Saaan Fraaancisco

Ever since I can remember we have been recieving christmas cards from the US. Distant relatives that my parents have stayed in touch with who we suddenly had the opportunity to visit! Our first stop was Roger Bates, a relative on my mother's side, who lives outside San Francisco. We jumped on a Greyhound bus in LA and drove 8 hours north. We've heard a lot about the Greyhounds but were rather pleasantly surprised - we have been on A LOT worse bus rides! In the city we jumped on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, a lot of fun since "bart" means moustache in Norwegian. "Bart police"!? Haha) and went to Pleasanton were Roger picked us up.

Vener and Roger live in a really cosy house with their chinese crested powder puff Sydney and their cat Oliver. We appreciated the animal company, we miss that travelling. It was a nice neighbourhood and Pleasanton was such a pretty little town! Altough we spent most of our time exploring San Francisco Roger and Vener showed us around their area too. They took us to the mall, downtown and out to eat both Mexican and pizza. Yum! Roger has a pool table in the garage and showed us that he has absolutely not forgotten his skills, I lost 10 times in a row.. We also watched a lot of old, classic TV series and some new. We're excited about watching American shows on American TV! All things American in general really, we keep seeing things we've only even seen on Friends or other shows!

Out to eat Mexican!

Vener, Sydney and Oliver. The cat and dog were just about the same size!

It takes about an hour to get to San Francisco downtown from there, Roger dropped us off and picked us up at the BART station both early and late. We are so grateful! The city was a lot like I had imagined, hilly and beautiful. There was a big farmers market in town on Saturday with fruits, vegetables and other food. And soo many samples! We pretty much had lunch right there. We made our way through China Town (like jumping right back to Asia for a couple of hours) and over to the Fishermans Wharf. A touristy but nice area with lots of life and things to see. You can also see the Golden Gate Bridge from there, the real landmark of San Francisco!

The Golden Gate Bridge is in the background!

San Fransisco!

China town! ;)

And YES, the streets are really steep. As proven by the gold fish tank!

We went by Ghiradelli Square, one of the most famous American chocolate factories. They gave out free samples and we ended up dropping by there several times during our stay. Mm. We also went on a factory tour of a new chocolate company called TCHO. We learned a lot of new things about chocolate and enjoyed the tasting part very much! First tuesday of the month a bunch of museum have free entry so we decided to be a little cultural. The Museum of Modern Art was fun with a very diverse collection. These are some of our favorites:

One is made in chocolate, the other is soap. The seductive/tempting vs the innocent/clean sides of women.

Another thing this city is knows for are the cable cars. Apparently it's the last functioning system in the worldof that size and we got a good inlook into how it works at the Cable Car Museum. We had to go on one too, of cource. We got the last two spaces on our car and were hanging off the sides. Up and down steep hills, scary when you meet other cable cars not even a foot away! We held on real tight and enjoyed the ride! We have visited several Norwegian Sea men's churches on our trip. San Fran was up next! It has a beautiful location on the steep Hyde Street overlooking the wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge. The waffles and coffee were well worth the climb!

The cable car system. Impressive!

Excited about cable cars!

Veiw from the sea men's church on Hyde St.

Ever since we arrived here Sanna has been singing a song about the city and the only line she knows goes like this "Saaan Fraaansisco". Argh. We love the city and have been taken great care of, but maybe it's time to move on!? ;) Denver, here we come!

Stars and Stripes

We're in the US. This country that we grew up hearing stories about, every show we saw on TV taught us about their culture, the films taught us the language I write and speak in now. America with their American dream and values and politics. Their influence on the rest of the world, whether we all like it or not. There was a lot of expectation and anticipation and excitement. And so far, so good. :)

Flying in over LA, our first glipse of the US!!

We arrived in LA surprisingly little tired after almost 20 hours of travelling and were met at the airport in Los Angeles by an angel called Linnea. Now our connection with LIinnea is somewhat random and coincidential. She was at a Chirstmas party at Åslaug's mother's friend's house in Norway and after only a short chat offerd to take us in when we arrived in the country. L.A is flat and HUGE. During our first hours in USA we saw Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Hollywood. And got tickets to a show called "Operah's Allstars" with Dr.Phil, Dr.Oz and Suzie Orman, which we went to the next morning at Paramount Studios. (we were at the very front, Åssi will for sure be on tv, the theme was "Love, sex and more" and it will air sometime between september and november).

Hollywood Boulevard..

If you look reaaal close, you'll see the Hollywood sign to the left of the palm tree in the middle. We had imagined it a little bigger!? Also, we sitting on a stone bed and under it, it says "The road to Hollywood". You may interperate that the way you prefer.

The "Harry Potter" Kids had their handprints along there

with the other famous stars - good for them!

Just a "small" poster of Dr. Phil outside Paramount studios.

Some wierd guy on the LA subway just sat down while we waited for the train and started drawing me. He turned out to be a really nice guy who's advise to us were "go to School! Get educated!". Just a tad ironic since he himself was very happy working in the summer drawing people on the street in Hollywood. He normally charges 15-20 dollars for his drawings but he just gave me mine. Unecspected and it totally made my day. 

Linnea lives in Pasadena, one of the suburbs out of town. She was the perfect hostess, fed us well and told us how to get around town and see everything we wanted to see. We also went to Santa Monica. When me and Åslaug were kids (and by kids i mean like 10-14 years old) we watched Pacific Blue every summer. I even remember my mom recordig it in the evening because it was on past my bedtime. Pacific Blue with the bike police was the coolest show on. Santa Monica in real life has no girls in thongs in rollerblades as far as we could see, but the street mall is very charming and the pier with the fun park (we took the roller coster) was cool. No bikepolice but Santa Monica Police cars was mighty present in the area.

