One day left! (en dag tilbage)

Today we had our last day at school. It was weird, that it was our last day at Edmonds Community College. Wow! But it has been great to go to school. I actually wouldn’t mind study there again. But Seattle owns my heart, so of course I wouldn’t mind ;-)

After school Mette Bækgaard, Mette Bennekov and I took to Alderwood Mall for the last time this trip. And we said goodbye to this lovely mall that actually just stole our money. But I’d still wish I could take it with me to Denmark and exchange it with Herning Centret! No doubt!

After being in the mall, we went to Red Robin to have a real American dinner. With dessert! Mhh, it was really good. If I was hungry before eating, I sure wasn’t afterwards!
After eating at the restaurant, Bennekov’s hostmom took us to this place, with lights. It hard to explain exactly what it was, but you those light you put up at Christmas time. Yeah, that kind of lights and then they have created waterfalls, trees and all kinds of figures and colors, it was so beautiful to watch!
Now I’m sitting in my room talking with my mom on skype. And it’s weird to know that tomorrow is the last day over here. Tomorrow I have to start packing all my stuff, and I really don’t think that’s going to be good! I’m afraid that I would have too much in my bag. And I’m gonna miss Seattle. I wish I could be here for Christmas. I think that I could have been here for a year. I wanted to.
I’m going to enjoy these last hours in USA. I will at no point think about going home – I’ll just live in the moment, because that’s why I’m here!
Nik & Jay once said these clever words (and this one goes to all you danish people!):
En dag tilbage - lev mens du gør det, elsk mens du tør det!

The first goodbye

Well, this Saturday wasn’t all about me being tired and black Friday and using money. Something serious also happened.

My hostmom told me about a week or two ago that she was heading to Hawaii. But I didn’t quite get it before some days ago, when she told me that she was leaving Sunday the 27^th. I was like NOOOOO! I’m going home the 30^th and you’re not there! So I had my big goodbyes with her yesterday. I’m gonna miss her sooooo much! That Philippine lady made an impression on me, she sure did! And it is so weird that she’s gone and not going to drive me to school Wednesday before going to the airport. I hope to see her again. After all, she was my hostmom for two months; it can’t be true that this was it! Another reason why I have to come back to Seattle ;-)

#4 After every thankgiving - there comes a BLACK FRIDAY!

The school offered us in the beginning of the term, the opportunity to go to Portland, Oregon, to shop on Black Friday, because they have no taxes. Of course everybody wanted to go, because we didn’t only save money because it was black Friday, we also saved the taxes!

So we had to be ready to drive to Oregon 9 AM in the morning. Mostly everybody had big suitcases with them, and then I came with my normal bag. Yup, I was so ready to shop till I dropped. But first of all: driving in bus for 3 and a half hour! Weeee!
Obviously not the best part of the trip, but I just fell asleep, so I didn’t really care about that part.
When we arrived to Portland I was so tired from getting up so early, but we just had to shop. And I had my plans: Apple store! I’ve talked so much about buying an iPod and finally I did, so now I’m the happy owner of a small little baby, iPod nano! I’m glad that I waited until this trip to buy to, because I saved lots of money on it, compared to Danish price and the price in Seattle.

Then we just went from shop to shop and… well, used all of our money (actually I didn’t).

In the evening we went back to the hotel. Me and Mette Bækgaard shared room and then we changed to our pajamas. Or I did, Mette put on her one piece from H&M. we had been talking about it all day and nobody except from Mette Bækgaard, Mette Bennekov and I knew what we were talking about. And in the evening she just went out to the lobby in this one piece! Everybody just looked at her, really fun! But I think the real Black Friday was when all the shops opened at midnight, when people were just waiting in line and going crazy. That was also the time when all the stores had the big sales. But I think this is okay. Maybe overrated, but that's okay for me that there is no big croud of people.
But Bækgaard, Matias, Erik and I were at our room almost all evening. We were playing Ligretto, which is a game that Bækgaard had brought. And of course she won the game.

