Author: Anders Västfält

Hawaii hawaii hawaii… the aloha state! the hang loose state! the paradise island! beautiful weather! the best place on earth?

Time have went by so fast here! im staying on hawaii at one of my best friends, jennell lewis! she is awesome!! we been spending a lot of time at the beaches here, waikiki, waimea, sunset, northshore, sandys, ala moana, lanakai etc… a good friend of mine from when i studied on Malta have been here for 5days so i have also been spending a lot of time with him and his girlfriend! Dominik is his name and is a very friendly and great guy from Switzerland! such a nice coincidence that we both went here at the same time! he went home today and starts working on monday so im a bit worried about how he will manage the jetlag :)

it is a bit strange to be back, but i appreciate it more this time… i almost forgot how beautiful it is here and how perfect the weather is… always 28degree celsius (82farenheit) during the day and 24degree (75farenheit) during the night, it can not be better! jennell is the president for the hiking club on hawaii pacific university so was helping her one day at campus to recruit people for the club! jennell is really good public speaker so when she left for class i had to stand there alone and i was afraid! :) maybe 100people signed up when i stood there, first i didnt really enjoy it but in the end it went very good and then i did not want to stop :P

i also been seing a few old hawaiin friends and also being out to nightclubs/bars when jennell have been working. Today we rented a car for two days so tomorrow we will probably go hiking early in the morning and then later to beach! ooo, and i also been participating in the tv-show hawaii five-o! i was sitting on a bench reading a book at ala moana beach when they came with cameras and stuff so i asked if i should move but they said that it would be perfect if i could sit there and read to make the show more realistic… so maybe you will see me in episode 6 :)

On tuesday evening im going back to Davis and then school will start next week! i want to stay on hawaii longer but at the same time im also very curious about starting school! but first this weekend my class will do a trip to Lake Tahoe, hiking, fishing, drinking and having fun.

hang loose! enjoy life! aloha mahalo! click link below to see more photos!

Hawaii September 2010 Gallery

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Do I need to say more?

Last night was an incredible night, almost half of my class joined for a Scavenger Hunt(skattjakt). We biked around campus/town and took pictures of different building, cows, trees, bridges ect. On most of the pictures someone in each team has to be in picture so we made a couple of really nice pictures! Unfortunately we did not won but it doesnt matter. Afterward we headed to a bar and it was really nice evening to get to know my classmates in a more informal way! We definitely have a lot of fun guys in the class :P

This morning I woke up with a huge hangover, ready to leave for Hawaii :) My flatmate drove me to the Sacramento Airport which is only about 25min cardrive from Davis. Thanks Jack! The first plane was a propeller aircraft, it felt like a toy aircraft :) And now i am back at San Francisco Airport and will leave to Hawaii in about 45min… So next update at the blog will be from the paradise! ALOHA!!!

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Lots of things have happens since my last blog post.
1. Found a place to stay. I live together with two graduate student on Drake drive 1441(link), it is located 8min bike ride to campus, 15min to my building on campus, 1min to a small “shopping center” with panda express, safeway, big5 and a drug store(apotek). I have my own room which is around 12m^2 with a bed, a desk, two chairs, a shelf and a closet. It cost $450/month, the landlord is really nice and just 1min walk to a bustop that takes me Sacramento(30min). In the area around there is also pools and tennis courts. Also a lot of students lives in this area so im totally satisfied.

2. School started! Ok school is even more professional than i thought, many of my classmates have 5 years of working experience. It is ranked nr 9 public school in USA. Most teachers are from Stanford, Harvard, London Economic school ect. The first day in school everyone had suit, except from me, culture shock? :) when they ask for one unique thing about each person i answered that im the only one wearing jeans today :P i really like to be here, i think i will learn so much this semester on so many different levels. Students pay around $50000/year for this school and most of them had to go to interview to get accepted. I really did not expect it to be so professional. In the lobby I met a guy that looked a bit lost and i asked him if he is also a student here, he answered “no, i will never get in, this school only taking the best ones”. It was in this moment i realized how lucky i am to be here to be able to learn from great teachers and experienced classmates. It is going to be an amazing semester! We are about 60people in our class, 25% females, just 2 exchange but maybe 20 internationals.

