rather different than in Europe. They have homework and assignments all the time, you cant just take a big exam at the end, you have to be there all the time prepared.

We did have an organized event for exchange students and friends – Bowling night! It was fun…not much to tell here!

On Saturday we went hiking, or at least we thought it would be hiking, at the end it was a walk by the beach. Nevertheless it was a really great day. We went to Laguna Beach and just enjoyed the sunny weather and ocean, I think this was my first time being by the Pacific. Big thanks to our new American friends here for taking us to all the places! And actually I was kinda surprised that people here are so helpful and just nice, even if they know you only for a day!

Week three comming up as well! Cheers!