Besides playing Ligretto we did those things you shouldn’t do on a hotel: jump in the bed, playing with the elevators and all that. And then we came up with this idea that we had to watch a movie. But as on every other hotel, you would have to pay for that. So what to do? Find the wallet and go down to the reception and say that we have five dollars that we wanna spend on a movie. and when we came up to our room, we could use five dollars on everything for five dollars or less. It was like if a kid just got five dollars to candy from its mother. But we’d already decided what movie we wanted to watch, so we just pressed the ‘Order’ bottom (yeah, all we needed was room service!). As always I fell asleep to the movie. I always do that, so of course I did it this time too. But at least I woke up before the ending this time! And it was only 1:30 when the movie was over, and we weren’t that tired anymore. We just talked for some time – before going to the fitness room! Yes, we went to the fitness room 2 AM! It wasn’t fun going to bed at 3:30 at night, and then the alarm started 7 AM again. Man, I was so tired I didn’t wanna get up from bed. But Mette forced me, even though she had a hard time waking me up, and she had less sleep than I had!

And then we went for breakfast before going to this waterfall. It was 45 minutes away from the hotel, but it was an opportunity to sleep, so I did. No problem! And it was a beautiful fall. Mogen, Mette Bennekov and I hiked halfway up. We didn’t have time for more. Or the power to continue, so we just walked back to the bus. And when we came into the bus, guess what? I fell asleep again. We were going to spend the rest of the day shopping in Portland, and honestly I just wanted to sleep, no surprise. But I ended up using money on lots of stuff anyway, so I guess it wasn’t that bad after all. But when we came to the bus in the afternoon to drive home to college – I just didn’t want to be awake anymore, so I decided to sleep! I didn’t sleep as much as I could, but I slept for at least one hour.

My conclusion? Amazing trip to Portland, nothing less!

The day before THANKSGIVING!

Today is Wednesday, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving!

Yesterday I ate with Emilie, Anne Sofie, Kristine, Clara, Mette and Mette on this restaurant called “Olive Garden” and it was some of the best Italian food! It was really good. We got off from school early, but we made our homework until 6 PM, and then we moved to Olive Garden.

And it was raining! It was raining so terrible much and I was so afraid of getting my computer wet, that I took off my jacket, put on my bag, and then the jacket OUTSIDE me and my bag. It looked like I had the most gigantic ass in the whole America! But my computer didn’t get wet, that was the point. But my shoes and socks became so wet, that I could squeeze them and water could just fall down like a waterfall.

Everything on the menu just sounded good and I didn’t know what to order, because it all just sounded so good. I love Italian food (or food in general), and it had all the Italian specialties, so what to do? SPLIT!
I had some spaghetti with tomato sauce and some pizza. Me and Emilie just split and then we had soup and salad. If it wasn’t for the really ignoring bus-schedules I could easily have been there, waiting for the dessert, but the busses only go once in the hour after 7 PM, so we had no other chance to get home.

Mette Bennekov and I took our bus home and then I was at her place for an hour. And then I borrowed some dry socks. That just made my evening! And then her hostmom drove me home.
Today we were at the Mall, and I bought a new blazer. Uuups! I just love them so much. And I didn’t have one in blue, so actually it wasn’t that bad!

And there is less than a week until we go back to Denmark. I don’t wanna go home, I wanna stay. I hate the feeling that it is soon over. But I’m still glad I’m here now. It’s gonna be good to get home, but for now I’m just gonna enjoy my last days. My hostmom flights to Hawaii Sunday morning, so this is my last says with her. I’m gonna miss that Philippine woman!

But now it’s actually Thursday. It’s thanksgiving today! I don’t know what to expect of it. I think of it as 25^th December. Just in November and with other kinds of food. And the amount of food.  But perhaps I shouldn’t compare that much to 25^th December. After all, it’s Thanksgiving, not Christmas (YET!!!)

So in case you celebrate this holiday, happy thanksgiving to you. J
And now I wanna go to sleep! Goodnight!

I DO like Mondays; Frappuchinos - this is your superior!

