Where I live (at the moment)

So this is Marge's house - where I live at the moment. She lives in a neighbourhood called Kensington which is quite old - all the houses were built in about the 1920's. It's also quite close to SDSU which is great for me! Please note - no fences! and Marge keeps a spare key on the front step. It's so cool!

This is a view of the street just to give you an idea of the neighbourhood - it all looks the same! It's apparently very 'Southern Californian looking' if that helps?

I think you should all be very impressed - I went for a run yesterday morning around Marge's area! Well it was more of a jog - walk when I got tired - then jog again. I don't know exactly how long it was but probably about 3kms. The problem is the area's really flat so you don't get any downhill breaks! It's so pretty though and there were quite a few people out walking dogs etc (mostly tiny silly things). What's quite nice is that the pavements are set in from the road (as you can see) and you're not running next to people's walls because they dont have any! When I got back to Marge's I lay on her front lawn and did some situps and stretched. One of her neighbours was getting into his car and said 'that's good' or something. I just laughed.

I don't know how long I'll be staying here though - Marge says I'm welcome to stay for as long as I want. I've been looking for places on an excellent website called Craigslist and am going to see 3 today. I'll keep you posted!

Random stuff from the past 2 days (I couldn't think of a better title :-)

I'm sunburnt! and it's all my fault. Today I went off to SDSU to ask about courses (or classes as they're called here), see what I need to do to register and just generally check out the campus. It's really pretty! Very big and spread out. Anyway, as Marge is away at the moment in order to get to campus I had to catch the bus. It's about 1km, maybe 1.5kms to the bus stop from Marge's house. I left at about 9am and had a pleasant stroll there. Yes, I understand that I just said walking was pleasant but it was - not to hot, it's a flat walk, the area's really pretty etc. Buses here are airconditioned! How cool? (excuse the pun). Anyway, I made it to campus and with the help of my trusty map I printed off the net I started finding my way around. I went to the international student centre (the long way round - grr), had a meeting with the economics graduate advisor, and generally had a look round and did 'useful stuff'. As I said though, the campus is spread out so this involved a fair amount of walking in the sun. The genius that I am didn't even consider putting on suntan cream this morning. So that + campus walk + walk back to Marges at 1pm = burnt Kate. Not fun.

Yesterday I went to my first Rotary Club meeting. It was in a rather smart looking hotel. Everyone was really nice and friendly. The best part was - I got asked THE question..... Do you have wild animals walking around where you live?! I was a good girl and gave him a serious answer. I was tempted to say that we ride elephants to work though :-) The meeting itself was very similar to the ones I went to at Kloof Rotary before I left. There was a speaker from another Rotary club talking about how to get new member and retain them. It was quite interesting - the subject matter wasn't that thrilling but he was a very good speaker. I was introduced and said a few words. Can't remember what now, just something along the line of how happy I was to be there etc. The one thing that got a good laugh though is that people have been asking me what I think of San Diego - so of course I say it's very nice, hot and that there seem to be lots of Americans. Ha ha. They have a full lunch with their meeting. Today it was quite a nice salady thing. There was iced tea to drink - but not like Lipton. Proper tea with ice! Unsweetened. It was quite gross so I drank water instead. San Diego's water is pretty nice. A bit different to Durban but not unpleasant tasting.

Yesterday's other big adventure was going to an American supermarket! You have no idea just how much variety there is. I think I amused the woman I was with (one of Marge's friends) endlessly! Some stuff is the same - they have Colgate toothpaste, Lays, Danon yogurts etc but some stuff is totally different! There are lots of ready made meals and everything seems to come already packaged. I know that sounds a bit random but I can't think of a better way to explain it at the moment. All their fruit and vegetables look absolutely perfect! And they're all presented beautifully. You don't just have a bin/container thing (the right word escapes me at the moment) of apples, they're all laid out individually in neat rows. Everything is so big! I battled to find a 500ml bottle of water. Well I could find them but they were sold in 6 packs. I could buy the litre version individually. It's called 'family sized'. I had to get a shampoo but didn't want to buy an enormous bottle as I didn't know if I'd like it or not. That was hard! I had such fun though - I think the easiest way to entertain me at the moment is just to take me grocery shopping :-)

Random observation I feel the need to share - food's really sweet and artificial tasting. I make this sweeping statement after drinking diet coke, eating yogurt and a bran muffin so I feel fully qualified :-) It's overly sweet, and not in a good way (and this is coming from me who loves sweet stuff). Also it leaves that unpleasant artificial-sweetener taste in your mouth.

Tomorrow I'm off to see some of San Diego. Dad's best friend from University has lived here for the past umpteen years so he's taking me out. How's this for a coincidence - his 26 year old son has decided to go back to university after working for a few years and is going to SDSU..... to do his Masters in Ecos! Wierd huh? Oh, and they call it Econ here - I got asked what I was talking about today.

