Sophialife

I'm so happy right now

A new Mexican girl has arrived The city of Angels and she's great. Everything clicked between us and we might hang out a lot together :-) You guys who know me might think we are a strange combination by looking at us but we're a lot alike!

New plans - Tijuana April 4-6, Malibu & three days alone in the house April 10-13, Grand Canyon (eventually even Las Vegas) April 18-20 and Hawaii probably in the middle of May...coming home most likely September first or second.

Love you all!

         

     

Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Chio & Emma, view of the buildings - I forgot to take pics of the Mexican street where Chio showed us all the yammie sweets :-)

         

The food @ the b-day party, Swedish meatballs in cream sauce, a gift from Sweden, Hanna's bed & Hanna

Then I have had a busy week without even time to breath my journal got a vacation - all you guys who reads this too :-) Anyways the week has been full of dining-out, hiking, new relationships and stress (or not really, "Californian style stress" ;-)

Anyways I got the problem with my Internet fixed (clever as I am) but for right now my wireless connection in the house is out of range to my room so I'm sitting @ Fairfax library.

Today I'm one of the hosts for a Swedish birthday party - everything feels so Swedish and home. To go and visit Hanna and her Swedish host family is in general like going home.

What's home then? Strawberries, blueberries, lax, fiskedamm, barefoot, blond people, meatballs, macaronies, cream sauce, princesscake, lingonberry jam, crispbread :) etc etc

Oh I forgot to tell you that I'm going to OC for the weekend so I'm not going to be home... Hugs and love, Sofia

Of some reason my Internet doesn't work and this time I think my computer is the problem then it doesn't work anywhere. Have to call DELL. Anyways I have had a great week. One day in Downtown LA (with Chio & Emma), Some work outs, hanging with Emma and lots of quality time with D.

I will publish pics from both Death Valley, Down town and some more as soon as Internet works on my computer =-)

(The positive thing with no Internet is that I'm a lot more active - almost never home... so it's not like I'm dead or so.

Have a good one
- and all of you e-mail me!!!

Today I did also recieve an envelope from mum. It had two things in it. One of them was a beautful post card with different wild nordic animals on it and of course a message where she told me that she partly misses me soo much. The other things I found in there was an article telling about why Finnish students are the best in the world. Very interesting and nice to hear. As you might know I want to astudy medicine in Helsinki next year.

I woke up, did the switch (everything came out perfectly), went to CATCH, had a very nice lunch in Westwood with Melanie (UCLA student) @ Novels Café (ate a great Chinese chicken salad) and then we shared a carrot cake att Elyseé. Went home, picked up D, went to a yoga class and then after a hot bath I met up Tamara. We went to the Grove AND in one of the surfer clothes stores we randomly meet these German girls we are going with tomorrow. LA is not that big sometimes. Crazy. We spent another hour in the Whole Foods store and now we are about to sleep...Good night everyone over here and Good Morning Sweden!

So tomorrow morning I'm leaving and won't come back until Sunday - so the ones who has missed previous entries do now have the time to catch up ;-)

Pretty spontanious I will go with three German girls to Death Valley National park over the weekend. We will stay at a camp site for one night. Then I've never hanged out with any of them it will be interesting.

So from tomorrow night I will be away for a couple of nights and probably without a computer - but don't worry. I'll return!

I'm excited!!!

From now I will be responsible for the two oldest girls in the morning. That is because my hostmum begged me to switch so she can take D. Previous mornings has been a pain for her then her daughters and she don't work out together during this early hour. Just screaming and tons of negative attitude. I'm glad to help out - but in the end the hardest part will be to have her (the hostmum) out of the house on time...

I will share how it went tomorrow.

Another smooth nice morning and less chatting at the bus stop (yesterday I spoke to a very nice Swedish woman, who has her own store with knitted clothes here, right on Beverly blvd). So I came home, did some phone calls, wrote some e-mails and then the best of all. I talked to my super sweet second cousin Sara fore more than an hour. Ohh I love her soo much! We had such a hard time to hang up. She is one of them who I really miss badly from Sweden. You can't find a more caring person!

Then I went to the gym - did some machines and I was all set for the day and went back home. On my way I picked up a menu for an Indian restaurant I will try out. I ate lunch and then just hux flux I felt so tired so I decided to give myself time to nap for an hour. Felt much better after that. Then I wrote a post card for grandma and of course I forgot to mail it. I better do it as one of the first things in the morning.

