A sauna isn't always what it seem to be, so thank god, a bar is always a bar

Yesterday after updating my blog, and after some lunch/dinner we decided to hit up a sauna close by. Leuuwarden is freezing with all the snow and ice, and they have a special offer for students in the window to the sauna, so why not? I only expected it to be one or two different saunas, maybe a dry one and a steam one, but it would be great to just sit there and get warm and relaxed all the way through!
We arrived and the girl checked us in through the computer and then she showed us the way to a room with lockers. She open the door and the first thing I saw was a naked man standing there shaking of the water on his back against a towel. Ooops. Immediately I made eye contact with the girl again but she showed no signs, that she'd been opening the wrong door. Instead she looked at us and said; "Here's your lockers. When your done getting undressed, you can just come out here". She pointed through the next door were we could see a few pools and tubs. "Ehhhm okay..." I answered and before I knew it, she was gone. And there we stood. A quiet second and then I turned around to my dear friend with a little bit of a surprised face. "Great... something tells me I shouldn't have freaked out about finding my swimsuit?" What none of us had known as we walked in 5 minutes earlier was that the sauna was a naked spa.

Monday night, our last real night out together, was spend at Fire with good friends, okay music and -yay- cheap drinks! I can't believe how cheap it is to go out everywhere - but in Sweden! I'll miss that now when I go back... It's not cool that the drinks are 1/3 or or less, of the price they usually are back home. After clubs and bars, it was time for the after party and the after the after party-party. It was fun and I got to hang out more with all the cool people I've met here. Some had more fun then others, what's up with people always forgtting not to pass out?? Let's just say, that someone went through a really nice make up session this morning... and that I now 5 minutes ago, told him that he still got a blue nose and waterproof masara under his eyes.. Rule #1, if you can't stay awake, tell people you're out, so then they can't mess with you. Got it? I will really miss them. It's a quiet happy crowd. Maybe I should come here and study as well? I just got offered a room and everthing, it would be all cleared out for me to move in when the semester start in January.. What do you think about that?

Leeuwarden, Holland

I made it here too! You have no idea how awesome it was to step of the train and find my best friend standing there waiting! How I've missed that crazy hair and those eyes! Weeeeeii! And that voice! I can just listen for hours to all his stories :) My whole stay here I've been in my little happy bubble. First Milana and now Tobias, before I'm going back to see my family in Sweden. These weeks are just amazing!

I am currently sitting in Tobias room, waiting for him to come home from school. He had a meeting to go to, so after checking out his college, I explored Leeuwarden and did some shopping!

His college was really nice and a little fancy. At a first look the outside didn't appeal to much, I was a little bit skeptic to that this would be something special. But I was soon proved to be wrong! never judge the outside, right? They had everything in there, even a hotel, and the design was just awesome! For the first time I was walking around at a college really caring about what I was seeing, interested, wanting to know more and see more. It's a really nice school people!
The only other college I've been to that gave me that feeling was LSU, where Corey took me a couple of weeks ago. Their campus was amazing, unfortunately I hardly got to see the inside since it was closed. What I did see of the inside tho, was really cool, new and modern, just like here. I'd like to check that school out more at some point. Their campus still gave me the #1 feeling, tho Leeuwarden is really close behind.

I love the street markets! I went here
7 am at the after party to get some
straw berries for a snack :)
Also, look at the building and all the bikes!

Now to the city, I walked around for a couple of hours and you just gotta love this place! It's amazingly pretty and beautiful and it got so much character!
The streets are small with no pavement, instead they use different types of bricks. Now, you'd think that kind of suck to bike and walk on, but I've used my heels all over and I never saw anyone falling of the bike! It's great!

Tobias also took me to a block where the streets are covered in graffiti. It was pretty cool to walk around in the small alleys in between the houses and just look at all the art, some artists are pretty darn good!

Walking around just house watching is a nice activity itself. All the houses look different from each other with their own personal architecture and style.
The city also got hundreds of bridges big, small and tiny which adds up the fairytale cosy factor with 110%. There's even houses on the river- here people also live in houseboats!

Tobias house is pretty old but really nice! It got steep stairs, and it's high up to the ceiling. The architecture on the inside is also pretty old fashion with details in the ceilings, light colored walls and built in window benches and fireplaces (not longer in use). He shares this place with two other really cool German guys; Hannes and Konrad. I find it so funny to randomly walk in to three guys everyday life! I get to see them grocery shopping, cook, bake, clean, make the dishes and do the laundry! And we aren't talking easy food as hamburgers and mac n cheese, we are talking healty food! Vegetables and fruits! Pastas with different meats, sauces and spices, wooked meat and vegetables with rice and so on. What guys! Maybe I should stick around a little longer...? It really suck to just have a week with your best friend when you've hardly seen him in 2½ years..

