Rainy Beaches

Before noon I got on a rental car with this cool guy from Germany and we headed out to Los Angeles. No funny thoughts here, okay? He's got a girlfriend in Germany and things aren't flirty or anything. It's rather nice that all the pressure is off because it's a clear platonic relationship and there's no constant hinting of our intentions (or lack thereof).

Their scenery reminds me of Egypt too!

His plan was to see the Los Angeles beaches, mostly Santa Monica and Venice beach close by. My plan was to get to LA to see as much as I can here. So I joined him on the beach tour and went to those beaches with him. And you've all seen it on TV - all those beaches so full of people that you barely have a place to stand... Today there was no one! It was calm, quiet and void. Just empty abandoned sand as far as the eye could tell. It was a nice walk and we had a nice conversation. A very pleasant way to spend my day. The wind in my hair and cool sand under my feet. Somehow very relaxing. Usually such cloudy weather can leave a bad feeling with everything, but the nice gray sky was almost pretty to look at.

Empty Baywatch beach.

Finally it was time to split up - I was going to find my friend Rachel in Los Angeles and he was going to get back to San Diego. I called Rachel and she said that the car ride to her place is 20 minutes so maybe the German guy could just drive me there. Seemed simple. We got on freeway 5 and it was HELL! We could barely move. So much traffic. After 20 minutes, we got off freeway 5 and took a regular road. That seemed faster, but driving was still too slow. We drove for a long time and called my friend again. "Perhaps a bus...". So she directed me to the closest place to get a bus ride to her place. Wasn't too far, but the traffic, oh the traffic. Finally we had been stuck in traffic for 2 hours and we had gone 6,2 miles!

A long beach street with small stores Can you say, Egypt.

We reached the right road and got on the outer lane, so I could get off the car at first opportunity. And again, seems simple! We drove 2 km under the sign "NO STOPPING at ANY time." And there was so much traffic that we were driving slower than I usually walk! So eventually I just got off the car under the "no stopping" sign and just walked back those 2 km in the middle of no where, next to the cemetery. Well, fortunately the German guy would have went the same way if he would have just gone straight to San Diego because we didn't get far enough to get too far from his route. And once I was out of the car, it was pretty easy and fast to get to the right bus stop on foot.

Would look sooo much more dramatic if I wasn't laughing.

Bus made me nervous. I can barely recognize nickels and dimes because they don't have any currency markings on them. Dime is smaller and is 10 cents and nickel is bigger and is 5 cents. Otherwise they look pretty much the same. Bus ticket costs $1.25. I thought I'd just calmly figure them out as I was waiting for the bus, but the bus came right away, so I quickly started comparing the silver coins and calculating for 25 cents. If only I hadn't spent my quarters at a vending machine to buy a pack of Cracker Jack's (caramel covered popcorn and peanuts. Tasty.). So anyway, I just showed my coins to the bus driver, "is that the right amount?" and he said, "yes" so I put them in the ticket machine in the bus. Worked. And then I started looking out for the right streets, but then there was another bus blocking my view, so I just asked someone. And they helped me figure out where my stop is.

So I finally met up with Rachel, my friend since early puberty. She's American, but she used to live in Estonia near me for 3 years. It was very nice to see her after a long time. The last time I saw her was at my wedding 1,5 years ago. I saw where she lives and found out that she also has a cat. She doesn't have a kitchen, but her neighbour has a kitchen and is away from town since Sunday and has given Rachel the key, so we actually have access to TV and a kitchen if we feel like it. We'll be kooking Estonian apple-cheesecake and sour kraut with pork for the big Thanksgiving dinner at her friend's place, so we'll put that kitchen to good use.

Pouring down rain in Los Angeles.

So anyway, now I'm comfortable and nicely set up in her place. We got dinner and we got caught in heavy rain and then we got groceries with her friend who has a car. Rain! Like really heavy rain in Los Angeles. Rare stuff here. And I was here just in time. I don't mind - I was in London when they were having their (almost) only sunny days of the year. :) It's only fair to see some rain here. Lots of plans for the next few days, gonna have lots of fun.

