Experiences, experiences!

Okay so I’ll start this delayed blog post by apologizing for not giving any sign of life the last THREE months. The plan was to update this blog and fill all you wonderful readers in on what I’m doing at least once a month, but a tight schedule mixed with a bit of laziness and a sudden realization that I don’t have that much time left here in sunny San Diego, have led to that this this blog post haven’t been posted earlier..

A lot has happened since January when you last heard from me, so I’ll already now warn and prepare you on a long post:

First of all I’ve started on a new semester in school, which didn’t mean a whole lot of difference, but I do English and engineering instead of  government and art (I can’t choose classes myself). I have to admit that I find engineering pretty hard but I’m not the only one and so far I’m definitely not failing. We’re doing all sorts of crazy stuff – are building (pretty advanced) windmills and calculating on space shuttles for instance. Obviously it takes a little more work and the amount of homework increased quite a lot after getting engineering instead of art, but even though engineering absolutely isn’t my strongest subject, I’m fine, and I’m definitely learning and doing things I never thought I would do. My English class is really interesting, and though it sometimes is a little tough to work my way through grammar rules and vocabulary quizzes I’m finding it all really helpful and it is something I really want to learn.
(Below is a picture of the (unusually empty) main commence of my school. All the colorful rectangles hanging from the catwalk are flags from countries, that the school has had exchange students from, travelled to or somehow been in contact with - yes the Danish is there!)

In the end of January I wiped the dust of my trumpet and spend what felt like every day of February playing. I’d said yes to play in a musical called “Gypsy” that was playing in a youth theater here in San Diego. A friend from school was playing the lead, Gypsy, and got me involved in the orchestra. I was pretty rusty after not really playing for half a year. I’ve only been playing easy hymns and stuff I already knew and I wasn’t playing more than twice a month or so. It meant that it was hard to get started again, but despite my lack of practice, it was quite an experience. I’ve never played for a musical before, and it is actually very different, and the other musicians were all really good and experienced, but it was cool to try and it was great to play again. The musical itself was really good too, and though it was “only” a youth theater they were super professional and we did some great shows.

Along with Gypsy I spend January and February playing more soccer. I still really like my team and coach, so when the season ended in February (remember soccer is a winter sport and it is no problem to play in shorts and t-shirt the whole season - the picture below is taken December 22), I signed up for indoor soccer which I’m playing now – it is not real indoor as we do in Denmark, but the field has “walls” so it’s a different way of playing. I’m having fun with this too, but I’ve realized why it’s a great idea to make soccer a winter sport! When we get to field around 4 pm, the sun’s been shining down on the artificial turf we’re playing on the entire day, and because of the walls on the field there’s no wind to carry the heat away and it just get warmer and warmer. For my poor Danish body that is only used to a temperature over 20 degrees in the middle of summer, this is just way too warm for me, and I can barely walk out there without getting a heatstroke (OK I may be putting it a little too strongly, but it is really, really hot!)

But now that I’m telling about the weather anyway – I can’t help mention it every time, because it is just so amazing – I can say that I’ve already been at the beach a couple of times and I even went swimming in the Pacific, which is really cold. Currently I’m sitting in our backyard wearing shorts and sunglasses, and I’ll say the temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius. I could keep going for pages and pages about the weather here in San Diego, but I got plenty of other things to tell about too:

Next thing on my list of things I have been doing lately is an amazing trip with CHI to the Grand Canyon. 16 other exchange students and I left early Thursday morning in huge vans and drove for around nine hours to a big house where we were staying, an hour from the actual Grand Canyon. We were gone for four days and it we had so much fun! The Grand Canyon is an amazing piece of nature and it is extremely beautiful, amazing and definitely “Grand.”

Besides from the Grand Canyon we also went to an area called Sedona. I’d never heard about it before and didn’t really know what to expect, which just made the experience better. While driving out into this area, cool rocks in a beautiful red color started showing up along the road, and became more and more amazing as we drove. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Cars” you know what I’m talking about when I’m saying I felt like McQueen as he drives up and get to look out at the landscape – amazing that something like this exists without I even knew what it was; Just think about all the other places I’ve never heard about.

This trip was simply just great – it had beautiful, amazing and overwhelming nature and I was with great people too. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve enjoyed spending my time with the CHI students, but I’m not just enjoying spending time with them anymore, they’re my friends and some really good ones too J We’re only around 23 students in our little San Diego-area group, which means that I feel like I really know everybody. I don’t know what is so special about the other exchange students, but we’re all just having a great time together. We’re all having the same experience, we all know what it’s like to leave everything you know and suddenly be 100% on your own, and in a way we all really have respect for each other’s courage to do so, because we all truly know what it feels like. And last but not least they’re all just really funny and lovely people.

In March I also had two weeks of spring break, and besides from going to the beach, hanging out with friends and my family, Mom, Caroline, Nick and I took a road trip up north through Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and ending in San Francisco. This is another thing that deserves its own blog post, but I’ll try to tell just a bit about it anyway. The reason why we got to go on this trip was that three years ago a couple called Ken and LizAnne from the Santa Cruz area came and visited us in Denmark. I’m, a bit far out, but still related to Ken, so while I’m here in California I wanted to visit them – a thing that turned out to be a great idea. They are wonderful people and live in a beautiful area. Before getting to their place we drove through the cool and rich street of Santa Monica, and spend a night in beautiful Santa Barbara, visited Solvang (a Danish city in the United States), where it was kind of hard to recognize Denmark but really funny and cute. The day before Solvang, we’d found a Danish restaurant in Santa Barbara where I got a real “Hakkebøf med brun sovs” and mashed potatoes, almost as good as my mormor (grandma) makes it J and in Solvang we got Danish pastries, and “smørrebrød” for lunch (Yep, I got my beloved “karrysild” – pickled herring with curry). I also met some Danes and talked with the cook form Svendborg at the restaurant in Santa Barbara, and it was all just really fun and I got to show a bit more of Denmark to my family.

Generally this trip was filled with great experiences and more beautiful nature, not to mention the cities. California just impresses me; it’s amazing how much more CA got than just the pretty beaches you’ll see in movies. I got to see dolphins, Big Sur, Redwood trees, the cool streets of San Francisco, nice grass-covered hills, blue skies, elephant seal and so much more. California is great!

I’ve now set the date for my ticket back to Denmark, July 11, and I’ve realized that it’s only three months away. Though I can barely wait to get back and see friends and family, I don’t feel that I’m done here. I still have so many things I want to do, people I want to spend my time with and things I want to see, and I already have so many plans for the next months that they are going to fly by me. I can’t imagine leaving this beautiful state already in July, so until it is actually happening I’ve decided to not think too much about it. So long I’m just looking forward to some great months and more great weather here in San Diego.