texas? okay.

just arrived in texas for my step-sister's wedding this weekend. no dress, no shoes, no toiletries? no problem.

wacky world wide web part deux.

so, after flying from oslo to stockholm and then getting bumped from a delta flight out of there, i'm on a train from stockholm to malmo which is just across the river from copenhagen. i'm on this train that goes like 120 mph. no kidding. and its got wireless internet. sometimes i wonder...what's taking america so long? but anyways beautiful country side, last minute change of plans can be frustrating but it keeps you on your travel toes...so a couchsurfing host is going to meet up with me at the train station in copenahagen and then its off for another round of standby! wish me luck, all you who want me back in the home of the free. or i may be stuck here forever. whahahaha.

trip cut shor...

the perils of le stand by travel have reared they're hydra heads once again. and my friend who planned to meet me in oslo is still sitting in her apartment in san francisco. boo hiss. several bits of good news though: i bought cancellation insurance on our tickets to zurich, and i can still escape europe unscathed. so i'm wrapping things up in oslo and i leave in the morning for stockholm and then head back to the home of the braves...atl. and i'll get to catch a step sisters wedding, oh how i love those. its sunny and warm here and i'm at the youth internet cafe where everything including printing things is free for anyone under the age of 27. haha! i make the cut. i'm going over to the roof of the opera house now to take in some good views of the city and take advantage of the clear day. i don't want to leave, but i have to go back before coming back so i'll get over it. i'm very ready to dig in some roots here....

Sleep apnea, sverige, and other hostel tales...

a double whammy struck the tiny city of oslo last night: a bon jovi concert with 30,000 ticket holders and Sweden's appearance in another EuroCup game. Insane. So two gals from southern norway took the day off of their university cleaning jobs, packed bookbags, some cigarettes and high heels, all in the hopes of touching their american idol...bon jovi. who was cool when i was like 13. they also love aerosmith, kiss, foo fighters, and any other arcahic american institution they can get their big norwegian hands on. so they were fun. i met a turkish girl who just wrapped up her masters in sweden. she was cool too. but the best, the absolute best, was the guy who stayed in the lower bunk next to mine in the six bed room. i didn't meet him till 3 am, after sweden won the game and he had downed probably two hundred dollars worth of booze. he and his girlfriend came stumbling in, and he collapsed on the bed. at first i thought he was dying, and he might have if the sound of his gasping for air hadn't woken him up. but it did. and as his girlfriend haphazardly climbed into the top bunk he flipped on his side and began the loudest stint of snoring i have ever heard. ever. for hours. i wanted to warn him about the perils and cures of sleep apnea in the morning but i was too cranky for lack of sleep. and when he came out of the bathroom in his tighty whitey (or yellow and blue) swedish underwear i couldn't not laugh in his face. oops.

so i'm waiting for ingrid and waiting for the rain to go away. i'm headed to the contemporary art museum when it does. not only is it free, but it has a statue of michael jackson that i'm dying to see.

and on to another euro cup game tonight when the lobby of the hostel will be choked with people from ten different countries all stretching their necks to see the tv and oohing and ahhing and hemming and hawwing. (sorry, rhyming proves too tempting)

score one for scandanavia!

okay. so norway has quite possibly the coolest government i've ever seen in action. the people are taken care of, there is little to no poverty, everyone speaks english, and though the cost of living is high the minimum wage is...19 US dollars an hour!!!! someone told me i would have to try really hard to make less than 25 dollars an hour. which is good seeing as beers are ten dollars a piece, a cup of coffee is 5 dollars, and a big mac is 4. i met a really cool guy who i have been staying with and he is going to let me use his address for my resident visa application and said i could stay with him when i come back until i find a place. i met another guy who is friends with the vp of the largest media company in norway, passed along my email, and am hoping for some help getting my resume passed along. my norwegian is coming along and my host terje has been really good about teaching me the phrases that matter ('i'm going to go pee in the bushes' & 'cool t-shirt' specifically) but he says i am gifted in the accents and that i am coming along quite nicely. he lets me repeat things over and over until i get it right and will bring it back up an hour or so later so i can reaffirm my memory.

the city itself reminds me of a european new orleans and a lush maine wrapped into a culturally open, interesting, and diverse group of people. i saw edward munch's scream yesterday which was impressive to say the least, sat outside in the largest statue park in the world for a few hours listening to an outdoor concert and hanging with a pack of six oslosians. saw the castle today that runs at about a thousand years old, saw the king's yacht sail into the harbor, rode the tube (normally 8 dollars one way) for free because its on the honor system...consider me dishonorable.

i'm getting excited to settle down and seeing as i've already met so many cool people i don't forsee adjusting and laying down roots as a problem. i also just learned about a website...www.finn.no...where people give stuff away for free. like real big stuff. tables, chairs, etc. terje's apartment is furnished mostly with free things. its strangely utopian.

its the beginning of something fantastic.

oslo shmozlo (or happy birthday meg)

alright alright. so few people who arrange to move somewhere before visiting it end up loving it...but AHA! its amazing. i love it. its expensive. its dirty by scandanavian standards. but its beautiful. old. the people are fantastic.