3. I went to Sacramento for some sightseeing and shopping. The shopping was not successful, i did not buy anything at all actually. The city center is kind of boring, at least during the day. It feels like all the stores has closed down in town and moved to big shopping malls just outside town. But i went to the state government building. Since Sacramento is the capital of California, Sacramento has a congress, senate and a office for governor Arnold Schwarzenegger :) It might be difficult to see but this is his office, click on the picture to make it bigger! For more picture from Sacramento go to the Gallery!

4. Drinking, BBQ and Swedish flipcup. Been to a BBQ, really nice people and nice food. We played beerpong, flipcup and another game i dont remember the name of. I taught them how to play Swedish flipcup but they americanized it to make it a mix between american flipcup and swedish flipcup, still fun though! i guess im not so good in explaining the swedish flipcup rules in english :)

5. HAWAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII !!!!!!
Haha, so spontaneous and crazy! Some of the events/activities during the orientation week is not for exchange students, so i have a gap of a couple of days and then a few days of writing resumes and cover letters which i dont have to go to if i dont want to. So instead i will go to Hawaii for 10days :) Booked the tickets yesterday and will go on saturday, costs $360dollar for a return ticket, pretty sweet :) PARADISE! Im coming back! :) On a beach in hawaii…

Im in Davis yo! It is almost like i expected, much warmer though and the campus is bigger than i though, im getting lost all the time…=) but lets start from the beginning:

So I took the BART-train from San Francisco Airport to Rockrigde were a 2nd year student, Emily picked me up. When I purchased train tickets I got help from two guys in my age that was just coming back from their Europe-trip. They were very friendly and we exchanged facebook/emails so we hopefully we will go out one weekend in San Francisco. When they left the train I talked to another guy who apparently worked as a job recruiter for IT people, so he said that i should contact him when i have my degree, so that is nice :) He gave me his business card and he also knew some places in San Francisco were they play good house music, so hopefully we will go there one day… I feel so lucky and happy. People are so friendly here! Love it!

At Rockrigde trainstation Emily picked me up and we went to Davis! Emily is an amazing girl from the Bay area, she has helped me really a lot here! Thank you so much Emily!

Now im staying at another 2nd year student, Peter “Potter” Weber! He is a very cool and interesting guy! Im sleeping on a couch in the living room, so that is perfect! Thanks Potter! When I arrived at his house it was 9pm in the evening, so local time for me was like 6am in the morning. But we went out anyway because it was Mojito Thursday :) I don”t think I need to say that i was pretty tired when we went to bed that night! The crazy jet lag made me wake up 4:30am and then i was completly awake! Grrrrr!! :P

Yesterday was a really intense day! I went to look at some apartments, posted ads on craigslist and other places. Bought a bike (so now im on a bike yo:), went to my school to have a look. Got lost on campus/city like 10 times and all this in 40 degree heat! Biking is a really big thing in Davis. In contrast to the rest of US, Davis has bike lanes on almost every street, amazing, America is learning! ;) I bought my bike for $90 and from Davis Bike Exchange and they promised to buy it back for half the prize, so practically it is like renting a bike for $45 for 3.5months, sweeet!

The building I will be studying in is completely new, it doesn”t feels like a school, it feels more like a hotel. I will take pictures of it later and show how beautiful it is! In some strange way it feels like i have to perform better in a building like that, it feels so professional! :) Next to the school is a real hotel, a Hyatt hotel, so if anyone wants to come and visit me and have too much cash it would be an option :) And the size of the campus is 2,100 ha or 210km^2!! exclamation mark!! they have pools, fitness center, stadiums, cows, horses. It even has an own airport :)

In the evening I went with another guy that lives here, Jim and his friends to a place called Tacos and Beer and afterwards we went home to our place to have a few beers! Very nice!