Getting sorted out.

Good morning! (Well it is here anyway). I think you should know that I just boiled water in the microwave so I could make myself a cup of tea. I couldn't figure how to turn the gas stove on to boil the kettle so this seemed like the next best plan. Marge doesn't have an electric kettle. Apparently most Americans don't.

I had a rather busy day yesterday - I started getting myself sorted out. Marge and I went to the bank and I now have a checking account. I think it's just like an SA current account. The cool thing is I'm not paying any fees for the first year because the nice bank manager is a Rotarian. We also went off to Costco, which is exactly like Makro, to get me a cellphone. Talk about confusing! I had your usual choice of different networks as well as contract or prepaid. That's where all similarity to SA cellphone's ends! I'm on a network called Sprint and I have a contract that gives me 200 minutes. But how cool is this - it's free to call anyone else on the sprint network. The minutes are for the daytime, after 9pm every night and on weekends all calls are free! I think the SA networks need some lessons. The only thing that sucks is that your minutes get used up if you call someone and if they call you. Oh, and I have a Motorola phone which I have absolutely no idea how to work - bring on the instruction manual!

Marge left yesterday afternoon for a Rotary meeting somewhere by San Fransisco so I have the house to myself until Sunday. Talking about housing, I started looking for apartments yesterday on a really cool site called Craig's list which is like an online classifieds. I found a few that look like possibilities but wow, rent's expensive!

In terms of public transport, San Diego has an urban train system called the trolley as well as buses. These are going to become my best friend as I have no plans to get a car. So the plan for the moment is to find an apartment somewhere along the trolley line. The one trolley line (the green one in case you're interested) goes straight to SDSU - there's a station right on the campus which is called SDSU station funnily enough :-)

Moving swiftly along (and back to my original point) I found a couple of places that look like possibilities and got hold of the people yesterday. Sandi Rimer (the district's Foundation chair / another Rotarian if you don't understand Rotary-speak) picked me up yesterday evening and we went to see one of the places. It was nice but not right so we'll keep on looking!

Yesterday I was also having a freak-out about the electricity here. America Runs on 110V while SA runs on 220V. This seemed like a huge problem because I thought I wouldn't be able to charge my laptop, toothbrush or SA cellphone! So Sandi and I went charging out to find a power converter but had no luck. Shops are open until 9pm by the way. I was quite stressed by this point. To cut a long story short I spoke to Mom and Dad at about 10pm my time, 7am SA time and it turns out the most things will charge on a range of Volts (from about 100V-240V). I'd tried to charge the only one of my things that doesn't have a power range that includes America - my toothbrush. So I'd panicked and assumed everything wouldn't charge.

Lesson for the day: read the small print! (on the charger in this case).

Oh, I also got my birthday present early yesterday from Mom and Dad - a camera! So I can start posting some pics on here too.

I'm in San Diego!

Well I'm here (eventually) after more than 24 hours of travelling - it was hectic! No major dramas thankfully - apart from being 11 kgs over weight! I should probably point out that I was allowed to bring 2 cases of 23kgs each and was still overweight. Oh well ;-) I also had a minor panic attack when I thought US customs were going to search my bags in Washington and then I was going to miss my connecting flight to San Diego etc etc. (Ok I'm exaggerating but I was worried!) Thankfully they didn't which was a huge relief because I don't know if I would have fitted everything back into my case they were packed so full (hence the overweight bit) and I made my flight, whew! Marge, my host counsellor from Rotary seems really nice. I'm staying with her until I find a flat or something. Her house is on a mesa/plateau overlooking a smallish canyon. It's very pretty!

From the little I've seen of San Diego (from the car window) it seems really nice. It's hot but not scorching. How hot is 76 degrees Farenheit in degrees celsius? That was the temperature today. Initially the city reminded me of Cape Town a bit but that didn't last. It's very 'southern Californian' looking if that helps. Picture lots of palm trees, light sand with rather scrubby vegetation so you can still see the sand through it and blue, blue sky. The city is apparently a series of canyons and mesas so it's quite hilly. I'm also very conscious at the mo of the way I speak and how different it sounds.

Otherwise I have to start doing stuff tomorrow, like opening a bank account, getting a cell etc. It's just before 9 here (we're 9 hours behind SA time) and I'm about to go to sleep. I had a bit of a nap this afternoon so hopefully tomorrow morning I'll be fine and not jetlagged.

Oh, and please excuse the typing - I know it's going a bit funky. I'm using one of those split keyboards and I'm not always sure where the keys are!

So much to do...

Yay! Now I can cross off another thing that's on my 'To Do' list for before I leave for San Diego.

My blog has officially been created. Now all I have to do is figure out how it works...