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søndag den 28. november 2010
Sleepless in Seattle
Hmm, quite a few people planned not to sleep between Saturday and Sunday to try to avoid jetlag. I didn't plan to, but here I am, unable to fall to sleep. I guess it's part excitement about going home and the crazy amount of coffee I had this afternoon, but as I've been thinking tonight it's also the fact that I'm really really gonna miss my host family, and I'm gonna miss Usa. I've really had a great experience over here. I've experienced many things, and I've gotten to know new sides of myself. And well, I've gotten to a point where I seriously consider studying abroad. Taking University somewhere else than in Denmark as I've always planned. Who knows? I still got time before I have to make a decision.. After 2 months in seattle, my thoughts are more or less only in english, once in a while when I talk Danish, then I think in Danish. But the other night when I went to a Family party on the harjo side of the family and met some of the old people who spoke norwegian I had to really think when I wanted to phrase something in danish for them.. I guess that's a good way to describe how big an influence the language have been. But, I'm gonna miss seattle and my host family and would love to come back and visit them.
mandag den 22. november 2010
Snow in Seattle
So today it snowed in Seattle, and it is a big deal! Almost a whole inch, so many busses changed their routes. And well, the school considered closing down. If we had had two inches it would've. Seriously!? What's the big deal, this is hardly snow. If schools need to close in denmark, you literally have to be unable to open your door. And here the ground hardly got covered, and they seriously consider to close by that.? Give me a break, this is pathetic. Sorry to say it :| . Even though they're not used to it. They just can't shut down school and stuff..
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tirsdag den 16. november 2010
Portland & Tacoma
So, since last time i wrote, i've experienced quite a few things.
Thursday last week, me Alexander and Kåre went to visit Portland in Oregon. The whole trip was more or less planned wednesday evening, when we had a conversation on Skype. After we finished i packed some stuff, and went to sleep at Alexanders place, so i would be able to make it to the bus the following morning.
Thursday morning i woke up at 0430 and got in the shower, after walking around half-dead all morning me and Alexander walked up to the buss close to his house. We took the bus too the transit center where we met Kåre. After getting some cash at the ATM in 7-11, we got into the bus that would take us to Seattle. We arrived and Seattle, and after some hassle about figuring out where the train left, we got in, sat down and enjoyed our beautiful 3½ hour trip to Portland. We were mostly reading, sleeping and talking on our way down there.
In Portland things was kind of confusing, it was quite a big town, and none of us knew how to get around. Luckily, we had a smartphone with 3G acces and google maps. And there was some kind of big happening at the H&M store, we think that they had just opnened a new store, but we were never really sure, people were dancing all over the street and, yea, it was kinda crazy and i still haven't gotten what it was all about. But we just loaded our prepared map from home, and found the Apple store where Alexander and Kåre would go and tell the one of the 30 employees that they would like to buy a MacBook Pro but they would pick it up later that day. After that, it was around lunch time and we started to search for lunch. We found it pretty shortly, and even tho it was a little pricey the food was really, really delicious. I don't remember the name of the place tho.
Our Calculus teach at EDCC had told us about a book store in Portland, called "Powells Bookstore" and we just had to see what this was. And yes, it was huge. But we was a little rushed since we still had many things we wanted to see in Portland and therefore we didn't spend that much time in there, but i'm sure it would've been a great and better impression of the bookstore if we had spent some more time there, and might have known what sorta books we were looking for.
Anywho we went on, and was going to a big center a little east from downtown. We ended walking all the way over there, simply because we just seemed to miss the roads that had also had a stop for the train that drove around in the city. We spent 1 hour in the center, i got myself the computergame Medal of Honor and Alexander got himself a Drum-Magazine in Barnes&Nobles.
After that we were pretty eager to get back to the Apple store quick so Kåre and Alexander could have their computers and we didn't have to worry about buying them in time anymore. When we got down there they walked up to the first employee they saw talked to them, and they told them juts to wait for a short while untill a specialist was ready. That took 30 minutes and in the meantime i bought both and iPod Touch for my sister and a sports headset for myself. But in the end they finally got their computers, but it was now so late that we had to run or, well alternate between running and walking really fast to make it to our train back to Seattle.
But we made it, and got on our bus back up to Edmonds and soon we were all home again :)
The next thing that happened was Saturday where we first went to a play at the Theater in Seattle. They performed "The Scarlet Letter" and it was quite good, i'm not that much into Theaters and that sorta stuff, but i think it was allright. But my main focus was on what was going to happen that evening.
