Sea World & Six Flags

Ok so I mentioned earlier that USA is fitting into all the stereotypes I had envisioned before I got here. My visits to Sea World and Six Flags, Valencia proved just that.

Sea World was awesum! The shows were cheesy as hell (just like the typical Hollywood movies) but that didn’t stop me from enjoying each and every one of them. All the tricks in the shows were exactly what I had seen from movies such as Free Willy, 50 First Dates etc etc and the resemblance was remarkable! Im not quite sure what I expected it to be instead but in any case, I was surprised how accurately Hollywood depicts reality! We spent almost the entire day at the park and only covered about half of it. Thankfully we bought an All Year Pass (fuking $56) so at some point this quarter, we intend to return and complete the rest of it!

Hmm the shows: well there were the sea lions, dolphins and Shamu – the killer whale of course. The Shamu show was probably the best and attracted the most people but I loved the sea lions show personally (cz it was the funniest by far). I gotta mention that these theme parks suck all they can out of you. I mean the expensive entry tickets aside, everything sold inside the premises is about six times its normal price. It’s absolutely ridiculous and this is how I was told they make their money! Neways towards the end of the day we decided to take a ride on Atlantis, a water roller-coaster. Me and Esther being the daring people that we are sat in the front of the ride and as expected got completely drenched. I wouldn’t have it any other way even though we were sooo freeeeeeezing by the end of the night but meh – shit happens!

Six Flags was beyond awesum! We were there for a good 8 hours or so and I’d say we were on the actual rides for about 10 minutes all up. The rest of the time was spent in never-ending lines for each ride, finding a place to eat lunch and eating lunch etc etc. But what the heck, all of those 10 minutes were totally amazing!! It’d be hard to describe each and every ride and no photos shall do enough justice to the actual experience of being on the rides …. it was crazy!
In summary though, my first ever experience to a roller coaster theme park (well one that I remember anyways) was a complete blast! I sat in rides with 255 feet drops, rides that went from 0-100 miles per hour in about 6 seconds and of course the Tatsu experience! The 255 feet drop especially was crazy – I was straining my neck to see the bottom of the fall and when I finally saw it, lol I cudnt keep my eyes open! And doing the upside-down loop da loop on the Tatsu was something im gonna remember for a while as well, my head being a few inches from the railings …. Ahh good times!

UCSD Spirit Week

A couple of weeks ago was the UCSD spirit week. Basically this is the week in which all of UCSD unites in some form of college spirit. The week was full of UCSD mascots and decorations on library walk and all things UCSD. It ended with a basketball ball game between the UCSD tritons and Sonoma State (i think it was) ... i HAD to witness the whole american college basketball game atmosphere so I was there of course :)

One thing ive noticed about America is that all the sterotypes I had about this place are all just bout true .. for example, I expected the game to have cheerleaders and mascots and the whole crowd saying "Defence Defence" etc etc and I got all of that and more ... I will talk more about the other stereotypes in future posts to justify my conclusion further ... It was great to see the whole RIMAC arena being just about full and people with UCSD shirts, face paints etc etc cheering the Tritions on ... thankfully they won the game too so the night ended up pretty well!

Following the game - a couple of us went to coldstone for some ice-cream! It was pretty expensive (after converting to kiwi standards) and I have to say that movenpick still winds hands down :P ... sumaira was completely crazy that night as she generally tends to be on most occasions and we had a really good laugh :D ... after coming bak to Campus, me n Ian headed out to the Geisel Dance ...

K I have to talk abt this Dance ... it was basically signalling THE END to spirit week. Essentially, they put HUGE speakers and a pretty mean musci system with a Live DJ in the basement of the Geisel Library and there were about 200+ students there till 1am in the morning dancing it up! It was such a kewl thing - dancing beneath the library lol (sounds soo geeky too right? ) ... I was thinking they shud do sumthing like that in Auckland too, right outside the General library, will be interesting too see how that goes down! It was a pretty kewl experience and we hung abt there 4 a while b4e heading bak home 4 sum sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

On another note, I hear each and every UCLA game is like spirit week at UCSD .. i wanna go experience the whole UCLA sport-crazy spirit myself but I dont think thats likely to happen cz apparetnly tickets sell out reallly fast BUT im definitely gonna go to a LA Lakers game so that shud make up for it :)

Also, Im goin for the SD Padres vs. SF Giants Baseball game in a few weeks so cant wait 4 dat one!!! Attached are some pics from the Spirit Week B'Ball game .... ciao 4 now!

American - isms

Hello Again!