And I'm almost starting to feel like California is just like New-Egypt or something. I'm looking forward to stumbling on the pyramids!

All Powerful

I woke up and found my husband lying in the bed and cuddling me. I asked, "Honey, what are... What?!". And he looked at me all calm and relaxed, "I wanted to surprise you and now here I am!". I got out of the bed, "but you have work! and you HATE flying! I don't get it. I don't BELIEVE it." And he stepped a little closer looking almost disappointed, "well you should believe it because I'm really here." I was really confused. How could he get climb into bed without me noticing? How did he even get into the apartment? Does he even know my address here?! He reached out his hand, "touch me, I'm REALLY here." I took his hand and it really felt real. And then I woke up again and I was alone in the room. I do miss him, but I wasn't sad it had been a dream - I was way more happy that I was sane and I knew my husband well enough to know what is true and what isn't.

Almost looks like a rain forest on a cloudy day.

Went to the lab as usual, although I didn't think much was going to happen there. The real big day marked in my calendar was tomorrow - that's when one girl will show me a very important cell isolation method. I sat down and got out my laptop when that girl walked in and told me that we can't use the plants that we were planning to use, but the other plants are too small now, so we will postpone the method learning to next week.

Then it hit me - I could go to Los Angeles early! I had planned to go on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, but I hadn't figured out what train ticket to book. The train ticket costs $39, that's what I had managed to find out. However, this one German guy mentioned on the weekend that he'll be going to Los Angeles on Tuesday. He'll get a rental car and just spend one day there. We even talked about me not being able to travel to LA with him, because I have lab plans on Tuesday. But now I don't!

I called my friend in LA and she said it would be totally okay if I came on Tuesday already. Then I called the German guy and confirmed with him. And Tomorrow morning I shall be on my way to LA!

Ah, I love the evening sky!

I should also mention that I am an all powerful being! I went to my fave ATM to get money for LA. I put my card in, just like always, and the machine said, "please wait, terminal not functional at the moment." At first I got spooked! What?! no more money for LA? Do I have enough cash? Probably not. But then the text changed into "Please wait, ATM terminal computer is restarting" or something like that. And then the screen went white and weird text started running over the screen. Stuff like, "Initiating program ....., verifying data...." etc. I waited about five minutes until it was fully functional again and I got cash.

I should probably explain how that makes me all powerful. I bet you're all dying to see the connection here. Well, I am a master at making computers crash. They work just fine until I give an order, then impatiently give a different one, then a third one, that conflicts with the first one... "Oh okay! If you can't minimize, then close!". And as I keep slave-driving my computers, it rarely surprises me when programs stop responding and finally the computer crashes. Well, apparently I have gotten so amazingly good at making computers crash, that it's enough to walk to an ATM and put my card inside and then pull it out (like instruction says!). After so little effort even an ATM terminal will freak out and do a restart! That's how all powerful I am!

"Chriistina" - this must be the most incorrect spelling of Kristiina that I have ever seen.

Down Town

Lets just start with - my evening plans were cancelled. We were supposed to go out to celebrate a birthday, but the birthday boy has been ill since the middle of the week. He was hoping to be better by Sunday evening, but he was complaining about feeling very cold on Saturday evening already. He didn't get better at all. In fact, he was feeling even worse today and the weather was also worse, so he decided to take a rain check.

Something green within that gloomy down town.

I made many mistakes today, all of which can be said with one word - procrastination. I was going to go to down town at 10 am to get an early start. I ate breakfast at 9:30 and I just chilled out by the computer until it was 12 o'clock. I felt I won't be home until about 1 am so I wanted to spend more time at home. Before I knew it, it was 2 pm and I was still at home. "Okay, enough!", I told myself, got myself ready and went out. And now we get to the real mistakes. At 3:30 o'clock in the afternoon I was in a bus. I had missed my lunch and I had forgot to make coffee in the morning. I felt horrible - agitated and slightly lightheaded.