Today I been looking at more apartments and and got lost on campus again :) The reason why it is so hard to find apartment is because there is not many furnished apartments and most places want that i sign a one-year lease. But I am getting closer for everyday and I will soon be successful, i hope :P

So to summerize my first impression of Davis
* It is hot – 35-40 degress in the shadow
* Campus is big – 210km^2
* Biking is easy – biking lane on every street
* People are very friendly – Thumbs up
* Difficult to find apartment – Thumbs down

Sitting at the airport, just arrived, im totally tired and totally happy :) The travel went very very good! It all started from home around 03:30 from home to the airport! On the first flight to Amsterdam I slept the whole way, in Amsterdam I had around an 2 hour to kill. But Amsterdam Airport (Schiphol) is huge, so it was no problem to kill some hours there… I saw that McDonalds had easypay machines, where you put in your order in a computer, pay by yourself, get a number and you can just go and get your food, so of course I had to try it :) The world is just getting more and more efficient, soon we dont need any social contact with other people, so sad!

The next flight was much longer, 11hours, we got food almost immediately and with the food I took my painkillers and sleeping pills and woke up 4 hours later :) Then it was just around 5-6hours left, so I watched The Blind Side, the new Shrek Movie, some comedy show, Tiesto Asia Tour and played Tetris and Who Wants to be a Millionaire… The Blind Side get 9 out of 10 points and Shrek 6 out of 10! For everytime I fly long flight, they just getting better and better in entertainment system, now everyone had their on joystick and screen to play games on! I talked to one of the stewardess and she thought it was more fun before when everyone watched the same so once in a while there was a huge laugh in the crowd aboard:)

Entering the US was okey! Always a long line and a lot of waiting, but im not in a hurry so thats good! Just fixed a new american number since my old one apparently had expired, so now my new cell is 415-987-2968.

In a couple of hours I will take the train to something called Rockridge where a 2nd year student at my University will pick me up and hopefully I could also sleep at one of her friends place until I found my own place to stay, so super kind and helpful. Just posted an add on Craigslist (Like Swedish Blocket, hope I will get some offers by tomorrow, here is the add: http://sacramento.craigslist.org/sha/1933592481.html

My stomach starts to make strange sounds now, so I better go and eat my first food in America, hmm 5 dollar footlong at Subway? Jack in a Box? Or Carls Jr? Hmm, there is so many good fast food restaurants here, so it is hard to choice :)

Wiihoo, finally starting to get a bit nervous and very excited about the trip… Tomorrow is going to be a stressful day of packing and preparing… By now all of my clothes is spread out all over the floor, so tomorrow i need to decide what will have to come with me and what i need to leave behind!

Last couple of days I been working at my mum school! Really interesting! I think everybody should work a couple of days at a school every 5th year or so to see how generations differs from each other! One out of many funny thing was when a 6-year old kid swinged in rope with a car tire in the end of the rope saying “Lets record this and put it on YouTube!”… When I was 6 years old it was totally different, todays kids will be so used to technology and change in general so im already getting afraid of them :D

I also went to Jönköping for some party and to say good bye to friends! Really great and thanks for the great night together guys, im going to miss you, but im not going to miss rainy Jönköping, sorry! 30+ degress in California is much better! :)

Today I got in contact with a 2nd year student at my school that i could join in her car from San Francisco to Davis, everyone at school seems to be very helpful and kind! Just posted a questions about how to get from the SF airport to Davis and got like 5 answers in less than 5 min, awesome!

So to explain my route to SF, my brother will drive me to Göteborg-airport(landvetter) inhuman early on thursday, the plane departure at 06:25 in the morning from Göteborg and will first make a stop in Amsterdam for 3.5hours before flying straight to SF, arriving 13:20 local time. Think I will take two sleeping pills and two painkiller so I will able to sleep the whole way from Amsterdam to San Francisco since it will take 11hours, just hoping that I will not snore too load! :) Thinking if there is any typical Swedish I can bring put dont come up with something, been having the same problem before… Anyone having suggestions of something typical Swedish to bring?

Hmm, YES tomorrow i get to vote in the Swedish election, my voting card came today… have two options but still not sure what/who to vote for!

Ok, time to get some sleep soon! Next time I update this blog will be from CALIFORNIA!! :) Bye Sweden, Hello America!