Beach and Bicycle.

I think I'm doing rather well! This is my 22nd post for August! Those 22 account for almost a third of my total posts so now I just need to keep it up :-) Keep your fingers crossed!

Today I met most of the new Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars for 2008/09. Maureen Eberle organised a great picnic at La Jolla Cove which is one of the prettiest areas of San Diego. We are a rather diverse bunch! Aside from Aadila and I there was Giovanni from Italy, Robert from Germany, Wadri from Uganda, Julie and Rebecca from South Korea and Qiuwan from China. There's also going to be another scholar arriving from Japan in the next few weeks. Here are some pics of the day.

I got my birthday present from Mom and Dad early this year. That probably has something to do with the fact that I chose and bought it. It's a wonderful bicycle (and helmet of course)! The Trek 7.2 FX WSD to be exact. If you're interested in the technical specifications here's the link. Otherwise if (like me) you don't speak 'bicycle' then it's what's called a hybrid bicycle where it has the majority of features like a road bike but you have straight handlebars and sit more upright like a mountain bike. It's also a very pretty light blue! I went for a ride on Friday and it's really comfortable and easy to ride. I'm just working on getting my foot back into the pedal straps after stopping and trying to put my water bottle back into the cage without wobbling! We'll get there. Thank you so much Mom and Dad for my wonderful present! Here are a couple of pics for you to see.

Don't you just love the sexy cycling shorts? ;-)

Close up of my bike!

and of my helmet! (Safety 1st don't you know?)

Other updates - my computer is fixed! I'm very happy! I'm still not too sure exactly what they did but it works and all my software is there so that's ok by me. Unless anything changes in the next few days I'll be moving to Crown Point on 8 Sept. Seeing that that's a Monday I hope it's actually the weekend before but we'll see.

Photos.

I'm tired (it's 2:20am) so I'll update you on my computer and bicycle etc tomorrow. In the mean time here are some links to some of my other facebook photo albums which I put up recently-ish.

Rotary Photos (including the LA convention)
Ambassadorial Scholars at the Corvette Diner (a classic 50's style diner with great burgers!)
My best friend Katherine's wedding in Durban in July #1 and #2

Wild Animal Park

Today Nicky and I went off to the Wild Animal Park because I had free tickets that expire tomorrow so we decided we should use them! The Wild Animal Park is the breeding grounds for the Zoo and a tourist attraction in it's own right.

Some of the park is very similar to the Zoo where you just walk around and see the different types of animals individually in their (sometimes very large) enclosures while in another areas they have habitats that simulate the plains of Southern Africa or the deserts or North Africa and a bunch more. Unfortunately most of these aren't accessible unless you arrange one of the (expensive) photo safaris or something along those lines which sucks because there were some really cool animals that we missed out on! We went on a tram tour which took you past the South African savannah mostly.

The savannah is pretty much as close as you can get to going on a real safari without leaving America (which no doubt is good enough for some). They have all your major herbivores in a large enclosure together and so you get to see the animals interacting 'naturally'. Well natural is entirely relative if you consider the fact that there are no predators in sight, only a couple of each type of animal and the grass is super green. We did see some cool stuff though - like a 3 week old baby black rhino and the northern white rhino which is the most endangered rhino in the world - there are only 7 left and 2 are in San Diego which is pretty cool. Aside from that we saw some interesting Californian animals (the Californian condor and big horn sheep among others).

Here's the link to my facebook album. I put the pictures at the end of the Zoo and Seaworld album so you may have to scroll through to get to them.

A Kate Update (I quite like this as a title for general posts).

I hope for America's sake that Obama wins the election and that he does something to reform America's healthcare system. I spent 8 hours in a hospital Emergency Room yesterday. Before you ask, I'm fine! My friend Nicky had chest pains and so went to the SDSU health centre who did a bunch of tests and then sent her to the emergency room. They did the all the exact same tests that SDSU had just done plus a CT scan and couldn't find anything wrong so that was that. It was a very long and boring experience. I was productive however! I took my cellphone apart completely and cleaned it with the disinfectant wipes kindly provided by the hospital. I have also discovered that you can fit a purple rubber glove over your head and then you look quite similar to a chicken. I have photos to prove it but I don't think I'm going to post them on here.