Because D has been such a good girl and sweetie pie for a long period of time I decided to reward her. So I brought her to "The Farmers Market" and she got to choose three cookies/threats and we shared a Pinkberry Frozen Yoghurt with fresh pineapple, mango and strawberries. She is soo nice. Afterwards we sat by "The Grove's" beautiful water fountain for a pretty long time before we RAN home :-) Good Exercise D!

I don't know how much I enjoy being with this six-year old super sweet and super smart girl. She's just amazing. I feel that I know her so well that I will have such a hard time to leave all the healthy routines we have. Everything works soo smoothly and even if kids are different, I feel like I could make all kids this easy. I will absolutely enjoy having own kids one day - it's really a pleasure and they say so smart things and ask so interesting questions. They knows the limits, they like rules - they respect you if you threat them and behave like you want them to behave. They're learning by playing and instead of always want something they can pretend they have it - oh kids are gold worth and I'm sorry for them who hasn't got the same experience as I have. This life even puts me in good routines and using good manners. What a nice person you will meet when I come home.

After class (hmm we skipped a part of it - superbad, hehe) Chio, Emma and I went to Santa Monica and we had a lunch att the restaurant on second I don't remember the name of. Like almost always I took the most spicy dish I could find. Some kind of gourmet chili. Ok, fine the "soup" was rated to be very spicy (7/10) but I had to add some Tabasco anyways. I guess I'm crazy. Then when we had been talking about that I must be different, who can have that spicy stuff - I bite this green chili pepper. The first part was fine, so I took another piece - and I got the seed in my mouth and throat! Burning hot! I felt soo bad, drank tons of water, ate an apple and my tummy still feels strange. So now we know - neither I can deal with everything!

You might have seen that I often mention where I've been eating and I always want to share those experiences so other can try. LA is full of great ones so it's hard to not dine out. Here are some examples I want to list:

Try out the very cheap but pretty fancy thai restaurant on Beverly blvd (almost in the corner of Fairfax) kalled "JOOM Bangkok café". It's just $5.99 for a whole lunch with rice, salad, your own thai option and a complimentary dessert. Soo worth the money.

You can also try "Larchmonts Noah's bagels" where the cheap chili soup ($3.89) tastes delicious. 

"Dough boys" on Highland/Lexington is valuable. The meals you order are at least two servings so you can really take a to-go and have for your next meal. I strongly recommend the chicken, chili and bean soup. Also about just $7

"Soupplantation" - Buffét with fresh salads, soups, bakery and desserts. Everyone loves it, young, old, healthy persons, junkies, vegetarians and meatlovers. The lunchbuffé with cuopon and tax is less than $7.50

"Todai" - The best sushibuffé I've tried, Guess Kado might be good too (never tried). If you love sushi and knows the prices you understand how much value you get when you buy a lunch buffé for about $20 (incl. tax, tips) mon-fri with both appetizers, awesome sushi, hot seafood, crepes and desserts. You roll out - I always have too choose either app and sushi or app and hot food. You never go hungry from this place.

"Mishima" - Japanese food in the corner of 3rd and La Cienega. A good hang out place with good choices for about $10

"Chao Krung" - Great Thai lunch buffé really nice, high recommended place on 111 N. Fairfax avenue abou $10

"The Natural Café" - Organic, Cheap, healthy and nice staff, tried it in Santa Barbara but they have other locations too. But if you are there - try it out! They have all kind of food and great smoothies!

"Lulu's"  on Beverly and about one block west of La brea, a place for trendy people, great food - not that cheap but not expensive either. Smaller servings but great for chatting and hanging out...

There is also a great Indian restaurant in San Diego, I don't remember the name of it but it's on the opposite side/across the street from Hard Rock Cafe in San Diego. They have like a Indian lunch buffé for a great price and the best Naan bread.

If you just need to find something quickly don't forget the salad and food bars at Ralphs, Whole Foods, Albertssons etc - they're great! Especially Whole foods on 3rd/Fairfax.

More places will come... and maybe I can share some of the less unhealthy too...

Then my day has been just about doing some househould stuff, a great lunch with Emma & Emma and a calm afternoon/evening with Deanna + enjoyed the sun - I wonder what about you.

I can see that I have plenty off readers but then there are never comments. Show up, tell me how do you feel, how's everything in Stockholm, Värmdö, in Australia, London, Umeå, Sweden in general, Linköping, Finspång, home? Rumors? I'm sooo curious!