Having lived here for almost 2 months now, ive come across a lotta differences between the kiwi-american lingo that u guys shud find funny ... i'l be updating this as time progresses obviously so stay tuned for more american-isms :)

1) Americans LOVE using acronyms : seriously, they short-form everything and make it sound a lot more cooler than it actually is! Like once someone told me they were goin to PB (pacific beach which is like a suburb here) .. can ya imagine that in auckland? ... oh yeh im headed out to MB (mission bay obv) ... neways here are some more ...

O'Chem --> Organic Chemistry
P'Chem --> Physical Chemistry
SNL --> Saturday Night Live
MT --> Midterms
PI --> Prime Investigator (the main guy in the research labs)

There's more but I cant recall em now .....

2) Americans dont call it papers ... they call it classes. So like, initially (even now sometimes) when i say : Im doing 3 papers this quarter - they look at me funny. For em, papers are like the scientific research papers etc etc ....

3) oh n the good old kiwi ' Sweet As' is not a safe option here ... the way the accents work, a kiwi 'as' is an american 'ass' ... hence you can see where the controversy lies ... luckily I was told about this soon after my arrival and hence I havent had any bad experiences thus far lol ....\

4) Americans dont use ' heaps ' much ... they just say lots and look at you funny when u say heaps ... :S

Ohh I have a random european one (seems appropriate to enter that in here)
... People from the western europe area use the term ' Benelux' to define the three neighbouring countries of belgium, netherlands and luxemburgh. Thats pretty neat i reckon!

I cooked!

January 16th

Well I baked ...

But if you know me well enough you should know that me entering the kitchen to do anything is quite a rare occurence and Im sure u shall relish these pictures!

So it was Todd's Birthday about a week or so after I moved into I-House. The plan was to throw him a suprise party and hence the entire apartment went shopping (except todd obviously) the night before and bought stuff for stirfry. The next day we were all supposed to meet up at like 4pm and start the cooking. As you probably know, I dint have my awesum laptop back then so I was in a computer lab checking my emails, studying etc etc and I completely lost track of time. By the time I returned, the stirfry was almost ready and I thought Id blown my first official kitchen experience (not including 2-minute noodles and yeh dats about it actually lol).

But then someone suggested making brownies and using Lisa's Ready to Mix powders. I jumped at the chance to make some brownies (thinking back to the delicious brownies G3 makes) to finally break this havent ever-cooked voodoo. So I had to you know add eggs and oil and water in the precise quantities to the brownie mixture after some elegant mixing, I put it in the oven. I was being scrutinsed (while also being photographed) by a LOT of people around the counter and they were impressed to say the least. After about 40 minutes, the brownies were ready and everyone LOVED them! Ian, the most healthy Kiwi guy i know, actually couldnt get enough of em brownies and had like 4 pieces of the sugary goodness!


Yes i know what ure thinking people ... I used a ready mix packet! Yes i did indeed, but you see that was the first step towards something a lot bigger in my life ( lol boi this is sooo dramatic!). Point being, watch out G3 cz ure brownie legacy is now under attack!


40 pieces of brownie disappeared in a good 40 minutes or less :)
id say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and my theory stands ...
if i HAVE to do something, i will LEARN to do it ... if i dont hav to do it, why bother !?



Oh n enjoy the pictures!

Blog Discovery

I just realised that you can click on the pictures on the blog for an enlarged version of them! See thats kewl cz it allows me to post a lot more pictures and U guys can just click on the ones that interest you for a bigger and more detailed version .... :) - its a saturday arvo here and im studying but will post some more b4e the end of this weekeknd i promise ... ciao 4now!

I-House (Cuzco 215)

January 7th: Moving in day

Today was finally the day I could get into uni gear! Moving in was a bit of a mission because my host family dropped me off to I-House at 9am and I couldnt move in until 1pm. So i hid my huge bag under the stairs of my apartment and left some others at alice's room - she had already moved in early for a small price of $30 a day lol ..... picked em up later in the day ...

Anyways my room is part of a 6-person townhouse. There are 4 single rooms upsatairs (including mine) and a single double bedroom with two bunks downstairs. We get a pretty big living area etc etc .. u can clearly see the pics so get a good idea ureself ... As im writing this in retrospect (ooh big word 4me lol) I have included the picture of the most important thing in the house, our FOOSEBALL table :D .... everyone in the apartment pitched in towards this and we play it all the time - basicallly its right outise my room so there goes any hope of study!



Anyways my roommates

Todd and Xin downstairs ..

Todd is a super huge gaming freak and doesnt drink alcohol so that kinda sucks ... he's got the awesumest games and is usually found around the computer unless he is in class.

