Depressing Saturday
At the same time I have never enjoyed and loved my life over here so much as I do now, except the thing which is bugging me for the moment. I live such a simple life, in a family who loves me, I get a lot of credit for the work I do and everything is just perfect. At the same time everything is starting to feel so everyday-the-same, even if everyday really is special. I can't complain on anything. I have very sweet friends here, I go exercising, I travel, I eat out at great different restaurants all the time, I study, I learn, I teach, I chill, I go shopping - I don't know what I miss! Love?
Somehow things here has also lost the special feeling. Like Mathilda (from the LivingLA-team (http://livingla.blogg.se)) wrote about a feeling of being in a movie during her first time here I felt about the same. Now we have to remind ourselves about being in a big house, hang out in Beverly Hills during our sparetime, workout in Hollywood, be able to ride the bicycle to the Oscar Awards tomorrow, have the gardeners, house keepers and whatever around you 24/7. We have got used to this life. I miss the woods back home, the clean nature, Rudolf and Mirri, Stockholms nightlife and the Swedish guys. My relatives. Even my relationship to my family has really become stronger for everyday being here and now I know who are my real friends back home. It's not bullshit that previous au-pairs are talking about how much they've realized and learned about themselves and others when being away for a year.
I do not want to leave LA, at the same time I want to be in Stockholm and I want to go to Helsinki straight away for starting my medical studies. What is my home? I guess I will be (like last year) excited to go home - but when I come home it will take sooo long to adjust. I will miss LA so much and to live in my family is not like having them here for only two weeks. I'm happy I still have a few months to enjoy California and I will spend a week on Hawaii pretty soon to get away from my everyday life here. I need to relax - whatever that is, I thought that's the only thing I do.
Santa Monica Pier and beach known from for example Baywatch - closest coastal access for me
A regular morning, Catch, Thai lunch and Workout
Like I usully do in the mornings here is that I get up @ 5.30 AM - make myself breakfast and enjoy the quite time by myself. I do also make sure that the kitchen is in a good shape (nicer to start the day like that), pack Deannas (my host kid á la 6 yrs) lunch and prepare her breakfast. My breakfast is 99% of the days oat meal or rye bran and with it I can eat pears, apples, other fruits, dried fruit, nuts, blueberry apple sauce, lingonberry jam or just plain with cinnamon, ginger or cardamom. I also drink green tea with apple cider vinegar + water.
For Deanna the other hand I make everything from rice pudding, polenta, cream of wheat (semolina), cold cereal, hot cereal (like oatmeal), bagels/bread/toast with cream cheese and jam, toastmaster, smoothie, swedish pancakes, omelette, yoghurt. cottage cheese or sth else + some fruit or vegetable every day and her vitamins And a glass of milk, juice or water. I try to make something new every day.
So at 6.15 I wake Deanna up - make sure that her room looks tidy, that her bed is made, that she dresses herself, brushes her hair, puts her shoes on and that she has some books she likes to read on the bus to and from school. About 6.35 she should be downstairs (latest) and eat her breakfast. After that she needs to brush her teeth and 6.50 it's time to walk out the door. Her school bus comes to her bus stop 7.05 (it takes about 2 minutes to get there, bur she loves to hang out with me, listen to the radio and look at herself in the mirrors). She also hates to be late and loves to be early - so cool for a six-year old who's raised in a family which is always late but never make a big deal of it.
Anyways - on Fridays I go to CATCH which stands for "Caring Adults Teaching Children How" at Deannas school in Bel-Air. So what I do is that I go there once a week and have maths with a second grader who has a hard time with it and focus on her in one-to-one basis. It's delightful and I really love to do this voluntaring. On my way there I also pick up Melanie who's a student at UCLA and is mentoring a boy in reading. A very nice girl who wanted to have lunch with me next Friday.
After that I went home to leave the car there and then walk straight to a lunch with Emma & Emma at a great Thai restaurant with a exotic buffé on Fairfax. Try it out LA people. There is also a lot of other options I want to try out - it never gets boring to have lunch or dinner out here. Such a great city when it comes to food. It's also (usully) pretty healthy food for all of us who tries to have the Hollywood body.
When I had been to the Grove where Emma bought an iPod I drove to Sarah's (my oldest host kid in the age of almost sixteen) school, picked her up, drove in the rain back home, dropped her off, went to the library to return a book and then to pick up Deanna, made her a snack Taquitos with sour cream and salsa sauce + oranges + cranberry juice.
Ended up the day with going to the gym again - did a air force fit test and stretched for a long time. It does still bug me that I couldn't go to the yoga class because my confusing - no time understandning ride. Anyways I'm worked out and had a non-fat frozen yoghurt to dinner (I don't know if I have ever skipped a dinner like that but I didn't feel for dinner.)
Love you all of my friends!
(I know that this entry is long, but that's me - I love writing and you have the choice to not read)
LA Fitness Hollywood
To describe the place even more - they have four raquet courts, a basketball court, a giant room with free weights, personal trainers everywhere, lots of customers, a space for stretching or static exercises. They also have a sauna, a nice front desk, a cafeteria, a kids club, good looking staff, it's clean and they have great classes of different kinds like hip-hop, latin impact, pilates, yoga (you get it?) I really love this place even if World class, back home, has a very good standard and nicer design in, for example, the locker rooms. Looking forward to see how their new one has come out on Värmdö.
And do you now what I pay for this? You must think I'm kidding - $29.99 a month (with a month-to-month contract). I feel like it's for free..
Ps. It's pretty much nice guys there and sometimes the jacuzzi is the place where to be..
Santa Monica College + Swedish guys
Afterwards we went to Soupplantation (AGAIN) where we met Hanna, two Swedish guys and the other Emma :-) Swedish meeting yey!
Work is calling - see you all!