Otherwise life's been all about getting everything sorted out for starting classes next week. Luckily I logged onto the SDSU system this evening because I discovered that it was the last day for registration! I registered very quickly so that's all sorted out now. I'm also in the process of organising my internship. I have one more elective to do and none of the ones on offer appealed in the slightest so instead I've organised a to do a special study on household economics and the economics of marriage. It's my Professor's area of speciality and she's done some really interesting work so I'm really pleased.

Aside from that my time has been taken up with looking for a bike! Yup, I know, not something you'd ever expect to here from me! But I'm moving to Pacific Beach which is a very pedestrian/bike friendly area so I plan on riding to the shops and the gym etc. There are also a whole lot of bike trails around the bay area so it's a great place to start cycling a bit more seriously without having to be on the road with all the scary cars! As I typed this it seemed rather familiar so if I put it all in a previous post then I do apologise. This hunt is proving to be a bit more tricky than I'd like because I seem to have hit the 'black hole' of the bike buying year. Most of the old models are all sold out (especially since the oil price went up apparently so have bike sales) and the new ones are just starting to trickle in. But I will persevere!

New driving licenses, blue toenails and dead laptops.

Today when the post arrived I was really excited because my California drivers license arrived! It's so cool!

The highlight of the week's post for me is usually my Time Magazine which now gets delivered to Marge's house after Sarah decided they were junk mail and started throwing them out (I was not impressed). This weeks Time is a special edition on the Democrats *groan* which means that no doubt we'll be receiving another special edition on the Republicans in the weeks to come. I can hardly contain myself I'm so excited. Not. This whole election thing is really starting to bug me. I don't care that it's the most exciting race in decades - the actual election is months away! When the story of the week is Obama pouncing on McCain for not remembering how many houses he owns (7 by the way) it really gets a bit much.

Onto brighter news (literally) my toenails are bright blue! With pretty white flowers and sparkles. I took Marge for a surprise manicure and pedicure to say thank you for having me at her house while I've been apartment hunting. While she was being pampered I had a basic pedicure and decided to get interesting nail polish. I contemplated taking a picture to show you but I figured that could be a bit odd.

I have some sad news to report - my laptop is dead. It died last night after Windows installed some updates and then told me I had to restart it for them to take effect. Well it never restarted. Luckily I had backed it up just before but still. This is one case when a 9 hour time difference is very convenient because this all happened around midnight which is 9am in SA so I could phone Warren for help and advice. Unfortunately the prognosis is not good - I took it in this morning (to the Geek Squad at Best Buy - nice name huh?) and we'll see. I should know something in a week or so. Luckily I'm can just use Marge's computer otherwise I think I may be suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms! Technology is a wonderful thing... until something goes wrong!

I am feeling exceptionally pleased with myself. Today I found a Twilight T-shirt. You really can get anything in America!

Google Maps is awesome!

I've just discovered something super duper cool! Google maps will give you directions. No, not driving directions - public transport directions! For example, to get from my new place to SDSU this is what I'd have to do.... click here

My new home!

Two bits of random info just to start this post off nicely. KFC in San Diego does not hold a candle to KFC in South Africa. I was actually really disappointed with their attempt at a Rounder. So that's an experience I will not be repeating.

Gwen Stefani has just had a son. She's called him Zuma! Seriously?!! His full name's Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale - poor kid. Not matter how famous his parents are he's still going to get beaten up at school.

Anyway, onto more exciting matters namely my new apartment! Well it's actually not an apartment, it's a house. The lady who owns it got married and instead of selling her house and all her stuff decided to rent out the rooms. You can have a look at where it is here. It's in an area called Crown Point which is exactly where I wanted to move to. It's a nice residential area just below Pacific Beach which is one of the 'party areas' of San Diego. What's great is that everything is close - I'll be able to walk or ride my bike to the shops or the gym or anywhere else I want to go around there. It's also a great area for being outdoors as there are cycling/jogging paths all around the bay areas.

