Raining cats, dogs and elephant seals

First things first: you see that little box labelled Study Abroad Blog Roll on the right? Well, exciting stuff, my blog is now featured on this website! It is a great site where you can get lots of information about a year abroad so if you are thinking of taking one, or have one coming up, then go check it out!

I think I jinxed the weather with my last post. I said that I felt I was suffering from seasonal jet-lag due to the sunny, warm weather in California compared to Seattle. The winter gods apparently read this and decided to show me that it does indeed rain in California from time to time. Or for days on end in fact.
It has not stopped raining. And not the pathetic drizzle kind but actual full on rain! It is sooo loud. It isn't just rain; it is cold. Not freezing but around 12 degrees which I still think is cold! It has been very amusing watching people's reaction to this weather:
You have the people who fully embrace the precipitation with rain coats, waterproof ponchos, wellies, even waterproof trousers. This may be going a bit too far...if you want to stay dry that badly, just stay inside!
Then you have the people who are completely in denial. It is like they cannot feel this liquid sunshine. The number of people I have seen sidestepping around gigantic puddles or trying to avoid the small rivers flowing down the paths wearing shorts and flip-flops is quite astounding!
I have been asked a number of times if this weather makes me feel more at home. What a strange question! That is like me asking them if they feel at home when the sun shines! I nod and smile and mutter something about the English weather system or how my wellies were one item that I did not pack.

This week hasn't been very exciting. Just more work, watching endless episodes of Castle (did you check it out?) and watching Disney movies in my Disney class! Thursday was a proper full on Disney day where we watched Snow White in a lecture, multiple Mickey Mouse cartoons in a seminar, and then me and 2 friends went to the cinema to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D! They did not stop singing all the way through! I  joined in on the classic "Tale as ooolldd as time.." and "be our guest" but they were proper going for it! I am obviously not well versed in the soundtrack and will have to brush up on my disney songs. It has been a week of watching a screen actually. We had to watch this really really sexually explicit movie for Spanish called 'Y tu mama tambien' which was like porn. We have to discuss it in class tomorrow which will be weird. I am not interested in knowing the spanish words for 'communally masturbating into a swimming pool on diving boards'. Yes. That did happen.

Today I went on a trip to Ano Nuevo State Reserve to hang out with the Elephant Seals. The trip was fun, don't get me wrong, but again, it was raining, and windy, and cold! There were hundreds and hundreds of seals though. Some weighing in at 5000lbs!! It is the middle of the birthing season so there were lots of newborns around, trying very hard not to get squished by the fighting males. Before a confrontation, the males lift up their heads and make a deep, loud sound, a bit like a foghorn. Then if the other does no back down then they slam their bodies into each other and try to bite each other's neck! It was quite awing to watch. Huge beasts of nature showing their full force. I definitely felt like a weak, tiny human next to them. We weren't very far away from them, about 25yards. You just had to make sure you didn't get in between two males as it could get messy...
So these photos show some of the Elephant Seals, one has been bitten by a Great White Shark and survived!  There is also a video of one section of a beach just littered with seals.

Going to make a shameless plug for my other blog which you can check out by going to my profile. It is about health and fitness but I am not sure quite what I am going to do with it yet!

'Her'story

First week back of the winter quarter (though I'm not sure why they are calling this winter when it was 22 degrees the other day!). Oh and Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day! (Day off...yes please.)
All new classes to find around campus, all the ridiculously expensive books to buy, all new people to meet. Again, the week has just flown by but also my time in Seattle seems a very long time ago!
I shall give you a brief rundown of my classes....

• Spanish 3- or more appropriately named, the retard class. That is me feeling retarded, not that the other people are! This teacher, who is nice but a bit intimidating, insists that you are not aloud to speak a word of english in her classroom. You have a question, she won't answer you if you can't ask it in spanish! Needless to say, I am not expecting a good grade from this woman. I am dreading presentation week where each of us has to give a presentation to the class, entirely in Spanish and with not notecards. I'm cringing all ready at just how awful it is going to be.
• Race, Gender and Islam in America. I can't decide whether this is a sociology/feminism studies class or a history class. We spent the best part of an hour the other day trying to answer the questions 'What is race?' and 'What is gender?' which lead to a heated debate as to why it is called HIStory and not HERstory and what it means to be a feminist. I sighed and rolled my eyes at the appropriate places. I have little patience for things like that. 
• Now, the best class- WALT DISNEY! All I have to say is that in one or our lectures last week we watched youtube clips of early Disney animation and next week we are watching Snow White! Also, due at the end of the quarter is our 'Imagineering Project' where in groups you have to design and create an attraction for Disneyland. I love college.