Almost looks like London.

I reached down town and thought of only one thing - food! I thought I'd step into the first place that sells cheap food because I didn't want a culinary treat. I just wanted FOOD. This turned out to be more difficult than I would have thought. Most places looked either really expensive or horribly icky and abandoned. It took me 20 minutes to find a good real American burger place, which was amazingly delicious! I have to visit that place again before I leave San Diego.

Busy streets and colorful lights.

Unfortunately it was pretty late by the time I felt like a human again and it got dark almost immediately after. The houses looked tall and the atmosphere felt uncomfortable, especially alone in a dark down town of a 1,3 million people city. There were many homeless people begging. They had got quite comfortable sitting there like it's something they've done for years every day.

Cute glass froggy!

I walked around and made a wrong turn. There were less and less people around, I was alone and got a bit scared. I took out my map and made my way back to the main road. Each time I took out my map I felt like I was an obvious lost tourist, even worse, lost young female tourist. I tried to keep it hidden as much as possible and I kept walking with my usual sure and steady fast pace. Before long I found the right place and things felt safer again. It felt even better when I finally got home.

A huge pile of coupons came with mail. My roommate never uses them, so she gave them to me in case I'm interested in any of the offers. I picked out a handful and threw away the rest.

Coupons! I picked out a few just in case!

The cat loves canned pumpkin puree. It's cute to see the cat ask for a bite of that. Odd choice of food for a cat!

Cute paw move.

Not from North Pole

I really want to do some more sunbathing, but the weather hasn't been all that great. During the best sunbathing time I'm usually in the lab, so I should try to get the most out of the weekend. So I looked at the weather broadcast and it said 23 degrees for today and 21 degrees for tomorrow. Both days partially cloudy. Out of two bad choices, today was a better one. I but on my bikini, took my book, and went to lie by the pool. Half the time light clouds were hiding the sun and at one point it even got quite chilly. I was the ONLY one there. People were walking past doing their own things. They didn't look at all like they would even consider sunbathing at such a cold cloudy winter day. I really felt I come from a colder place - not North Pole, but as far as I'm concerned, close enough!

I'd look for gold in those juice packages.

Apparently, whenever I go to the store, I buy oranges. I was there just to get some yogurt and also minced meat if I like the price and quality. ($8 packages are not really what I need. They were all too big.) I also wanted orange juice but changed my mind. As I walked through fresh foods sections I saw these really tasty ripe looking oranges, at least 4-pound package. I have oranges at home, but mmmmmmmm... Could not leave these ripe oranges at the store. I know I will eat them! I used to suspect, but now I'm pretty sure it's a craving. Good thing I'm pregnant during orange season!

I did something really stupid - I forgot my passport at home when I went out with the Germans. In Estonia, that hasn't been an issue since I finished high school. I know it hasn't been that long since then, but I barely remember it. In Estonian clubs they do ask for ID, but in my case, it's my ID-card, which is better than a passport in Estonia. Passport is just for traveling and actually not always needed inside EU. Here, it's just a piece of plastic. At the door of every pub, bar and pub, there is a bouncer asking for a passport. One guy who is over 30 years old and has spent two years in San Diego, said that without a passport, it's impossible to get into any place. You probably see the problem with forgetting my passport at home.

Going back for the passport would take more than two hours. If I'm extremely unlucky with catching a bus, it might even take over 3 hours. I apologized and said that I'll just hang out for a little while (It had taken me an hour to get there), but then I'll go home. Even I don't want to just stand outside or sit at some fast food place. They said we'll look around just in case - maybe we find some place where we can get in. First place was very strict. "No exceptions, sorry." The second place looked the same. Two tough-looking body guards were guarding the door and chatting. We approached, and they were still not paying attention to us. We entered, and they STILL didn't pay attention to us. And we were in!

Had to take that picture, just like a true tourist!