Back to the house. There will be 3 other guys living there. One is the owner's son and he has the outside room and bathroom then there's a German guy and a Brazilian guy who will be living in the house with me. I've met them both and they seem really nice. The only thing is that the three of us are going to be sharing one bathroom which is not ideal but it's something I can definitely live with. Especially when I consider the fact that my rent is only going to be $625 including utilities. When I was living with Sarah my rent and utilities were about $200 more than that! The house also has a nice kitchen which the guys apparently hardly ever use and then a lounge/dining area.

Other very cool things include the fact that there is a washing machine and tumble dryer and we don't have to pay for them so I can stop saving quarters! Chris (the guy who lives outside) has a cat so I plan on making friends with it. My bedroom is furnished so I'll be sleeping on a proper bed again (which luckily is the exact same size as my bed so I'm going to use my mattress).

I'm not too sure when I'm going to be able to move in yet - it'll either be 1 September or on the 8th. I'm very, very happy though! I'm so glad that the right place finally turned up.

The hunt continues.

I wish hunting for an apartment was like hunting for Easter eggs (yes we used to do this when we were little). At least then you know you have a defined area to search in, a certain number of eggs to find, the eggs belong to whoever finds then first and then once they're all found it's over! Apartment hunting on the other hand seems to stretch to infinity! There's a preferred area but it's not strictly defined, there's no actual guarantee that you'll find anything in that area and then if you do someone who finds it after you may end up getting it. Then of course it doesn't seem to end! (Well in my case at least).


I've seen 5 apartments in the last 2 days. The first one was perfect and I would love to live there - but of course the girl had organised with a bunch of other people for them to come and see the place so she'll let me know later in the week. The second place was nice but the guy who's living there worked from home. So half the living room is taken up by his desk and where the kitchen/dining room table should be there's a Foosball table. So it felt like I'd just be renting the room and not actually be sharing the apartment. Which is technically fine but with that being the case I thought the rent was far too expensive for what he was offering so as Dad would suggest, I sent him a cheeky email. (Americans don't use the word cheeky by the way). He was asking rent and then utilities (water, electricity, internet etc) were extra on top of that which added about $100 to the bill. I suggested that we make the rent he was asking for include utilities as well. I was impressed to get a reply from him saying that he was showing the place to a couple of other people this week and would see how that went then would consider my offer. So we'll see. As Dad always says - if you don't ask, you don't get.

I've been getting a little stressed out about not being able to find anything despite having looked since the beginning of the month so yesterday I decided to broaden my search. I went to see one place that wasn't in any area I'd thought about looking in primarily because the rent was so cheap! The place was nice enough but the dude renting out the room was seriously dodgy! I also went to see a place that is in the area that's my second option if I can't move to the beach. It's an area called Hillcrest which is sort of like Florida road - lots of restaurants and bars. It's also very close to Balboa Park (San Diego's answer to Central Park). The place was really nice and you got a lot more bang for your buck. But it's not the beach which is where I really, really want to live! I was chatting to Nicky about it and as she said, if I'm only in San Diego for 5 more months (assuming that I move somewhere else to work next year) then I should live where I want to because who knows if I'll ever get the chance to live there again.

I saw another possibility in Pacific Beach last night. It's a small, old house but in a great location. The guy who lives there seemed really cool (he's a golf pro at a local course) but once again he's showing the place to a couple more people so we'll see later in the week.

Wrt the places I was waiting to hear about - I emailed the one girl who actually responded and told me that they had been concerned about the fact that I could only guarantee staying there for 5 months even though I want to stay in San Diego and work next year too so they had found someone else. I can't get hold of the other girl - she never answers her phone and her voicemail box is full. So that's that for those two possibilities I guess!

I really need to work out what to call my posts when they're just full of random bits of this and that!

Yay! Michael Phelps won his 8 gold medals. Kudos and all that now can we please watch something other than swimming? I miss DSTV and being able to watch multiple channels of random Olympic sport at all hours of the day. What is quite amusing here though is the way they’re reporting the medal count - I only ever see the total medal count because then America’s winning. Meanwhile it’s the gold medals that count and then the Chinese are kicking the USA’s butt!

On Saturday night I went to see A Chorus Line. It’s a musical that tells the story of all these dancers trying out for a show on Broadway. I got a super cheap ticket (I’m a poor student remember) so I was sitting high up in the rafters. For some unknown reasons the entire front section if the upper balcony was empty so just before the show started we all started to move down. The poor usher got all twitchy so all we did was wait until they switched the lights off and then moved! I ended up with an awesome seat and could see everything on stage really well.