Aside from that, not much has happened otherwise. The weather has been so gorgeous this last week that me and some friends decided to go to the beach yesterday but of course, that would be the day where it was windy and freezing! Needless to say we spent all morning getting ready to go, spent an hour in Safeway buying picnic stuff, got to the beach, stayed 30mins, got in the car and came home! Though we did end up having a good day by just sitting on the sofa watching episode after episode of Castle...check it out, it is amazing. Hoepfully a longer and more exciting post next week as I am going on a trip to see some elephant seals at a state park! Random I know, but when in America...

I shall leave you with a weird accordion player that I saw downtown a few days ago. I wasn't sure whether he was a serial killer disguised as a musician or the other way round.....

2012 and we are all still here....awkeward!

and a Happy New Year to all of you! Many thought we were not going to make it past midnight of the 1st as the apocalypse was supposedly upon us...apparently not. So I guess this means we can all go about our normal lives until next December which I believe is now the more up to date predicted date of the annihilation of the world? A few more blog posts to go until then so no need to panic;)

I am now back in Santa Cruz after hitching another ride with a randomer, something I said I wasn't going to do again but when faced with lugging 2 suitcases on a train, a tram and 2 buses, personal safety seems to be pushed into the back of your mind. This time it was a woman who turned out to be lovely and she gave rides to 2 other UCSC students so we all had a nice chat on the way from the airport to Santa Cruz. One of the guys would not shut up about accounting, the financial crisis, his job offer in a big firm, and being a downright arrogant prick the whole way, saying patronising things to our driver like "Wow Tammy, that is just so awesome that you managed to keep a job and family going through 2 hard financial times in the Silicon Valley". I think the car let out a huge sigh of relief when he was dropped off.

I feel almost jet lagged at the moment, even though I have not crossed over into a different timezone. I think it is seasonal jet lag. Taking off from cold, rainy, gloomy Seattle and arriving 2 hours later in sun drenched, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky California where the temperature was 18 degrees (65 for my American readers) really messed with my system! I am not complaining, don't get me wrong, but there is something very confusing about it being January 8th and it is not beyond the realm of reason to be wearing shorts!

Since my last post more family things have been going on; restaurants, walks, endless netflix watching etc etc. We did all travel down to Portland for my brother-in-law's sisters wedding (if you follow that) which was nice. It was held at the Kennedy School (a hotel made from a converted school) which is where we all stayed for my sisters wedding 4 years ago! It is such a great place where the bars are named 'The Detention Room' and 'The Boiler Room' and all the bedrooms have a different theme and a massive blackboard along one wall which you can write on in chalk. My brother and I had the Thumbalina room:) The wedding itself was beautiful and we all ended up getting up to dance at the end. I think my brother and brother-in-law were waiting for this moment.

Apart from that, not much else has really happened. I was ill over New Year so spent the night in front of the TV, that was after attaching wire coat hangers to my sister's head so she can be Pip pi-longstocking. It was a lovely Christmas, nice and relaxing and lots of family time. I definitely did not want to leave! Though after sleeping in the lounge on a rather thin futon mattress thing for 3 weeks, I jumped into my bed at UCSC and slept like a baby for 11hours. I will miss being able to do that when classes start. Oh well, roll on 8.45am tomorrow morning when I have to be at the pool. Joy.

Feliz Navidad!

The 'Feliz Navidad' song has been stuck in my head for the best part of 2 weeks now. I had never heard it until this year which may be why my subconscious has been paying special attention to it. Let's face it, the words to 'Last Christmas' or 'Jingle Bells' are part of our genetic make-up and require little brain cell power to listen to. This new song, for starters, is half in Spanish which caught my attention, coupled with a catchy, bouncy, mexican-esque tune, you have yourself a winning Christmas song. I even wake up with the chorus on a loop, going round, and round, and round...."Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, I wanna wish you a Mmerryy Christmas". Therefore it seemed like an appropriate title for this blog post. Ok on to the more interesting stuff.

Spending time with the family, when you thought it would be a year again until you saw them, has been really nice. Our days have been spent going to coffee shops and restaurants, walking (when my knee lets me), Christmas cookie baking, the occasional gym session and a lot of Christmas shopping! The nights are passed with competitive games of Stop the Bus, Apples to Apples and our personal favourite, Bananagrams (think a better version of scrabble), where not a night goes past without the excited shouts of "BANANAS" and "PEEL" and the desperate cries of "No, i'm telling you 'shibzing' is a word!" My brother-in-laws parents came up from Portland to visit for a couple of days and brought with them a game that incorporated a hilarious round of charades...