Baking some brownies with the guys

Last but not least; the nightlife is pretty awesome too!! There's plenty of bars, cafés and coffee shops and they all play really good music. Everything from main stream radio to techno to reggae. It's just to pick your place and enjoy. I got to see my first official joint menu too. They all had such interesting names! Some were named after Disney characters, and only to read their names in dutch was a trip..!

Now Tobias is back and it's time to make some late lunch, but I will Hoi at you all later!

Србија - Serbia

FINALLY! After a long flight from LA to Germany, surviving a freaking long lay over in Frankfurt - 12 hours! I finally finally got of the plane that took me to Belgrade, Serbia! The flight was late, I grabbed my bags and ran through the glass doors, and there she was, my Mima! We start laughing almost screaming, hugging and kissing! After such long time I finally got to see my best friend live! :D

I spend 10 days in Serbia. We traveled back and forth between Novi Sad and Sid, we also went to S. Mitrovica where we met up with Brana and her 10 month old son. It was great to see her again and her son was so cute!

In Sid everything was the same, I remembered every street, every store and  every café I fell in love with during my first visit three years ago. Serbian hot chocolate, finally I would get it again. Yummie! Oh how I have craved it!

To see Milana's family again was amazing! We were so happy to see each other and they were all more excited about speaking English this time. They were not as shy as before. Minja, Mima's younger sister really tried hard and improved her skills a lot during the week, especially at the house parties! Haha
I love going out in Sid, it's so relaxed. The house parties this year was really cool. Held in an apartment with black light's and stuff, really cool. Going out clubbing was just like I remembered it, so crowded and pumped to a thousand.

Most of our time we spend in Novi Sad, Mima was so excited about this. She goes to college there and it's a big difference to Sid. Novi Sad is a bigger city, the architecture is beautiful and the café life and night life is amazing since it's a student city. We spend the days sight seeing, shopping and catching up and almost every night we went out at the cafés and just had a blast! Awesome with girl time! But I had totally forgotten, how freaking long it takes for two-three girls to get ready! Oh my god... I got nothing on Mima and her room mate! Just so y'all know.

I also had the luck to catch up with Miki again, both in Novi Sad and in Sid. When I was in Sid, he took me out to the village where his family lives and I got to meet them all for a Serbian Sunday dinner and later we went to the lake. Pretty cool. It was so much food! I thought I was done two or three times, but then the next thing came out to the table! Not to complain tho. We had a lot to catch up on, and we didn't have time to cover it all.

I could write a whole essay about Serbia, what we did, were we went, who we saw. About the life, the food, the drinks, the people and whatever you'd like. But my internet access is kind of limited and I don't want to spend too much time on the computer as I am visiting my friends :)

But I will have thousands and thousand of stories to tell y'all when I get home! No doubt about that!!!

Singing and dancing barefoot on the streets of Santa Monica!

"When I woke up all alone on 'the wrong coast' of America. 

I would never had guessed, that my last day would be so magic! 

That I would play in the water, see a sunset by the ocean 

and make fun friends, while dancing barefoot on the beach and on the streets of 

Santa Monica!"

I was waving good bye to my Mom in the cruel AM... ughh... poor her who had such an early flight!

After waking up a second time and eating some 'knäckebröd' with 'makrill', I decided to change my plans from a lazy girl day to a new adventure. I will have plenty of stay-home-days soon enough! Where to go and how to get there was the big questions of the day. It ended up being Santa Monica by bus :) I was so excited! I thought I would have nothing at all to do when my Mom was gone.. turns out I was wrong, now I only wish she could have joined me on this last American adventure. It was my last day in America - for this time. Crazy!

The bus ride to Santa Monica was nothing special, I had company from an old man who used to live in the UK. He was very helpful, almost too helpful! I  thought he never would let me go! I needed to be so careful, and remember this and that, and did I bring a jacket? Cause the wind would be really chilly once the sun set..! Oh, old helpful people :)

First stop was the beach. It was gorgeous. The sun was shining and the ocean felt so... Big! I ran down to the beach and jumped out of my heels once I reached the sand line, who would not walk barefoot on the beach?! It was so quiet and peaceful, some guys were playing football, and some couples were having pick nick. So romantic.
I took pictures and danced along on the beach in the waves. The water was surprisingly nice.