Me and Alexander where going to Tacoma to see 4 christian bands perform. Silverline, Brian "Head" Welch ( old guitarist from Korn), Disciple and RED. After the play at the theater ended we just got something to eat and went to find the bus. The bus all the way from Seattle down to Tacoma costed nothing more than 2.5 $ , cheap right? I knew 3/4 of the bands and heard their music prior to the concert, Silverline was the one that i had not heard. And Alexander had not heard any of the music, but a few songs that i had told him to hear. Well, in my opinion everyone was very good, i would've wished they had given more time on the stage to Disciple tho, since they were my favourite of those performing, but RED did a good job aswell.
Our mindset changed quite a bit about christians, since they were acting as weird and amazingly funny and crazy as we does when we goes to a concert ( hard rock) back in Denmark.
Anyways we had a blast and when the concerts ended around midnight we were pretty tired, and was so lucky that my host-dad had offered to pick us up, because they didn't really have had that much time to take me anywhere. So we got an awesome experience, and slept a long time Sunday due to being tied.
Thursday last week, me Alexander and Kåre went to visit Portland in Oregon. The whole trip was more or less planned wednesday evening, when we had a conversation on Skype. After we finished i packed some stuff, and went to sleep at Alexanders place, so i would be able to make it to the bus the following morning.
Thursday morning i woke up at 0430 and got in the shower, after walking around half-dead all morning me and Alexander walked up to the buss close to his house. We took the bus too the transit center where we met Kåre. After getting some cash at the ATM in 7-11, we got into the bus that would take us to Seattle. We arrived and Seattle, and after some hassle about figuring out where the train left, we got in, sat down and enjoyed our beautiful 3½ hour trip to Portland. We were mostly reading, sleeping and talking on our way down there.
In Portland things was kind of confusing, it was quite a big town, and none of us knew how to get around. Luckily, we had a smartphone with 3G acces and google maps. And there was some kind of big happening at the H&M store, we think that they had just opnened a new store, but we were never really sure, people were dancing all over the street and, yea, it was kinda crazy and i still haven't gotten what it was all about. But we just loaded our prepared map from home, and found the Apple store where Alexander and Kåre would go and tell the one of the 30 employees that they would like to buy a MacBook Pro but they would pick it up later that day. After that, it was around lunch time and we started to search for lunch. We found it pretty shortly, and even tho it was a little pricey the food was really, really delicious. I don't remember the name of the place tho.
Our Calculus teach at EDCC had told us about a book store in Portland, called "Powells Bookstore" and we just had to see what this was. And yes, it was huge. But we was a little rushed since we still had many things we wanted to see in Portland and therefore we didn't spend that much time in there, but i'm sure it would've been a great and better impression of the bookstore if we had spent some more time there, and might have known what sorta books we were looking for.
Anywho we went on, and was going to a big center a little east from downtown. We ended walking all the way over there, simply because we just seemed to miss the roads that had also had a stop for the train that drove around in the city. We spent 1 hour in the center, i got myself the computergame Medal of Honor and Alexander got himself a Drum-Magazine in Barnes&Nobles.
After that we were pretty eager to get back to the Apple store quick so Kåre and Alexander could have their computers and we didn't have to worry about buying them in time anymore. When we got down there they walked up to the first employee they saw talked to them, and they told them juts to wait for a short while untill a specialist was ready. That took 30 minutes and in the meantime i bought both and iPod Touch for my sister and a sports headset for myself. But in the end they finally got their computers, but it was now so late that we had to run or, well alternate between running and walking really fast to make it to our train back to Seattle.
But we made it, and got on our bus back up to Edmonds and soon we were all home again :)
The next thing that happened was Saturday where we first went to a play at the Theater in Seattle. They performed "The Scarlet Letter" and it was quite good, i'm not that much into Theaters and that sorta stuff, but i think it was allright. But my main focus was on what was going to happen that evening.
Me and Alexander where going to Tacoma to see 4 christian bands perform. Silverline, Brian "Head" Welch ( old guitarist from Korn), Disciple and RED. After the play at the theater ended we just got something to eat and went to find the bus. The bus all the way from Seattle down to Tacoma costed nothing more than 2.5 $ , cheap right? I knew 3/4 of the bands and heard their music prior to the concert, Silverline was the one that i had not heard. And Alexander had not heard any of the music, but a few songs that i had told him to hear. Well, in my opinion everyone was very good, i would've wished they had given more time on the stage to Disciple tho, since they were my favourite of those performing, but RED did a good job aswell.
Our mindset changed quite a bit about christians, since they were acting as weird and amazingly funny and crazy as we does when we goes to a concert ( hard rock) back in Denmark.