In my mind if you don't do a full on proper Christmas, there is no point. Guess who started the petition for a real Christmas tree and saw the 4 'kids' going to a couple of different  stalls around town to pick the best one, tie it to the roof of the car and drive ssllloowwwlly home? One thing that I did let slide was the fact that we didn't have a fairy for the tree, but I was quite taken with our gnome. He sat on our tiny, fake tree, while the rocking horse sat on the main event.

On Christmas eve a few of us went on the West Seattle Christmas Light tour which involved a map with the locations of people houses who had taken my idea of a big Christmas to the extreme, a car, a camera, and in some cases sunglasses to protect the eyes from a visual onslaught. The first few got the response of "Look a life-size santa riding a polar bear, aww that's nice", and one flashing light display on a house that instructed you to tune your car radio to a specific station and the lights flashed along in time to the music. However one in particular quite literally outshone all the others combined! There were so many people clustered around it, taking photos, pointing and 'wowing' at various parts of the creation, that you couldn't miss it. The house glowed. I wouldn't be surprised if you could see it from space. I overheard the son of the owner of the house saying it took 6 people over 100 hours to set it all up. Again, feeling more and more like my dad, the only question I wanted to ask was "How much is your electricity bill?!" This tour only served to remind me that I am in America.  The same display in England would have been scoffed at, grumbled at, maybe the local council would have received a few complaints about light pollution or something. But here was a family just embracing the Christmas spirit (maybe a bit too excessively) for others to enjoy.

Christmas day brought lots of shredded wrapping paper and lots of food as one might expect. I videoed my mums reaction as she opened up her kindle and debated putting it on here. I won't but there were a few tears! One of my favourite gifts was from my aunty, who had knitted me a little killer whale! I thought it was so sweet! A lot of clothes were received by the boys and we all got pictures of them modelling them. It was a chance to show their feminine side. Or their Hugo Boss catalog posing side. All in all, a great Christmas:)

I have another 10 days until I fly back to California and in that time we have a wedding and New Year's. There should be some work being done at some point. But i'll wait until 2012 I think!

From the richest, to the tastiest, to the happiest places on earth

I have been putting off writing this post as so much has happened since I last updated!
I'm not sure whether to write pages and pages, because I probably could, or just quickly summarise the events...perhaps a bit of both.

Hardcore studying coupled with illness made finals week anything but fun. I was ready to leave by the time the week was over, I love Santa Cruz, but I needed a break! Before flying to my sister and brother-in-law's home in Seattle, I flew down to Orange County to stay with a friend. First I should describe my journey from UCSC to the airport. Looking back on it, I am annoyed with myself for doing it this way. There is a website called 'Zimride' where you post the journey you want to take (in my case UCSC to San Jose airport on Dec 10th) and anyone driving that way will post how many seats they have in their car and how much they want you to pay. I could've taken a number of buses to get to the airport but with 2 suitcases and not feeling 100% I thought I would do it this way. I found a guy who was going past the airport and onto Oakland so I 'booked a seat' in his car. I spoke to him on the phone and he sounded a little weird but I had seen his facebook page and he seemed better than some other options. I barely slept that night because I was worrying he was going to be a rapist of murderer! He turned up in an old beaten up, smelly, messy car with a bag of weed on the dashboard. After a bit of struggle getting my suitcases into his car amongst the duvets, walking boots and other random items, and against my better judgement, I got into his car. I spent the whole journey completely on edge. He was giving me his life story and telling me how his sister is a manic depressive, his mum is ill etc, I nodded and awwed in the right places. When he told me he was actually not going to Oakland as he never told his mum he was going to visit and just going to drop me off and turn back that is when I started to panic! I was starting to feel like I was about to live a real life episode of CSI. It all turned out fine though. It is amazing how your mind will work overtime! I am well aware that I shouldn't have gotten in the car if I didn't feel comfortable. Next time I won't!

I had a great 5 days in the OC! My friend lives in a really nice gated community with views over Irvine. On the first day we went down to Crystal Cove and Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach was not how I imagined it at all. I thought it was going to be a really big area, really touristy and a bit scabby to be honest. It was actually pretty small, really cute with little boutiques and art galleries, and not scabby at all:) We also went to a restaurant called 'The Boiling Crab' where they give you bibs, you order seafood by the lb and it is brought to you in a bag with a sauce and you just sit there and dig in with your hands! It was delicious!

LA was just a whirlwind. We managed to fit in A LOT! It is about an hour drive from my friends house in Irvine. We hit Rodeo Drive first and gawked at all the expensive, posh shops that we couldn't even afford to breathe the air in! I mean, a dress made exclusively of diamonds, really? The funniest thing was that we had barely been in LA for 5 minutes when I was stopped by a woman wanting me to be a hair model! Apparently it would be the best haircut I had ever had, I politely declined after hearing it was going to take 2 hours and I thought that they would probably cut my hair like Emma Watson or something else as equally as ridiculous (don't get me wrong, she rocks short hair, but NOT me!). We also went to The Grove, a famous shopping mall, and saw Mario Lopez doing some filming!