After watching some more football I stumbled right in to a guy in a visitor cubicle, perfect! I was told to hit up some cool places and he gave me a map where he marked everything down. Pheeew...! To many places haha but it was very nice of him.

I followed his first advice and went to Shangri-La, were I was recommended to eat dinner at the roof top during sunset. I thought it seemed like a nice last dinner on my big long adventure in America. I got a lobster soup with mushrooms and a nice drink. Yummie! It was perfect - even the price ;) While enjoying the sunset I talked to Bella. I said it sucks to watch a sunset alone, and she informed me that what does suck, is to have a sunset at 4 pm (She lives in Rochester, NY).. I guess that would suck too..

The place was very nice, but.. pretty boring for a lonely cat like me, so I said ciao and went out to see what the streets had to offer this beautiful evening. I walked around, just people watching, thinking that maybe I should hit up a bar or two and see if I could meet some cool people? Then the best happened; I reached 5th street with all its street musicians! Oh I love LOVE street musicians and performers! It's the best! I kept walking through and just enjoyed, really enjoyed all the music and the people. After some walking and talking I reached a guy who was playing a really nice song on his guitar and I stopped to listen a little extra. It had been a few hours since I had my soup, and how much does soup fill you up anyways..? Then wow, what do I see? What is that in the alley? Oh baby, it's a sushi bar! I hurried to grab a box of sushi, so happy, and then I sat down on the street to just listen. Song after song, this kid was really good. He played both his own songs and covers.

While eating my sushi this random dude comes up and he asks me to dance. "Nahh, Thank's but no thanks. I'm having dinner..." I said with smile. The guy then sat down on the street saying "It's okay, he'll probably play for another hour or so". I kept eating, very slow, but how slow could one eat sushi? When done, I didn't really have any excuses and he, Cowboy, started to talk again. I wounder were he got his nick from, I never got that one cleared out... He talked about the music, the homeless people in Santa Monica and just random things. After a while another happy song was played, and again I was asked to dance, this time I was more in a mood and thought "Why not, it will be a great fun addition to my last night". And so we started to swing around on the street, it was so much fun! We had our audience and the guy with the guitar kept on playing and singing, it was great! I was spinning around so much I threw my shoes off! Imagine that! I missed dancing like that a lot while I was in America, it will be fun to start dancing again once I come back to Sweden.

I made really good friends with Cowboy and Will the musician and we hung out the rest of the night till early morning. Will later, even helped me to put music to one of the songs I've written! I got to record it and it was just such a cool feeling to hear my own written song, with music! Woaaaa!

It was a great first day in Santa Monica and a great last day in America. 

Los Angeles & Hollywood

Nöten's last round of
gambling in Vegas ;)

Waking up after just a few hours of sleep wasn't the greatest hit ever.. let's face it; our last night in Vegas was by far the craziest!

Last on our to-do-list; LA. Time to chase some stars, take pictures of the sign and just enjoy this city that's always ALWAYS in the magazines and the movies.

Mom Rockin The Walk of Fame

HA! Big joke! LA and Hollywood is prolly THE trashiest city (cities) I've visited in the US so far! What a disappointment! And there was not a whole lot to actually do here. The walk of fame, the hand prints, the sign - all those tourist things of course. We did them, but it was definitely nothing crazy. Again, we took a bus ride (we seriously had to much time on our hands here, and it needed to get wasted) The tour was super crappy! The bus was falling a part the microphone didn't work really and there was nothing to the tour. We saw houses and places that celebs own or where they died from o.d.'s and such, but our guide didn't really have any cool stories to share.. I guess it was nice to drive in Beverly Hills and Bel Air, these areas were actually nice. We also got a glimpse of Michael Jacksons house since they offer viewings now after his death.

Then shopping and more shopping! Our solution of what to spend time on in LA before my Mom flew home ;D

Las Vegas

Las Vegas!

Shows, concerts, amazingly big hotels, drinks, party, Vegas weddings, GAMBLING etc etc etc! It all crossed our minds, over and over again. What should and shouldn't you expect from Vegas?
Well, it was all there, just... it felt a lot smaller and less exclusive then I thought it would be. Even though I thought I had hardly no expectations, I got slightly (maybe even a little bit more then that) disappointed. I guess it depends on how you choose to do Vegas, but I think we all had expected more from this world known, never resting, never sleeping city.