Then there is Xin, he is here from Shanghai University. He's already been here for a quarter and had to extend his stay cz he liked it so much and wanted to stay another quarter .... he's awesum at basketball and likes the shots i make for him :)



Upstairs we have Chris, John, Yao and moi .....

Chris is an american and also moved in this quarter - he was in spain over spring and hence can speak spanish. He plays the trumpet and is supreme in fooseball. He has a girlfriend, emily who is here quite a lot. Another basketball champion and an international studies major.

John is another american. Most of the things around our house belong to him becuase he lives pretty close by. He has his own car so he's the one I go to for supermarket runs lol. He is just as good at fooseball at chris and is doing a cognitive sciences major.

Then we have Yao. His name is totallly the coolest thing ever. When i met him, he was like " My name is Yao, but you can call me dragon" .... see there is no way u can beat that kind of introduction no matter what u say next! ... dragon is the literal translation of his name. Apparently his full name translates to Glorious Dragon so I suggested he shud introduce himself as " Hi, im dragon, glorious dragon" ... look out James Bond!

Anyways he is here from singapore university for two quarters as well. Another gaming freak and I can actually beat him at fooseball cz he isnt very good :) ... he's a biology major but is doing a host of random classes (they dont call it papers here!) to make up for points - something i plan to do next quarter!



Well thats my apartment!
More to come later .... ciao!

Arrival at UCSD

Allright ... im gonna start backwards ... will talk about UCSD first and then add posts of my travels in europe and asia as i go .... so here goes ...

January 4th: Arrived at San Diego Airport

OMG! this was the scariest flight of my travels ... my flight from philadelphia airport was meant to take off at 7:40am i think and so me and my uncle got to the airport around 6:15 am (well in time you would think BUT NO!) .... checking in took like 15 minutes but the fucking security line was like an hour long at least .... so I was kinda getting nervous at this point and asked one of the security people if i could move ahead cz i have an earlier flight but that dint help much becos apparently other people were in the same situation ... anyways i cleared security close to 7:30am and this was 5mins after the final boarding call for my plane, so YES i was almost certain that i misssed the plane! .... but anyways i started running towards my gate which was also ages away!

During my run i heard my name being called out and hence i was running faster and faster ... luckily i was stopped by one of the airport stewards in my run and she asked if i was " San Diego" and i was like yeh .. she was on one of those golf-cart things they have in the terminals and so i got a ride ... she radio-ed the gate people and responded to me saying " Your plane just left" and i was like aaaaaargh fuck!!!! When we got to the gate finally the plane was right there but like the gate had been removed from the doors .... THANKFULLY cargo was still being loaded up onto the plane so the nice american lady at the door said I could still get in ... she moved the gate back to the dorr just 4 me and i got on the plane ...Farrrr some experience that was!!

Anyways

Arrived in San Diego .. got picked up by this nice host family lady ... we went to the UCSD campus first and got me signed in and got my ID etc etc so that was pretty sweet - lots of importatnt work done that day ... then we headed to her house, a reallly BIG house for what seems to be just for her (during my 3 day stay i saw no-one else at her house) .... anyways i got my own rooom so that was sweeet :) .... i just relaxed the rest of the day and got in touch with Ian and Shaili and talked away for a while .... and then onto tommorow!

January 5th-6th: International Student Orientation n the Kiwis

Jan 5th was the mandatory international student orientation (the only reason i came to SD 3 days before term started) .... the whole process of a 2-hour information lecture was actuallly prett boring cz most of the info was in the handouts we had been posted before ... but the food was free at the end of it and good + i got to meet new friends including two more kiwis ....

I met Brownyn, an auckland girl studying at Massey University and Alice, cantebury gurl. They are both studying pschycology so that was pretty cool. Alice had been travelling the world prior to San Diego just like me while Browyn is planning to do her travel after semester here (like ian) ... us kiwis got along pretty well and even managed to get ourselves sorted to go to the beach the next day ... Jan 5th was basicallly sorting out my papers and meeting teachers + travelling campus day .... i'l be posting pictures of the major highlights of campus soon ... btw the campus is freaking huge ... like a campus loop run is like 4 miles (6ks) and i realied I-House (my accomodation) is like at one end of the campus ... more exercise for me!

So yes Jan 6th was basicallly more of the same as the 5th ... sorting out the finer details at UCSD and then us 4 kiwis headed to the local shopping mallls and eventually to the beach .. the beach was totally gorgeous! i got the meanest sunset pics! its still winter here so dipping into the water wasnt really an option!

I was just about ready to head back to university at this point to be honest. Id been living through suitcases for almost a month now without any form of routine - It sounds crazy i know but i was reallly craving some form of routine! Thankfully tommorow would be the day :)