I have to tell you about an incredible moment of brilliance on my part! After I got my car back from being detailed last week I was trying to remember if I had had mats in it or not. I eventually decided that I must not have had mats because I was sure they would have put them back in the car. So this weekend when Nicky and I went to do some shopping at Costco I opened the boot to but our shopping in an lo and behold - there were my mats! They had been sitting in the boot the whole time. Now my car has a little bit of a 'wet' smell that I need to sort out because the mats weren't completely dry and they've been sitting in the closed boot in the sun all week.

Talking about grocery shopping - last week I was so excited! I went to a different Von's to the one I normally do and they had peppadews! They were in the little deli section along with all the olives etc. They've made a welcome addition to my salads.

And in other food news (the newsreader voice is back) I had my first smor on Friday night! What is a smor you may ask? Well it's the quintessential American camp food made by taking a marshmellow, toasting it over the fire and then squishing it between two graham crackers along with some chocolate! Quite delicious! Although I do think toasting Beacon marshmellow Easter eggs is still the best!

The apartment hunt continues. I saw one place this weekend which was a bit too close to party central for my liking and I'm seeing another place tonight. And surprise surprise - the rude Americans strike again! Despite being faithfully assured that they would let me know about the two apartments I was waiting to hear about this weekend.... guess what? They didn't.

YAAAAAAAY!

I passed my driving test! I had my appointment at 11:45am and when I arrived at the DMV it was packed! I definitely gloated a bit as I strolled right past the ridiculous line of people that headed all the way out the door and around the corner as I went to check in. While I was waiting to do my test I had a sudden flashback to my SA driving test and what I had to do then. I promptly made a quick call to my friend Nicky to ask about hand turn signals (which I'd completely forgotten in the week since I did my theory test - oops). It's a good thing I did because they asked that! So after the nice little drive during which I did not drive on the wrong side of the road, mount any curbs or do anything else daft the examiner told me that I'd passed! I struggled to contain my joy as he mentioned that I must make sure I come to a complete stop before turning right at a red light. According to Jeremy Clarkson that's America's only contribution to driving. I of course nodded very seriously and then skipped inside (no, not literally) to get my license. Only to be told that they'll post it to me so I just got a crappy piece of paper instead.

Cherry Coke

At the moment I'm sitting and drinking a Cherry Coke Zero and I can't decide if I like it or not! On one hand the fake cherry flavour is not totally unpleasant but I don't think it does much for me in this form. Coke Zero is comparable to SA's Coke Light. You also get Diet Coke here which is revolting! It's got so much artificial sweetener in it that that's pretty much all you can taste and it gives me a headache. So I drink Coke Zero (which is aimed at guys apparently because it doesn't have all the 'diet' connotations). But back to the cherry aspect - I really don't think it adds much to the drink at all. But then again I think I could quite happily give up Coke altogether and not miss it at all so maybe I'm not the right person to be talking about this!

I bought my Cherry Coke when I was out shopping for headphones this evening because my headphones died! I was at gym earlier today and when I switched my ipod on I only got sound in my one ear. So I had to spend my entire time at gym swapping the working headphone from ear to ear depending on which side the loudest noise was coming from. Even though I had the non-working earphone in my ear as well I could still hear from that ear which is a definite problem. I listen to my ipod at gym because I play really fast music and it keeps me going on the cardio machines. The other reason I like listening to music is because it blocks out all other sounds - including the sound of me breathing so I don't notice how tired I'm getting and I push myself to carry on going. Needless to say today's was not the best workout ever. However, I am pleased to announce that I eventually managed to find a really nice pair of Sony headphones so hopefully the next time I go to gym I'll be much happier! I got them at Walmart of all places. Shopping at Walmart is a very scary experience! My only excuse is that I'd already been to 2 other electronic stores without any success and Walmart was on the way to get groceries at Vons.

Updates:
#1 - Driving test tomorrow morning - wish me luck!
#2 - No new apartment hunting news.
#3 - The name 'Michael Phelps' is really starting to grate my cheese! Apparently he has assumed demi-God status so it is imperative that everyone mention his name at least 47 times a day.