Driving in to Vegas was kind of cool. We had been in a pitch dark dessert and all of a sudden, we had a horizon of lights, in front of us. It was sweeeeeet after driving in the dessert and through small towns for days and days. Closer to the city, with this ocean of lights on our right hand side, it was crazy how nothing, nothing at all was on our left side. Not a single streetlight, fast food place, house, no nothing! It was just so dark. Fascinating to see such a sudden and clear 'beginning' and 'end' of a City.

Someone had also decided to come over for a day and a half in the middle of our stay; Sebastian! It was great and we had a lot of fun, to bad it was only for such a short time :(

Mom finding one of Vegas Wedding Chapels

Our Vegas adventure was filled with shopping, food and gambling. Can you believe I kept my Mom out till 4.30 AM??!! :D We also went to see a show; Ka at the MGM and Bodies The Exhibition at the Luxor. Both pretty cool and crazy.

Ka was pretty cool, the story line wasn't the best on this specific Ka show, but the moving stage was crazy! It's hard to explain the show and do it justice while trying, the best way for you would be to check it out on YouTube;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsE14IFMPUc

Bodies The Exhibition was also really cool. I loved it. At first I found it crazy and disgusting, but I was also really excited to see this, since I've been wanting to go for a while now. The excitement overtook the stomach! ;) This 'Exhibition' is like a museum kind of thing where you look at the human body. All body parts, everything, is real. It's cleaned up and preserved to the tiniest detail. The brain, heart, lungs, the nerve system, everything! I don't even know what to say! People in China donate their bodies for scientist to do all this. I just couldn't believe my eyes when I was looking around at all these things that I've only been reading about in school.. To see these things in real life was something else! You can't compare it to the pictures or fake skeletons etc, that the teacher bring to class. I got to hold a brain and a lung. Imagine?! Eeeewww! but since the opportunity was there, I just HAD to hold it. But the thought of it being real (as in, from the inside of another human) was as cool as it was wrong! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enw0S1Otbpw&feature=related

My new playground; Grand Canyon!

Wowza!

It was so worth the wait to spend the night in Kingman and hit up Grand Canyon the next morning!! The Grand Canyon is THE most amazing thing we've done this far on our west coast trip. I had so much fun!!


To begin with, we met the guy from yesterday, he recognized us and we got a few laughs through out the conversations that followed. Again; off to a good start! The sun was shining, and felt so nice and warm, even though the wind was extremely cold. We got on the different buses in the park, and it was as easy as 1,2,3 to get around the park and see everything we wanted for as long as we wanted. Loved it! The views were amazing! Every moment felt like a Kodak moment. Mom freaked out every time I walked up to the edges (there were no safety lines anywhere). You know how you, when you care for kids, put on warmer clothes on the little once because You are cold? Same concept. She tried to disallow me to walk by the edge and such, cause she was afraid. It was sweet, and she got really brave too after giving it some time. I got a pretty freaking cool Mom, she rocked those rocks! ;)


The first view point was okay. It was your first 'wow' experience over the Canyon. They also had some Native American performance by two girls, but it was really really lame. They walked in a circle and didn't include any movements to the music (tribal music). What was the most interesting here though, was to walk through the area showing the different building structures the tribes used when building their homes. It was like time traveling in a way, when you stepped in to the old tipi's.

Our second stop was majestic! The view, was


stunning! The valley, the cliff, the river, the way the sun kissed it in red and yellow. I can't explain the beauty of the landscape (and neither can our cameras).
This was by far my favorite nature stop on our trip! And it made perfect for a play ground. Here we could climb, and walk around more freely from other tourists and just enjoy ourselves. I looooved it!

Yihaa! Our last stop was the Ranch! This was not so much a nature experience, this was more a Cowboy/Indian hands on experience. Not on the guys... tho we got offered work and to be 'tasted' lol.. the staff was great, they were so funny. Well anyways, here you could take pics with the horses (of course I allowed my self this free little tourist trap), to shoot with bow and arrows, throw lasso, ax and horse shoe, eat at the saloon, and last but not least, to go on a wagon ride. Mom and I got carried away with the cowboys and tried all the activities multiple times. It was so much fun! These guys are super! So helpful, funny and open to teach you all they know about the ranch.

I think today was the day, we have enjoyed the most here on the west coast. The over all experience were so good!
Now we're planning our next move after some great shopping and a superdedooper tast dinner at Granny's.  Antelope Canyon tomorrow, I can't wait! I am so excited about this one yall! This is the one thing I have high expectations on, so it better be good!!