We also hit the Walk of Fame and the Chinese theatre. It was really cool seeing all the stars on the floor and the handprints of celebs in the cement. Hugh Jackman has MASSIVE feet by the way...;) We also went up to Unviersal City Walk which is all the shops outside of Universal Studios. It got me all excited for Disneyland the following day!

Before we left we headed up to the Griffith Observatory to get the view of the whole of LA and the Hollywood sign. It was pretty dark by this time so the picture's of the sign aren't great but seeing LA all lit up was just beautiful, even if it was a bit cold!

Disneyland....I don't know what to say. I felt like a little kid. Well, almost. It made me look forward to taking my own children and seeing their faces light up when Belle glides down the street:) I had my picture taken with Woody, Mickey and Minnie and the parade and firework show was just MAGICAL! We were there for close to 13hours. 13 hours of Disney magic! I could write a whole other blog post on Disneyland and all the rides, and the food, and the experience but this I will keep to tell people:)/ I can't be bothered to type it all out! I took a few videos....

I was sad to leave the OC. I had eaten a lot of good food, including Korean food which my friends family thought was so funny that I liked! But I was really looking forward to getting up to Seattle and starting the Christmas celebrations! After a round-the-houses flight which included a trip to Las Vegas (the airport is right next to the strip so I got to see the pyramid, the hotels and the Sphinx etc), I arrived in Seattle pretty tired after a crazy week. I greet my sister at the baggage claim, she says "I have a surprise for you", I feel a tap on the shoulder, turn round and my parents are standing there! SURPRISE! I was in complete shock, i just burst into tears (of course!) and was also aware of my dad with his camera though thankfully he didn't manage to get any good photos of my face! I had been downhearted that whenever I had spoken to them they were not enthusiastic about coming out to visit at some point but it was all a lie! They had this planned for 6 weeks! My sister didn't know they were coming either! It was all my brother-in-laws doing....isn't he so sweet! After re-starting my heart, and dried my tears, we got in the car and drove home. We opened the door to the apartment and sitting there is my brother!!! He had lied to me too and my parents and my sister! He had said he wasn't coming and then turned up at the doorstep a few days before me! So it is going to be a nice family Christmas in Seattle:)

'Fall'en in love with my new camera!

Study break...go out and take photos!
Autumn/ Fall is just beautiful here and as it is my favourite season, I wanted to share with you some pretty fall colours! Sorry for being all artsy.
I will go back to my essay on environmentalists and leisure and labour in the wilderness soon. Now doesn't that sound like fun?

"DENNIS QUAID IS HERE!"

Short but sweet i'm afraid because a) I have so much work to do and b) nothing much has happened!

Finally got back to Santa Cruz from Sacramento after a bit of a car accident on the way! Everyone was a bit shaken but we carried on while blasting Adele as the two other passengers had only ever heard Rolling in the Deep and Someone Like You which I thought was an outrage and immediately plugged in my ipod.

The week of presentations and spanish exams and papers was hell but it went pretty quickly so i'm grateful for that. Only one more week to go and then I will be in Disneyland! YAY! I cannot wait to hug Mickey Mouse.
I just want to take a moment and recognise just how painful and awkward it is to watch someone crash and burn while giving a presentation to the class. It is like watching the early X Factor auditions but you can't turn them off, or leave the room! There was only really 1 or 2 people that this happened to but those 7 minutes were the longest 7 minutes ever. I could feel myself going red for them! It is almost as bad as the video of the new TLC programme (that a group of us are going to attempt to watch tonight) 'The Virgin Diaries' where a couple share their first kiss EVER on their wedding day. Not kiss, face sucking/tongue ingesting more like. I urge you to go watch it on youtube, but not while eating. I'm not sure how much we will be able to watch tonight!

Took me ages to find a chocolate advent calendar in Santa Cruz. They just don't seem to be the thing to do round here at Christmas. I was getting so desperate that I even begged a shop owner to re-open so that I could buy one! She did as well! It isn't dairy milk chocolate, but it isn't bad. It's not Hershey's! Staying on the Christmas theme, check out the gingerbread house we made while listening to Christmas music. Well not made, constructed from a box!

Apart from that, have just been working and revising etc:( Oh and re-watching all of Ellen's pranks on youtube. It's amazing what you can find to do when there is plenty of other things to be doing! May not be blogging next Sunday, but I will tell you all my tales from SoCal soon.
I leave you with a picture of a friendly neighbourhood raccoon who likes to sit on the fence or in the garbage bins just outside our apartment.