Tilbage i LA

Hej & blesadur,

Ja, saa er jeg tilbage paa bloggen igen. Det var lige foer jeg havde glemt, hvordan man goer. Jeg har vaeret i LA i 2 doegn, og synes, jeg har naaet en heeelt masse allerede. For det foerste var det jo godt at se Bjarni igen! Han havde flyttet alle vores ting fra den ene lejlighed til den anden samme dag, som jeg ankom. Den nye lejlighed ligger stadig taet paa universitetet men i meget paenere omraade. Den er meget lille og meget amerikansk indrettet (den er moebleret), men der er uden tvivl potentiale til at goere det rigtig hyggeligt og hjemmeligt ikke mindst. Der er et grapefrugttrae i "baghaven" (dvs. der hvor bilerne er parkeret.) Wauw, det synes jeg er ret fantastisk. Jeg har vaeret ude og plukke een, men har ikke smagt den endnu. Fra sovevaerelset kan vi se kuplen paa en stor Scientology kirke, der paa en go' dag ligner Marmorkirken i Koebnhavn.
Vi er naermest kommet paa plads i lejligheden, og har vaeret i Ikea og koebe alt til koekkenet plus diverse andre praktiske sager vi manglede.
I dag har jeg koebt en (brugt) cykel! Ja, saadan kan det gaa, naar man bare er ude for at kigge. Det er en gul mountainbike, og jeg synes den er ret sej!! Det er plannen at cykle til og fra arbejde. Der er ikke ret langt, og en del af vejen er der cykelsti og ellers maa jeg cykle paa fortovet.

Jeg skal lade Jer vide, hvordan cykelturen til IRC gaar i morgen. Jeg passer paa, soestre!

kaerlige hilsner fra Dorte med jetlag

State of Emergency in California!

The governator Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in California due to "extreme" winter conditions. The temperature actually dropped below zero during last couple of nights, and estimated 1.1 billion dollars worth of crops were destroyed! About 70% of orange crops were destroyed, which probably will cause the orange price to rise alot, also in europe. It even snowed a little bit in some of LA's suburbes, something that hasn't happened in decades. Homeless people gathered in shelters all over LA and people were encouraged to see if their older neighbours had heaters and enough blankets.

It's amazing that these "extreme" cold weather conditions are actually conceived as a fairly nice summer weather condtitions in Iceland. Basically it was 13-14C and sunny (as always) during the day. Pretty nice eh.

Cheers
Bjarni

Good ol' Denmark

It's been a while since I've written anything, and although I should have had alot of time to write something during christmas I somehow always found other more interesting things to do...

Anyways a long story short I passed all my exams, flew to Denmark to for christmas and new year and then back to the sun a couple of days ago. I also managed to meet my parents for 2 minutes at the airport in Iceland and exchange christmas gifts. I only had 15 minutes to change planes, so my parents just explained the situation to the customs personell at the airport and like everything works in Iceland someone knew someone so they were alowed to go through the security check without a boarding pass! They met me as I came out of the plane and walked with me to the other plane.

It was very nice to be back in Denmark and see Dorte after almost 4 months of separation. I had missed her alot here in LA. We went to Jutland for christmas. Her family lives there. (The picture is taken on christmas eve, showing us with Dorte's niece and nephew. Mom, don't get any ideas!!)

We ate and ate and ate both on christmas eve and christmas day. On christmas day (and the first couple of days following christmas) danes traditionally dine a traditional "christmas lunch" for 6 hours or so. "A danish christmas lunch" main ingrediences are rye bread, herring, snaps (a 38-40% liquor) and of course of beer. It was very nice.


(A young niece of Dorte is trying to have a sip of a christmas beer during the christmas lunch. Yes, danes have long been famed for their beer and they do start drinking beer early in their life... although perhaps not this early. I think it's an unopened can.)




For new years eve me and Dorte actually managed to throw a completely mad new years party even though we were only 5 persons. We made a lush 3 course dinner for a couple of guests, and afterwards played games, celebrated the new year and danced all night long.


Anyways now I'm back to sunny California, just waiting for Dorte. The weather here is as good as always. The picture shows me and Kjong taking a quick bath in the pacific after loosing a beach volleyball match last sunday.

Cheers
Bjarni