Anyways we had a blast and when the concerts ended around midnight we were pretty tired, and was so lucky that my host-dad had offered to pick us up, because they didn't really have had that much time to take me anywhere. So we got an awesome experience, and slept a long time Sunday due to being tied.
tirsdag den 9. november 2010
Fall in Seattle
In this weekend i felt for the first time how fall is in Seattle. So far it's been very changing weather, but this weekend the leaves fell of the trees forming huge piles, and for me this indicates that it is really fall now. I went outside with the 2 boys in the family to rake up the leaves and play in them and play in their backyard. We had a very fun afternoon, and i really like spending time with these 2 boys. They've become some of the closest they can to my real brothers in denmark. Weekend is over now and school has started, i still enjoy it, but it's at the same time frightening and exciting that there's so little time left before we head home. Better put some good use to the last weeks aswell.
Uhm.. And i've been wondering about 2 things.
A couple of us went to a mexican restaurant in our lunch break at school, and we've gotten a little confused over if we should pay a tip or not. The thing is, that we enter the restaurant, and make our order at the front desk, and pay at the same time. After that we get a glass where we can fill pop in and go down sit at our table. After short time, we'll have our meal served, and when we're all done we leave, and they come and pickup the plates. So, we get some kind of service, but at the same time not full? Is it disrespectful not to pay a tip in this situation, or is it okay?
Another thing is more of a technical / matter of danish law and taxes.
I've been thinking about buying a new computer over here. At the moment i'm just confirming that i'm able to get a danish keyboard in it, aswell as buy an insurance for it. These 2 things seems to be rather easy.
And for the model i intend buying, it's literally half price buying it in the US rather than in Denmark.
I dunno if you would be able to answer this, but i thought you might since you've been traveling quite a few times between the US and Denmark. If i buy the computer over here, and take it to use before i go home, will i be asked to pay the taxes (told) on the computer. It's a device i bought over here, but it's been taken to use before i enter Denmark? It's a little confusing, and i've also gotten my father to try investigate it.
fredag den 5. november 2010
An enjoyable afternoon in Seattle
Thursday we went to Seattle to see the museum of history and industry in Seattle. While that was quite interesting and entertaining, it was the afternoon that we spent in seattle I enjoyed the most. After we had been to the museum, we had asl the afternoon of to spend in seattle. A few of us started by going to seattles best to have a cup of coffee. After that we went to barnes and nobles to look for some books. I bought: the god delusion, physics of the impossible and the lost symbol. All books I look forward to read, probably during our christmas break, since I doubt I will have the time earlier. After that we went to a little sandwich shop someone recommended to us. We brought the sandwiches to a little park thing near pike place market. And we spent the next 2-3 hours in the park. Sitting, talking, reading and listening to music. So all in all, a really nice day with awesome weather in seattle.
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mandag den 1. november 2010
Halloween
And of course we had Halloween this weekend. Everyone participated in cleaning and getting the house ready for when the family came over. At night the boys left for trick and treating, and i was staying at the house to hand out candy to other kids that might come by trick or treating. When they came home, we had dinner and the rest of the evening we were talking in the livingroom drinking coffee, and whenever there came big/scary kids i went to get the door, because i would actually be taller than them, unlike my hostmom :)
Trip to Seattle
So, this Saturday a group of around 15-20 people, went to see Seattle downtown.
We left around 10-11 am and when we got to Seattle we sat down and had a cup of coffee before we started walking towards Lake Union. We bought tickets for a boattrip around Lake Union and Washington where they told about the various buildings and stuff like that. We saw some boat houses and Bill Gates house so all in all that was quite good. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around in the town, shopping. The people that came up with the idea to go to Seattle this Saturday, had also ordered a table at Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle near Pike Place Market. We had a nice dinner there, but not without problems. A little before we went there, we tried to use our Visa Electron and various credit cards, and for some reason, none really worked properly. We weren't able to subtract any money from our bank accounts. But luckily there was a few with Visa Dankort, and they were able to pay for the ones that had not brought cash.
So all in all a very succesfull day in Seattle downtown :)
We left around 10-11 am and when we got to Seattle we sat down and had a cup of coffee before we started walking towards Lake Union. We bought tickets for a boattrip around Lake Union and Washington where they told about the various buildings and stuff like that. We saw some boat houses and Bill Gates house so all in all that was quite good. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around in the town, shopping. The people that came up with the idea to go to Seattle this Saturday, had also ordered a table at Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle near Pike Place Market. We had a nice dinner there, but not without problems. A little before we went there, we tried to use our Visa Electron and various credit cards, and for some reason, none really worked properly. We weren't able to subtract any money from our bank accounts. But luckily there was a few with Visa Dankort, and they were able to pay for the ones that had not brought cash.
So all in all a very succesfull day in Seattle downtown :)
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