These are my plans for after finals: my little brother Kaveh is coming here on wednesday, on the last day of my finals, and I can´t wait! So I´m going to show him around: we´re going to San Fransisco, Las Vegas, San Diego…to name a few. And we´ll probably spend christmas up north, together with my roomie Amy and her sweet family.

And in mid january we´re off to the greatest place on earth: MIAMI BABY!!!! I havn´t been this excited since…well probably since last time I went to Miami =) And from there we´re taking a cruise to…..BAHAMAS! Five days of sun, crystal blue waters, and scuba diving now that we´re certified! We´ll probably go to the florida Keys too, if time allows us too…but for now, I have TONS of studying to do!

Me and my brother

The Gaslamp Quarter

Since the cruise we went on was from San Diego, we took the oppurtunity to stay a couple of days in San Diego and check out the city that I was originally supposed to study in. It was a great city and I really enjoyed it but I´m still pretty happy that I ended up in Orange County, I´m not sure if I would want to live in San Diego, great as it might be =)

We stayed in a hostel in the famous Gaslamp District, in the heart of downtown San Diego. This is an area filled with bars, clubs, restaurants and shops. The hostel was awsome and the location couldn´t be any better. During these couple of days, mostly we just walked around the city, explored the streets of downtown San Diego, enjoyed the beautiful views of the harbour and did some shopping.

We also visited the USS Midway, which is an aircraft carrier, today serving as a museum ship. It was active in the Vietnam war and in Operation Desert Storm. We took a guided tour around it and got to see and hear about the life of the sailors and warriors onboard. It was very interesting and sure made one think that things were better back in the days. Man, I feel like grandma saying that =) Check out some of the photos from San Diego:

Downtown San Diego

Our hostel from outside the street

..and the very colorful/bright inside...

My newly found friend at the harbour

The USS Midway

The engine room of USS midway

Prisoners were held captivity here

Tribute to the sailors

Tomorrow is the start of our Fall recess, also known as thanksgiving break…ooh I have been looking forward to thanksgiving forever, its truly one of my favourite holidays, and I never get to celebrate it in Sweden…so this year I´m going crazy with it =) We´re gonna start off our break by going to Las Vegas this sunday, to stay for 4 days.  As you all might know by now, Vegas is known for its MANY five star hotels, and picking one was not easy; The Mirage, The Venetian, Bellagio, Wynn, Encore, Ceasars Palace…after many hours of thinking we finally decided to divide our stay between 2 hotels: The Mirage (because it has tigers&dolphins) and The Wynn Resort (based on the quality of their rooms) . We have so much planned for these days, I can´t wait!!!

After Vegas we are off to Hanford, which is a small city up north, and the home of Amy´s(our roomie) parents. We have been invited by their kind family to celebrate thanksgiving with them, and to stay at their house. We got to meet her parents a couple of weeks ago and they were just awsome so its gonna be a lot of fun.

And as a grand finalé, we´re off to San Diego (again) for next weekend…we were supposed to go to San Francisco that weekend, but after finding out that my good friend Jessica(from my class in sweden) is gonna be in San Diego, we decided to ditch San Francisco and meet up with Jessica in San Diego. The funny thing is that they booked the same hostel that we stayed in last time, so we´re doing a ”favorit i repris” and staying there as well.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!!

Oh as I mentioned before, we went to Hollywood for Halloween. During the day, we got to sightsee a bit in Hollywood, we walked on Hollywood Blvd, saw the walk of fame, the Codak theathre, the Chinese theathre…it was all nice but I really don´t see what all the fuss is about. It wasn´t really that glamourous. It was a cool place, but nothing more. Some people I know here go to Hollywood every weekend. I seriously don´t understand what they do there. Oh well, it´s just a difference of opinion I guess. Here´s some pics from Hollywood:

Tiny Hollywood sign

The walk of Fame

We went on another boatdive to Santa Catalina Island last week, it was a really nice dive and me and Kim did really good. Well compared to other people. We had a girl in our group that did really bad which made me and Kim look like pro´s. We finally finished all our skills and can now be certified!!

This weekend is going to be awsome. My friend Natalie won a spa treatment for her and her girlfriends myself included, thanx Nat!) so this saturday I´m going to do that…we´re gonna have champange and just be pampered! And on sunday I´m probably going to one of my favourite outlet malls here, followed by a comedy show with one of my favourite stand-ups; Pablo Fransisco, it´s gonna be so cool seeing him live!

Oh I almost forgot, I have SO MANY pictures from our cruise and it takes a lot of time if I were to post them all here, so I´ll post them on Facebook instead so take a look there!