One year in the USA

One year ago today I arrived in San Diego (give or take a couple of hours seeing that it's almost 2am here). It's definitely been an interesting year. I contemplated reminiscing about it on here but it's way too late and I'm far too tired so it'll have to be another time - maybe!

In the latest Kate update (said in my best pompous newsreader voice) I finally have an appointment with the DMV for my driving test! It's on Friday at 11:40ish so wish me luck! As Andrew pointed out it would be highly embarrassing if I failed so tomorrow I'm going to check up online to see what they actually want you to do and make sure I know how to do it.

And in other news (back to the pompous voice) apartment hunting has hit a bit of a lull. I'm still waiting to hear from 2 of the places I liked. I phoned the 3rd today and she's found another roommate. I thought she was actually incredibly rude seeing as she promised to call and let me know and then never bothered to. That seems to be a general trend here though. South Africans definitely have better manners than the majority of Americans! I'm not sure if it's because of the British influence/heritage or what but it's definitely noticeable and rather annoying. Another thing that bugs me is that when you say 'Thank you' to an American they don't reply with 'it's a pleasure' or 'sure' or 'no problem' or any words for that matter. They just say 'uh-huh'.

After that little venting effort I am off to bed!

I kid you not...

While watching the Olympics opening ceremony the other day, during the parade of nations one of the American commentators said "Here's the Central African Republic which is in central Africa". I could not actually believe it!

And another thing....

Incidentally, my car is now sparkling! It looks like a totally different car. In honour of this fact (and the fact that it's actually clean for a change) I decided to add some decorations. I hope you approve.

I'm off to the Rotary District Council meeting this evening and am taking some people up with me - we're all going to be sitting on plastic so we don't get damp bums!

South Africa sick.

I am feeling horribly homesick. Or maybe South Africa sick is more appropriate. I’m sitting at Starbucks waiting for my car to be detailed (valeted (sp?) in SA speak – basically a complete interior and exterior clean etc) and I was planning on using the internet but I can’t connect to the silly hotspot for some odd reason. So instead I’m sorting out all my music on iTunes and listening to the Soweto Gospel Choir. I think that what has just struck a chord is the way they pronounce some of the words, in the typical ‘African’ South African accent and switch from English to Zulu/Xhosa at a moment’s notice (or whichever of the 9 official African languages it is. I was never very good at differentiating between them). At times while I’ve been in San Diego I’m very aware of being different – of thinking differently and having a different perspective on life and what’s important. It’s really difficult to explain. I suppose the best way to do so is to say that the Soweto Gospel Choir’s music is absolutely beautiful and I can imagine that anyone with half an ear can appreciate the magnificent voices and exquisite harmonies even if they don’t know the songs or understand the words. But for me they’re also beautiful because the songs are familiar and because they just sound like home.

Updates on this and that.

I'm still not having any luck with the DMV. Every time I have called in the last few days the system has been down. Not that they tell you this at the beginning of the call though. Instead they wait until you've given all your piles of information (via an annoying voice recognition system which doesn't always understand my accent) and then they say they're offline. Grr! So I will persist.

On the apartment front I saw another really nice place tonight. I also saw another two I liked on Saturday morning so now I just need to wait to hear from all three. It's a bit frustrating but I'd rather spend a bit more time and find the right place rather than rushing and ending up with an icky place/wierd roommates!

America is all about the Olympics at the moment. I watched the whole opening ceremony on Friday and I was really impressed! Except for the fact that the SA team marched on just before the USA team so they cut to a commercial here to be ready for the USA team. I've been watching bits and pieces including the mens 100m freestyle relay last night. I was sad America won because it's really funny when they lose! Their commentators get all indignant! They always expect to win (in fact they are worse than the Aussie rugby commentators) but I must admit the relay team were definitely impressive.

The DMV drama continues...