i might have found a connection to get a job. i'm visiting the school tomorrow and am staying in a hostel tonight. ugg. even hostels are expensive but i've arranged to stay with a couchsurfing host through the weekend so i'll get to hang with a journalism student for two days. he just emailed to say we missed out on a festival today...gay marriage is legal in norway as of today. so i might move here for good. or not.

i also found out that not only does the government pay for people attending their universities they pay for any university internationally that citizens are accepted to. ridiculous.

so its off to the fjords on saturday, some raucous fun tomorrow that may or may not include a spinning class (we were invited to one in the morning by a guy we met at a bar), a few norwegian lessons, a tube ride, a bike rental, apartment hunting, and oh yes...mom's birthday!!!!

i may not have the forsight to get a birthday card in the mail...but HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! I love you and miss you and think of you pretty consistently and wish i could hug you and say happy birthday but i'm too busy taking advantage of everything you have encouraged and supported me in doing.

so anyone reading this call the sing sing and give that woman what she's due.

the wacky worldwide web

so at this moment i am gchatting with my mother in singapore who is on the phone with ingrid in san francisco who i am also gchatting with while she writes me an email. how fricking crazy. all the while i'm blogging about it.

nexus complete.

car 54 checking in.

stockholm is fantastic. 

the weather is perfect, the sun goes down for a total of 3 hours per day, the people are happy, the children are adorable, the stereotypes fit (minus a fair amount of obesity), the archipelago is stunning, the royal family is cute, the tube is fast, the streets are clean, the architecture is a pastiche of russian-czech-german-british, and the language is fun to pronounce.

my couchsurfing host has taught me loads about the language and the culture, i have met so man local swedes and haven't met a one that i don't love.

on saturday i walked the city with my host. from top to bottom. we cruised along the water in the southern island of sodermalm and she explained the land that is zoned only for gardening. yes they have pivately owned land that can only be used for gardening and it runs along the water. hundreds and hundreds of plots of just gardens and bike paths. we followed the sounds of an achingly good trumpet player and stumbled upon a private party in a back alley of town. i hugged a metal statue that touches the heating system and exudes warmth outside of the downtown theatre. 

i recovered from jet lag. finally.

 i met up with my fellow bangkok traveler two days ago and we are having a blast. i went to an island called djurgarden south east of the city center yesterday to the world's first open air museum (think colonial williamsburg meets finnish settlement), saw my first live elk and wolverine (the elk is MASSIVE and licks my right hand the wolverine looked like a badger), walked around town collected some bread fruit veggies and cider at the grocery store and had a picnic on a hill in steppsholm with a gorgeous view of the city and watched the sun set (that lasted about four hours) and caught each other up on our travels. annie told me all about her border crossing from egypt into jordan which sounded intense...and tempting. we met three seagulls and watched them howl about the bread we threw to them.

i am headed to oslo tomorrow morning. so throw all of your good energy my way and ental encourage oslo to stand up straight and behave so i can have a marvelous first impression.

swedish suburb shindig.

amazing. 

so i stumble off of the plane zenned out and trying not to focus on the fact that my bag is packed poorly, my flight was delayed which would probably throw off my already tenuous meeting with my couchsurfing host, i was in a new country all by my lonesome, and i was about to be drenched in a languageimmersion whose intensity i couldn't predict.

so i deplane, get ye ole passport stamped, head through to get my backpack, do a post-9-hour flight-change-tooth-brush-face-wash, go through customs, change money, buy a ticket for town, find a phone card, try and call my host, get a fax line, worry, hop on the train to central station, wander out of the train, walk to the rendevous point, ask a stranger if they are looking for a couchsurfing host, make a friend, find wireless access, email couchsurfing host, meet an american-indian family on vacation, goggle at the massive amounts of swedes aimlessly waving swedish flags (more on that later), wait for an hour and then voila! she appears. i get a big hug, we go find a subway pass for me which for three days is....90 US! get on the subway, sit on the subway while train officials try and clear someone who is sitting on the tracks, talk about her recent 6 month stay in iceland, head to her house in the sunny suburbs, and drop my poorly packed bag in a sunny, happy, wonderful apartment.

so phew. i have arrived. and it only gets better. i arrived on a "red day" or national holiday. meaning that all of the swedes in the train station frantically waving flags weren't creepily nationalistic, but were celebrating the national holiday that i can only compare to the fourth of july. i meet a friend of my host, eat some couscous, lightly pass out in the sun in the back yard, and then we head to the grocery to buy materials for a bbq my host is throwing that night in honor more of everyone's day off than any holiday. a short walk and interesting foray into swedish groceries later, we get back and get to chopping, and surf google for pictures of cilantoro which they hae never heard of*. the three of us make a spinach-potato-balsamic salad (the local potatos were some of the best i've ever had), kebabs with veggies marinated in soy sauce and chilli peppers, hummus, guacamole, soy dogs, couscous, and a weird soya meat corn concoction. 

i get to meet another couch surfer staying with my host who is a funny american with a great sense of humor. he's in school at the college of william and mary and is traveling for the summer. he envies my life. haha!

