Thanksgiving and a bit more... :)

Last weekend 8 of my class mates and I went to Portland to do some cheap shopping (as there is not tax on material goods in Portland. The state tax is alternatively paid through the inhabitants income) and also watch a basket ball game.

The basketball game turned out to be just great, I liked that a lot more than American football. The atmosphere was a lot more intimate here, as it was inside and also people cheered a lot more than at the Sea-hawks game. Portland Blazers (the home team) won in the last minute so it was just great and in fact super-duper exciting. We had bought really cheap tickets so we were placed quite far away from the court. In fact we were sitting on the very last row… But that just signified that we were able to act up like crazy J

That night turned out to never end though… We had to go up the next morning at 5 in order to catch a bus back to Seattle, as we had to go to school. But as our course is almost over, we were going to have a math quiz the very same day + had an assignment in math due. Stupid as we were we had kept on postponing finishing the math assignment, so we ended up staying up to almost 4 and then we slept an hour before going to school… Living the American life is quite tough…!

After the quiz at school Laurids and I went to celebrate my host-sisters 19^th birthday. The rest of the week went with thanksgiving, Black Friday and the last trip to Seattle.

Yes, Thanksgiving and Black Friday have passed – and both have been great experiences!

We got off school Tuesday because of Thanksgiving coming up. Wedensday we had thanksgiving at my house, as my host-mom was going to her dad’s house on the real thanksgiving. So we celebrated Wednesday night with Laurids’ host-family. The food was actually great and we all got to “thank” for different aspects of our lives.

At Camillas on Thanksgiving :)

Thursday I went to Camilla’s house to celebrate Thanksgiving with her host-family. Here her host-mom’s relatives came over. As we were a lot more people and because it was the “real” thanksgiving there was a lot more food – in fact it resembled a Danish Christmas Eve quite a lot. J

Black Friday was crazy! Black Friday is always the Friday day after Thanksgiving and it is “Christmas sales” starting at midnight. Camilla and I had decided to go, so we took a cap with Laurids and Jeppe there and were met by a 500 meter long line in front of “Best buy” an electronic store. Some people had been waiting for hours and when we arrived they were just about to open the doors. I have really never seen anything like that.... Greedy people basically ran in and we could see how they started just pulling stuff down the shelves...!!!! 

So we were shopping all the way to 6 in the morning. And I tell you, there were just people everywhere! Families and even kids were running around like crazy screaming and pulling clothes and stuff from the shelves in the shops…! Camilla and I went back to her house with two dead Japanese girls (seriously her host sister was walking in her sleep!), slept a couple of hours before we went back to shopping in the afternoon. I have never been much of a shopper so I think I have shopped for the rest of my life…!

Anyway, now it is Sunday and we only have three days left here… Can’t believe it… Two months has passed already! 

 

San Francisco - city of 2013

Yes, it is true. I was so fortunate that i got to go to the city that has been ranked as #1 2013! 

http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2012/Oct/RazziET2013

This was the two crazy people I went with, Lise and Laurids ;)

Lise had invited Laurids and I to come along with her, as she wanted to visit some of her friends in SF. We stayed with some friends of her family in Sacramento and they were just awesome. Already from the moment the lady Marta picked us up in the airport waving with a Danish flag it appeared to be a very promising weekend.

She has been living in Denmark and also worked for Novo-nordisk for many years so her Danish was quite well. However, she preferred speaking English, which was good, as we better keep on practicing our English. Both her and her husband appeared to be very open-minded, friendly people that knows a lot about everything! I feel that we learned so much from just being with them – got to discuss so many different topics and gained a lot of knowledge about what it is like being American.

 And Laurids opened up for San Francisco! :)

 This is called the "coit-tower" has been the emblem of San Francisco's skyline since its completion in 1933. After one of the cities firefighters died she donated money for ornamentation of her city. The tower was therefore named after her. 

A Catholic church from the Italian city part. 

The alcatraz cruise that they didn't allow us to get on...

Well, Saturday Marta took us to SF, which is located like 1,5 our away from Sacramento. Lise was supposed to meet one of her friends so Laurids and I would have to explore the city on our own. We had both been there before but as I had never visited Alcatraz (an island on which a prison is located) we had decided to do that. In fact we had both excited each other about going so much that we could only be completely disappointed when we reached the pier and realised that the tickets were sold out untill tuesday… L
So Laurids spent some time travelling there with me mentally. I felt so bad for myself so now I have decieded that I have been there anyway…! J


As an alternative we spent the day walking around ”sensing” the city. We went to a hippie district, which was quite cool.

Sunday Marta took us all the way to Lake Tahoe, which is one of America’s many National Parks. It is half way located in California and the rest is in Nevada, which signified we got to visit two states!

J And in fact we went to a casino in Nevada, as it is one of the only states, in which casinos are permitted. As you see the nature around Lake Tahoe is just amazing and it is supposed to be a great skiing area. Unfortunately the lifts do not open before this weekend and therefore we were not able to ski… It was strange however, cause we went from California, Sacramento, in which there was around 16 degrees Celsius to Lake Tahoe, which was covered in snow – and it was only a 2 hour drive away! J
Monday we were back in San Francisco.
Here Laurids and I went to a Science academy and was actually quite surprised when we had to conclude that the rainforest in Randers was better than this one!




Besides that I guess I should mention that Obama has just been reelected, which has brought great joy to our group! I was however, chocked to see how little some Americans cared about the election. On the election day some from my class watched it together and were sort of into it… Meanwhile we were watching the family we were at were watching series on their laptop and did not participate.

Another thing is that the Americans also voted for some initiatives. Here in Washington state Marijuana has actually been legalised along with gay-marriage. That signifies that from December this year marijuana can be bought at stores… Wonder how that will affect the program next year… no, just kidding ;)