I passed the written portion of my California Drivers license test! This morning I went to the DMV (again) and the line was ridiculous so I was really glad I had an appointment because that meant I got to skip the queue! It didn't mean that I didn't have to wait however - I got to do a fair amount of that inside the DMV. Anyway I eventually wrote my test and passed which is awesome! So now I just need to pass the driving portion which I'm not overly concerned about seeing I've been driving for almost 7 years! (Oops, I'm giving away my age here!). The problem is that I need to make an appointment to do my test and there aren't any available for the next 30 days at any of the 4 DMV offices in San Diego! It's really frustrating. So I basically have to keep on phoning every day to see if anything changes.

I have no new news on the apartment front either - I just need to keep looking there as well.

On a brighter note I've finished posting the pictures from my trip so here are the links.
New York photos
Boston photos

I also got my laptop and hard drive back from Jen (as well as my ipod, jewellery, documents and everything else I didn't want to leave at the apartment with Sarah) so I should have some more pictures from SA and the Rotary International convention up soon.

It's now 2am and I'm off to bed! Marge is back home so I had to wait to use the computer tonight as none of her neighbours are nice enough to have left their wireless connections un-password protected.

Growl! (and some photos finally!)

So today I was very well behaved. Sure I woke up a bit late but then I sat in the sun and studied the silly California Driver's Handbook (which for me means I read through it once). I then went off to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and got there just after 3pm. When I was registering my car I discovered that this is quite a good time to go as the people who've gone on their lunch break have finished and the after work crowd hasn't arrived yet. However, today I discovered that due to budget cuts (thanks a bunch Arnie) you have to have an appointment to go to the DMV after 3pm. So so much for that. instead I stood in line and made an appointment for 9:40am tomorrow morning. What a waste of time! So I went home and started posting pictures of my travels on Facebook.

Here's the link to the 2 albums of Washington DC pictures.
#1 - General Washington Pictures
#2 - Washington Monuments and Memorials

New York and Boston will follow shortly (hopefully tomorrow).

In the meantime here are some pictures from when Nick stayed with me in San Diego. We went to the zoo (where I fell in love with the meerkats) and Seaworld. Seaworld is awesome! It's the first time I'd been to the one here and I really enjoyed it. We were there from about 11am until 10pm and saw all the shows and animals including Shamu (the star Killer Whale). The have some seriously cool animals there including gorgeous sea otters, the only 2 performing pilot whales in the world, beluga whales, walruses (walrusi?), puffins, emperor penguins etc etc. The list just goes on. The shows are really slick and well done and there's a huge variety - we even went to see the pets show where they had trained cats and ducks! It was really cute.

So here are some of the pictures from those excursions. There aren't that many because I didn't feel the need to record every single thing I saw - I only took pics of what interested me.

Seaworld and the Zoo

Chicken, Apartments and Dentists.

I think American farmers must feed their chickens steroids. Seriously, the size of the chicken breasts I grilled for dinner this evening were just plain ridiculous. They could be sliced up and feed a family of four quite easily with enough left over for seconds! Having been here for almost a year now I suppose I should have gotten used to the size of things but as far as I'm concerned it's just not normal!

Aside from that apartment hunting is going ok. It's quite a pain really but I guess it is an evil that must be endured because I'm sure Marge will kick me out sooner or later. Although I haven't managed to kill/permanently disable/damage anything while she's been away. Aside from a box of parmesan crackers which had an unfortunate meeting with the floor and are now both more numerous and smaller than before.

But back to apartments. I've seen 3 so far this week. One was really nice but with utilities was going to end up being too expensive (I'm slowly reconciling myself to the fact that I am a poor student). One was amazing and I would move in there tomorrow if I didn't have to sigh a year lease which is a bit of an issue seeing that I finish my degree in December and I have no clue where I'm going to be after that. I'd quite like to stay in San Diego but that all depends on getting a ... *gulp* ... job! The last place I saw was a bit run down and the carpet was a bit manky but it's the place I could very well end up in as it's definitely in my price range (remembering the poor student bit). So we'll see. I'm going to carry on looking for a while anyway.

Otherwise I still haven't managed to do my California drivers license. That's now tentatively on the cards for tomorrow. Everything's just been taking much longer than anticipated so I'm falling a bit behind schedule. Like today - I volunteered to take my friend Nicky to the dentist because she doesn't have a car. She was supposed to take an hour and a half but it ended up being 3 hours! By which stage the majority of the afternoon had flown by. I couldn't be too grumpy when she was eventually done though because after having a crown and some fillings she definitely had a worse afternoon than me.