We took off to Hollywood for the Halloween celebrations of 2009. West Hollywood is the place to be for Halloween. Each year, more than 500,000 people take to the streets of Santa Monica Boulevard to enjoy the craziest, most eccentric costume creations ever. So so was the case last night. Hundreds of thousands of people, all dressed out, we walking the Halloween parade to show off their outfits. It was crazy. Nono, it was a freak show. Some people had the coolest, most amazing costumes. Others were just perverted. There were A LOT of gay people and transvestites. And for some reason (I think it was my costume, the whole sailor thingy) they seemed to like me. A LOT. Lets just leave it at that =) We had so much fun, we danced, had drinks and chatted with everyone. I wish I could post all the photos I took, but for now you´ll just have settle with a few of them. And oh by the way, if you´re easily offended, stop looking RIGHT NOW, do not scroll down, I´m just the messenger ok? =)

Josh&Kim: pirates of the Californian

The captain & the pirate

Held captive

Girls @ sea : me & Nat

Things were better in Roman times =)

Nat not easily frightened!

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Svine Flu

Mermaid

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Flower Power

Love is in the air =)

Cruella & Dalmation

The cruise ship that we were on was names Radiance of the Seas, it was built in 2002 and is a medium sized ship. As you´ll know soon, it had anything and everything you can imagine, but we were told that Royal Carribean (the cruise line we traveled with) has much larger ships for other destination. This is just a few of the amenities that the ship offered:

A rock-climbing wall 200 feet about sea level - too high for me =) Miniature-golf

Beautiful pooldeck with pool, hot-tubs & waterfalls

Poolparty at night

Basketball court

A waterpark

It also had a huge gym where they had personal instructors and different classes everyday, a big casino, an art gallery,shopping malls, a movie theathre..and much more. We got a schedule sent to our room everyday where all the days activities were listed. We went on different shows, stand-up´s, musicals, took line-dancing classes(yes, me AND Kim), learnt about ice-carving, cake decorating classes and other fun things. More about the trip coming up soon!

The Court-room

Kim, all dressed up for court =)

Tomorrow´s the big day, we are going to spend the weekend in San Diego, which I´ve been waiting for ever since we got to the US! We´re staying at a hostel in the Gaslamp Quarter, where all the shopping, bars and clubs are, so it´s gonna be tons of fun! And our cruise is actually from the port of San Diego, which is this monday!! SOOOOO looking forward to the cruise. Me and Kim went shopping today, the last day of the cruise is a ”formal night” so everyone is really dressed up with beautiful dresses for the ladies and tuxedos for men. So Kim got a Kenneth Cole tuxedo with a DKNY tie, classy huh? =)

I also found out today that my best friend Anoush and my mom are coming to see me in Cali April 1st, I´m so happy! Anoush and I have so much fun together, just the thought of her makes me smile…here´s a picture of us on our last get-together just before I left for the states, only a few people know what really happened that night =)

Me & my girl

I´ll leave you guys with a link to a little video of the dolphins that we saw on our SCUBA trip, it´s just a few seconds long but we were so excited to see them that filming wasn´t our first priority =) But check it out! Next post will be after our trip to Mexico!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2NvYCN1STk

Catalina Island

The crew on the boat were just fabulous, a great captain and told us about this passion for cars, and a brittish cook that was very upset about Mr. Obama receiving the Nobel peace price. Anyways, the cook was awsome, all through the day she cooked us all kinds of deliciuos food, so everytime we got out of the water she had something new in store for us to eat. After breakfast we all took a nap in one of the many bunk beds on the boat. All of a sudden the captain stopped the engines and everyone rushed out to the side of the boat. Turns out, a large group of DOLPHINS were playing in the waves that the boat left behind. They were jumping up and down, doing all kinds of tricks…it was the most exciting thing I´ve ever seen in my life, they were SO beautiful! Kim caught some of it on film, I´ll see if I can post it on the blog.

Pelican & Long Beach Harbour

kitchen/cook/pancakes

Early morning on the boat

We did three dives during the day, most of it included doing our necessary skills in order to be certified. These skills are pretty scary and I did have a little panic attack during my second dive, mostly because I couldn´t equalize my ears and I actually ended up hurting my ears a bit, but I´m recovering from it =) After my second dive I felt like I never wanted to dive ever again, but after some food and hot chocolate, I was ready for the next dive =)

Getting ready for the dive

Overall, we had a great day. The boat was a lot of fun and ofcourse, getting in the water was even better. The visibility was really good, and we saw a lot of fish, lobsters and beautiful marine plants. The Kelp (a type of underwater plant) here in the waters of South California are really amazing, they create this underwater forest which attracts lots of marine life and it feels almost unreal swimming around these 50 meter tall plants. This is what it looks like below the surface:

A kelp forest

Ok I admit, we did not have sharks in the water, but you get the picture right? I really liked the dives and I can´t wait until our next boat trip. After we got back to the harbour, our wonderful teacher L.T (a former member of the SWAT team, no kidding) took me and Kim to what he called ” a very sleezy bar” but to be honest, I didn´t think it was that bad, I´ve seen worse. But it was a lot of fun!