Santa Monica was most of all WINDY! I should not have worn a dress that day.

I dont know how many people saw my underwear..

The pier with the fun park

Gelato is a must on such a beautiful sunny day!

If there sun there's ice cream - anywhere, anytime, always! :)

We filled our 3 days well, but didnt feel we needed more time. A little disapointment that Disneyland will have to be next time..

Yes Åslaug - May this cement our friendship :)

Tropical 21

Ever since we ordered the tickets last summer I knew my 21 st birthday would be in Samoa. A tropical little island in the middle of the pacific ocean, isloated from the rest of the world. it sounds pretty sweet huh.. and I can tell you all.. it was! I was woken up twice during the night (2am and 5 am) by phonecalls coming from coutries who were way further along in the day, a nice surprise though they were received pretty much in full confusion from my side. At 8 am. Åslaug came to my bed (maddras) with the two troublemakers, singing happy birthday and holding a chocolate glazed cookie, (smuggeled in from New Zealand), with candles all around it. Just how a birthday should start. Then they had made the table outside our fale with flowers, tablecloth, nice china and cheesetoastie and pankakes for breakfast. It was perfekt. Even when it started raining and we had to run inside an empty fale and have a picnic instead. It was sunny by the time we finish eating.

 

The breakfast was lovely


But the picnic was pretty perfect too!

We had decided already that we wanted to rent a car and after a little sun badthing an cosmo reading (a birthday present from my beloved cousin) we rented a car and went exploring Savaii. A stop by the "dwarfs cave" was memorable. when we finally found it, a quite sizeble man and his son simply jumped into the back of the car and said "go go" withour further explanation. He knew a few english words such as "go go" and "waity waity" (they tend to put an -y ending to english words, such as ice creamy), but communication was poor. Its a lava cave from the volcano outburst between 1905-08. The man would go first, "waity, waity", and then light the enormous flashlight behind him for the two of us and the kid to follow. A little dirty, very exciting and facinating completely untouched by humans.

Our pretty blue car

Is that a dwarf coming out of the cave?

Our guide (s)

Our trip went on, stopping at a natural, quite cold, freshwater spring, and further to the very west of the island. Here we had a another tour to different phenonomens such as "star mountain", "blood well" and the "gigants cave" (ironically enough just a hole in the ground compared to dwarfs cave) We whatched the sunset sitting on lava rocks by the road, enjoying cold coke and chinese cakes that Åssi magically had found. Samoa is the last place on earth to whatch the sun go down each day. We drove to the fanciest resort on the island, Le Lagoto, right next to where we live, and had lobster salad for dinner (btw, lobster is gooood!) and cake and iscream for dessert. A coctail later and we were ready to go home. It was the perfect 21st birthday, from start to finish. And mostly thanks to Åslaug, whom I am eternally grateful. I'll remember this one forever.

 

The most westerly point

Cazed cousins? Cute cousins? Cool cousins?

                                                               Sunset silouett of Åslaug

                                                       Coca Cola commercial?

Lobster and cake - fancy enough for 21 years olds? I think so :D

Oh yeah! Im ready for a new year of awesomeness! :D

The Breakfast table was lovely!



Waking up in paradise

Originally we were going to Samoa (a group of tropical islands not far from Fiji) because we had to stop here anyways on our way to LA. When we found out that Samoa pretty much looked like paradise we decided to stay for a while! Then they cancelled that flight and now we're actually flying back to Auckland before heading to the US.. Sure, we're quite enjoying free movies, food and drinks supplied by Air NewZealand!

We flew in to Apia, the capital, but didn't even spend a whole day there. After a bit of way to hot "city" wandering we jumped on a bus to catch a ferry to the other main island, Savaii. The busses here are a chapter for themselves. Blindingly colourful, wooded seats (when you'r lucky to get one, usually with someone else sitting on your lap), load remixes and an amazing amount of people and baggage. Mind, they'r just as cheap as they are uncomfortable so it's just about worth it.

 

And thats just the back of one..

A lot, A LOT of people. This is before someone sat down on my lap!

On Savaii we made our way over to Manase where we had been told they had cheap beach accomodation. It was pitch black by the time we got there but we found Tailua Beach Fales and settled in our little hut (fale) on the beach. We discovered we were living right next to a nice bar were we had a lot of fun during the 8 days we spent at Manase! Raci's Beach Club was owned by a swiss couple and also supplied us with snorkelling equipment and real coffee. Thanks!

The Beach Club, just about 10m of grass away from the beach. Aah.

Kinda great veiw!

Snorkelling the reef areas by our beach. Looking goggle good ;)

Waking up the next morning I really did feel like we were in paradise. Through the palm trees I could see the sun rising over the ocean, just seperated from us by a little lawn and a beautiful beach. Breath taking! Every morning Ina (or her two little boys, aka the troublemakers) would wake us up with breakfast waiting. Happy days filled with sun, swimming and coconuts. Our only concernes were tan lines and which ice cream flavour to chose. We love our lives!

Pretty breath taking morning veiw.

Our beach. Yes, it's okay to be jealous!!

Being served smoothies on the beach outside our fale. That is where we slept!

Playing around in the sand and swimming with our host's kids.

Turned one of them into a mermaid!

Some wicked Pina Coladas!

Samoa is the last place on earth the sun sets every night, we usually enjoyed it from the ocean or over a cold beer. Then we were served dinner and would hit the bar or lay watching the impressive stary sky untill we felt sleepy. Our 10 days on Samoa have been a great little break from moving around. We left for the US with big smiles and great tans!

Sunset through a Samoan beer. Yes please!

Awesome sunsets.

And some amusing tan lines! Got a little bit of a tricolore thing going onm, almost as stripy as my bikini bottoms!!