A bit of this and a bit of that

I am finished moving! Well, for the next couple of weeks at least. All my stuff is in storage (I've acquired a surprisingly large amount since I've been here) and my room and bathroom are sparkly clean. I even have my deposit back and I got it back with relative ease which is fairly astounding. So now I am happily ensconced at Marge's. In fact the only thing I'm not too happy about is that my friend Jen is up in Santa Barbara so I have no hope of getting my laptop, portable hard drive, GPS or ipod shuffle back for at least another week. The GPS is the most serious of the lot! Have you got any idea how tricky it is to drive around the maze of San Diego freeways without one?

Another thing I'm not too happy about is that I've finished 'Breaking Dawn'. I was very well behaved yesterday and only went out and bought it after all my moving and cleaning were done. Once I got home I didn't put it down until I finished it and as a result I went to bed at some odd hour this morning. It was totally worth it though! 'Breaking Dawn' was excellent! It was on a par with 'Twilight' which is the 1st book (and until yesterday the best book) in the series. But now it's over *sigh*. I'll just have to content myself with reading the books over and over again. Until the Twilight movie comes out that is!

I was even more distraught earlier today when I discovered that the new series of 'Gossip Girl' (a tv show I watch) is not starting until September 1st! I was under the misguided impression that it was starting in the 1st week of August and I was quite excited about it. So now I will have to sit through all the titillating commercials and sneak-peaks for another whole month! It's just not fair.

On a slightly better note - I've finally done some washing so I'll have clean clothes to wear tomorrow and I'm going to look at an apartment tonight so we'll see how that works out.

How to dismantle an atomic bomb

Well - not really. It's more like how to dismantle and ikea desk. I'm very proud of the fact that I managed to take my desk apart! Especially since ikea gives you instructions on how to put it together initially but doing it in reverse sans the instructions is much trickier than it sounds! It was quite a complicated puzzle and took nearly an hour but my perseverance paid off and it's now it pieces on my floor. Which is a very good thing because it's big and heavy and doesn't fit in the lift otherwise. Now I'm just going to have to put it back together which could be interesting!

Aside from that I'm largely moved out! It's taken 2 trips to the storage place, one to Marge's and every box I had but it's almost all done! Then of course I'll have to repeat it in reverse in a few weeks when I find a new place to live but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Tomorrow all that remains is for me to move the big stuff (like my bed etc) and clean (ugh). Then I will be free of my nutty roommate which is an endless exciting thought!

Oh and FYI... I'm officially staying at Marge's now which means I have a computer again! So when the moving is completed I'll get on to sorting out travel pics. That could be minorly delayed however by the release of 'Breaking Dawn' tomorrow - the 4th book in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. Actually it's today now! If I wasn't already in my PJ's I'd be tempted to go and see if I could find a 24hr bookstore.

Back in San Diego!

I'm back in San Diego! I flew in this afternoon after getting to the airport in New York very very early this morning! Well it wasn't actually that early it was just quite a while before my flight actually left. But when you consider that last time I went to NY I managed to miss my flight that's probably a good thing.

I'm half asleep and typing this at the moment because it's about 4:30am NY time and I'm still awake, sort of! The reason for this is that I need to move tomorrow. Technically my lease ended today but Sarah hasn't organised a new roomie yet so I have a couple of days grace (that I have to pay for of course). I haven't found a new place yet so I've rented a storage locker for my stuff and am moving it all in there tomorrow and I'm moving in with Marge.

As I'm moving I need boxes to put all my stuff into. In the year I've been here I've accumulated a lot of stuff! If you don't want to pay for boxes (which I don't) then you need to go to the grocery store when they're restocking shelves and they just give them to you. Vons closes at 1am so that means you need to get there around 12:30ish. It's also a great time to go grocery shopping! In fact, I fell asleep on my bed earlier and woke up just after midnight. I contemplated getting up to go and get boxes but that wasn't really enough of a motivator. What did get me out of bed was the thought that if I didn't go to Vons then I wouldn't have any milk for the morning and then I couldn't have cereal. That would have been a tragedy! So now I have milk and boxes and my bed is calling me!