i begin learning some swedish language principles and then slowly, my hosts friends arrive. they are all amazing! smart, funny, amazingly articulate in english, great music tastes, engaged and engaging, trendy (really trendy), and all round fantastic. i look at my watch thinking it is around five and its eight. the sun still high in the sky. we hang out, grill out, veg out, pig out, talk, laugh, sit in the sun that seems fixed in the sky, and have an all´round good time. the sn sets at ten, but the light doesn't fade from the sky until 12:30. my oh my. i wouldn't ever sleep if i lived here. but i guess i'll have to figure it out, as i'l live here soom enough.

so i got a great introduction to swedish life, am hitting the downtown today with johanna, made some good friends who i will for sure stay in touch with when i move to oslo, and have recovered decently from the jet lag. if you just pretend that you haven't gone from southern california to the arctic in 18 hours, the adjustment can be mastered. i say this through cracked out, sleepy eyes, dried out and looking at a computer screen at 7:15 am. oh, and the sun rose at 4. so i'm going back to sleep....

*this is not strange to me. not only is cilantro used mainly in south american and mexican cooking, it is mostly grown there, in fact, i am blown away, and we discuss this at length, that we live half way around the world from each other and we eat all the same foods. its kind of weird, and sort of scary how much effort and energy goes into food globalization and that just as we expect avocados to be available in december from brazil, they expect avocados to be avaiable in the winter from israel. johanna points out that she can often choose between organic fruit grown in south america and industrial food grown locally: which is better? is it better to buy for our bodies, or for the level of eco-friendliness?  

easy in, easy out.

arrived in sweden this morning, and i'm sitting at the train station waiting for my couch surfing host. my flight was delayed and i'm afraid i may have made her wait for me. so all is well in scandanavia.

hello kitty.

the service started a mere two days ago, and i am soon to take advantage: delta flies to stockholm, and i will be aboard the third flight. i will arrive at 11:30 tomorrow morning, meet up with my couchsurfing host, get a bit of r&r and then hit the town. this weekend is the "taste of stockholm" festival which is one of the largest culinary events in europe; i'll be there. i'll blog when i get there. as to when i'll be coming back...not sure yet. but when i know i'll merge on to the information super highway and let you know too. so the nordic travels, the scouting my path for the next two years, the apartment hunting, the job search, the language lessons, all begin when i land tomorrow, so yippy kai-yay. 

my socal life.

big news: um there's a black dude with a chance to become prez. thats pretty crazy. and awesome. gonna be honest, i was a hillary fan, but i still really like the guy and if we elect the dinosaur war-hawk its okay, because i won't be living here any more, and perhaps more importantly, i won't be in a country that we could potentially go to war with. so i'm headed to sweden tomorrow, will spend a while in stockholm, meet up with a friend i met in bangkok, go to oslo with her, check out the school and my housing options, train to bergen, then meet up with a friend from school in amsterdam, hang out there for a bit, and then head with her to meet her parents at her dad's house in switzerland. then its back to the states for some family face time and a bit of possession round up, packing boxes, finalizing my residency permit, lining up some school loans, heading back to singapore, and then prepping for school....

santa monica has been wonderful: i've been working on a super fun photo project, have spent equal time on the bicycle and the beach, have had some nice quality time with a fantastic friend, made three new ones, pretended to be famous, saw some famous people (yes, sally field hangs out in venice), read a bunch, wrote a little, walked loads, got blisters and then new shoes, kept the vegan kick going, bought a lonely planet norway, started reading a book to learn norwegian, watched obama win, watched clinton not admit losing, got a bit of empathetic embarassment for her, made some post cards, sent some postcards, and now i have to go buy some toiletries, and pack for the trip tomorrow.

haha.

californication.

i've been too busy with beaches pleasantly consistent sunshine, great company, smooth sailing bike rides, and decision making to blog. but now, sitting in a friend's apartment in santa monica i have my chance. i spent a few days in ventura with a buddy from austin who lives four doors from the pacific, and though i was teetering before, took the leap to...veganism. yes, yes. its stereotypical, its make-funable, but its also pretty awesome. so i've been animal product free for a week or so and don't plan on turning back any time soon. i went on a painfully awkward, horrible, embarrassing blind date, but then had the chance to follow up on a second date that went really well. i made a friend at a bar, talked for a half hour or so about woody allen movies, and went to dinner with him and two friends the next night. i got quarantined in a bar in culver city where a friend of a friend was dj-ing because a homeless guy got stabbed out front. (don't worry, i snagged some la county police tape before leaving crossing the flare barricades) i walked the venice boardwalk, hovered around a flailing and massive drum circle, watched a man with only an American flag speedo and black fanny pack roller blade through the crowds, stuck my foot in the pacific, waved to my mother, reentered the throbbing scene of mid-nineties street vendors, listened to the sound of giggling girls and tattoo guns, ate great mexican, and applied for housing in oslo. so its been a whirlwind, and its too sunny to sit inside and update y'all, so i'm headed out to the beach for a bit more fun in the sun. i'm planning on heading to stockholm on thursday, and then training to oslo.