This weekend we´re going to San Diego, really looking forward to that! And on monday we´re going on our 6-day cruise to Cabo, Mexico! It´s gonna be amazing, I´m sure. Hope you guys have a great week!

*love* GUESS

 On Sunday we decided to go to Ikea to get a dresser for our room. Although I´m not a big Ikea-fan back home, it was actually pretty fun to be there, see a swedish flag and other swedish stuff. We had swedish meatballs that were EVEN BETTER than the ones back home, and cheaper. And we went nuts at ”godishyllan”, we got Bilar (candy), Ballerinakex(crackers) and chocolates. Strangely, this was also cheaper than back home.

Swedish candy rocks!

Meatballs, mashed potatoes, gravy & Lingon!

Just like home

So to sum up: NO more shopping in a while. Or ever. We´ll see =) Meanwhile, I have some schoolwork this week, and also, me and Kim have to prepare for our first ocean-dive this Friday! You guys have NO IDEA how nervous we are, well everyone in our class are. Although it´s gonna be tons of fun, this trip comes with some dangers since we aren´t used to the ocean. So far we have only been using a deep pool which is not the same, as you can imagine. This time we´ll be in water 30-40 feet deep, with limited visibility. Anyways, I´ll let you know how that goes =)

For now, have a great week!

We´re travelling with one of the world´s largest cruise lines, Royal Caribbean International. The Ship is called Radiance of the Seas and it´s totally amazing. It has: lots of pools, jacuzzis, a water park, a rock-climbing wall, miniature golf, a huge casino, a library, a movie theatre, a comedy club, a shopping mall, a gym with all sorts of aerobic/dance classes, a basketball court, volleyball court, tons of restaurants/cafe´s/bars/nightclubs…TO MENTION A FEW. It´s gonna be crazy.

the "lobby" on Radiance of the Seas

We´re going to two places in mexico: Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas. We´re gonna do some shore excursions when we get there, and we already booked a snorkelling trip in Cabo, which is one of the world´s most beautiful snorkelling spots. Ok here´s the bad thing: the cruise is all-inclusive! Which means all-you-can-eat, any restaurant, any time (yes, even room-service in the middle of the night is included). It´s gonna be interesting to see how much weight I´m gonna put on at the end of the cruise =)

Oh, and speaking of food. I´m a big fan of TGI Fridays. And I would go there everyday if I could, but my wallet and my health is  stopping me from doing that. But guess what I found at the grocery store last night? All their appetizers, all packed and ready to be heated! So this is what we had for dinner last night: Mozarella sticks, jalapenjo poppers, buffalo wings, spinach & artichoke dip and chicken quesedillas! All from TGI fridays!

Thank god it´s friday!

For dessert I founds these adorable Pink band cup-cakes, if you´re gonna eat this stuff, it might as well be for a good cause right? =) Support the Pink Band!!!

GO PINK!

Today´s saturday and we´re going to a huge outlet mall in a city nearby, Ontario (no, not the one in Canada). We´re gonna do some shopping, have dinner and maybe see a movie. A very chill saturday. Before I go, I´ve had many people asking me about my scuba class, and there seem to have been a misunderstanding. For the record, the scuba class I´m taking is not something I do on my sparetime, it´s an academic class that gives me credits just as any another chemisty or biology class would. We also have quizzes, exams and yes, we get graded. It sounds strange, I admit, since we don´t offer those types of classes at a university in Sweden, but here at Cal State University we have lots of them. How about taking a bowling class, golf or maybe surfing? =)

Have a great weekend you guys!!!

In our car, cruisin on the beach

After the surfing, we went downtown and had THE BEST breakfast I´ve had with lots of omelettes, bacon, sausages, hash browns, fruits and toast! And later, me and Natalie went to a Halloween store to get our outfits…we´re sorta matching… we´re gonna look gourgeous haha!

So after a long day we got home, went straight to the jacuzzi and just relaxed with ”the Swedish gang”…great day with great finale right?!

surf instructor + wife-to-be

Kim with huge surfboard

jacuzzi+beers+swedes+1german = great night