Mondays are usually bad. But over here, I love Mondays! But that’s because I have a Starbucks-date with Mette Bennekov every Monday after school. That’s one thing that I’m going to miss, because it is really just cozy!
And we took the bus from school and went to QFC to buy some things before going to Starbucks. And when we came to Starbucks there was Christmas music and of course we had to have all the holiday specials. First I had a Peppermint Mocha Frappuchino. And this is what I found out:

YOU LOST CARAMEL FRAPPUCHINO; YOU JUST MET YOUR SUPERIOR!!!!
It tasted like cold after eight chocolate, in this frappuchino! And I mean it, OMG! And all the Christmas music and we were just relaxing and talking and it really made me miss Denmark!  I missed Disney’s Christmas Show, my mom, everything! I was in totally Christmas-mood! And there is not long to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I’m looking forward to it!
But after being at Starbucks for hours and after drinking TWO drinks, we split up. But only a couple of hours later Mette came to my place to sleep that night. We had so much fun, I won’t say more. We girls never kiss and tell! ;-)

Sunday = church!

After a great day in Seattle, my hostmom took me to church. I have never been to church in America before, but what I have heard, it was different from Denmark. So I got up a little early (not too much!) and then me and my hostmom drove to Mette Bækgaard’s place to pick her up, because she was going with us to church. She hadn’t been in church either, so we decided to go together. We went to the St. James Cathedral inside Seattle. It was weird that they had this big church in the middle of everything. But it was a beautiful church.

In USA people are Catholics, so it was not the same kind of church service than in Denmark, but it was fun to see how people prayed all the time and how people were just “chanting”. It was so weird, but a fun experience, that I absolutely will remember!

After church my hostmom took me and Mette to this Korean restaurant. I wasn’t hungry, but we went anyway and had these really weird Korean dishes and I’m sorry, but not all of it tasted that good. Well, I didn’t like it all. So all in all, a little weird day, that somehow turned out to be pretty fun J

Seattle from the air!

This day we had to get up early… again! Think I’ll soon be getting use to get up before 8. But no, I wanted to sleep at least 5 hours more, when my clock said 5:50 AM! A little too early to my taste, but today it was important to get up early.
Matias, Erik, Mogens, Nicolai, Mette, Mette and I had decided to take a water plane from Kenmore to Seattle! And our plane should leave 8:30 in the morning. And we had to get to Kenmore first, so of course that involved getting up way too early to catch the right busses! Mette, Mette, Mogens and I took the same busses, while the others took a cap. It was a big mess with all the tickets and to pay the right things, but we ended up in Kenmore anyway. And then we took the water planes to Seattle! If you don’t know what a water plane is, I can tell you that is it a plane, that instead of landing on ground, it lands on water, ergo water plane. And it was definitely 15 $ worth! You had the whole view and the mountains and the city and it was just in sunrise. It was beautiful and even though the flight only took about 5-10 minutes, it was so cool and I was so glad that I got up that early to get this experience!

When we came to Seattle we wanted to have some breakfast and we walked into downtown and found a place. And it was this kind of healthy place that didn’t have any soda. And all the costumers were all wearing their sports clothes and work out shoes and we just felt a little misplaced. Or I did with my waffles and syrup! But I’m not that into healthy things and all that, so I didn’t mind! ;-)
After that we met with Oliver, Sajan and Nevethan. It was really fun walking around with each other. We went lots of places, but at last we met to go to Theo’s chocolate factory. We took the bus from downtown Seattle to the more silent part of Seattle. And all the streets were so cozy, and there were small bookstores and all that. It was in every way great. And then we climbed this big man, I don’t know why, but it was this sculpture of a big man. And THEN we came to the chocolate factory. Unfortunately all tours were sold out from now and three weeks ahead, but then we just bought a lot of chocolate instead.
After being in Seattle we all headed home with the busses. My hostmom picked me up at the Transit Center, because we were going to watch hockey. We were going to watch Everett vs. Vancouver. I was looking forward to it, because we in our family enjoy hockey. But this was different. Normally I sit with all the fans and cheering. This time we sat in this lounge with lots of food, desserts and drinks. It was so weird, because I’m used to more normal games. But this was just luxurious and my hostmom told her that she often got tickets like this with food and good seats. Now I’m like why didn’t you tell me? But it was a fun experience, and Vancouver won. My hostmom was the only person cheering for them (okay, perhaps not, but almost everybody cheered for Everett).
When we came home from the game, we found out how to turn on the heat on my room. Now I don’t have to be cold anymore! That was nice, but I’d wish we had figured it out just a little before. But it’s better than nothing ;-)