When we got enough of that place and decided to move on, I said that I'll go home and wished them a good time partying. They were really sweet and waited for the bus with me, even though I said I'll be okay and they should move on. I promised to take my passport tomorrow. I already put it in my bag so I don't forget.

Ah, one odd thing that I saw - there was a burger place which never has any customers at all. I've walked past it many times and it's always empty, but I've never paid much attention to it. Then I saw that they had a sign that looked like it actually said "Fatburber". Haha, no wonder they're no visitors. But really there was only one line missing and it was supposed to be "Eatburger", so it wasn't really their fault. Or is that really so? When I was riding past it later on the bus, I saw the name of the place. The burger place is really called "Fatburger"!!! They definitely should change the name in the modern health food California!

"Eatbuger"? Nooooo. It's definitely "Fatburger".

PS! I just heard that there's almost 2 meters of snow in Estonia. Like, WHOA! I guess I shouldn't complain about "only" 23 degrees and partially cloudy.

Oh, and it seems the post isn't very picture-heavy. I do have a bunch of pictures on my camera, but I don't want to post pictures of other people here because I like to distribute the blog link very freely and I don't want them to think that my photo camera is a dangerous machine where any of the pictures might be published somewhere online.

Eeeek! So heavy?!

When I packed for my trip, I was commenting all the clothing, "ah, this will fit me another couple of weeks. This one should fit better toward the end of the trip" etc. I didn't take anything that was already quite tight. Some things I was pretty sad to leave behind. My pregnancy is 14 to 20 weeks during the trip, which is exactly when pregnancy really starts showing. Well, it has! My tummy is all round-looking already and I already have problems fitting into some clothing. I was absolutely convinced that some people would look at me and think, "OMG, such a waste. She has really taken up snacking and fast food in USA. Look how fat she's got!", so I haven't kept my pregnancy a secret at all. However, I actually HAVE taken up snacking and fast food here. I feel heavy and my stomach is so hard to pull in, but the rest of my body is still the same as before so the heaviness is just the pregnancy. I'm sure of it... I think, maybe... please be so!

Old and abandoned looking scale.

The girl who's room I've occupied has a scale. It looked like it would never work, but I decided to try nonetheless. So I tapped the scale and stepped on it, involuntarily holding my breath. I was about 64 kg in Estonia, and pounds are about twice that, so I should be like, roughly 120-130 pounds. I looked at the scale and it said 143.5 pounds. I mean, that's like 70 kg, right? That's HEAVY! I got my computer running and used a weight converter. As it turns out, 143.5 pounds is 65 kg, which is perfectly normal and pretty much exactly what I would expect with such a round tummy. Relieved!

Is that a tummy there?

Spent the friday night behind the computer doing programming. It got quite frustrating at one moment, because I had really weird bugs that no one else seemed to be complaining about. Eventually I was completely at a loss. I decided to do everything from scratch using someone else's recommended code. And suddenly it worked. I have no idea what was wrong before, but now it's all okay! Normally this would be a good time to take a celebrating glass of something sweet and alcoholic, sherry would be nice, but I guess hot chocolate will have to do!

Seems Estonians are not the only ones who add dish washing liquid to water fountains.

Don't think I don't have a life here. I have plans for Saturday AND Sunday evening. I went to lunch with the cool German group and they invited me to meet with them on the weekend. I also have ideas what I will do Saturday and Sunday during the day. I doubt I'll have much time to sit behind the computer, though. But I think I should have a lot to show you guys and very little time to write it, so probably it means picture-heavy posts for the weekend.

Pretty light show. I just stopped and stared for a minute.

Proudly Geeky

Today was an excellent day. I barely got bored or anything. Remember I mentioned I got something to do from the lab in Estonia. Well it's all about web page programming. I got a picture and started to turn that into a working web page. At first I thought, "Daaaamn! could the image be any more difficult?". It was pretty though, so it was definitely worth making into a web page. Perhaps people who design web pages should never learn about the actual code, because otherwise they wouldn't add half the things that are difficult to program into html but look really pretty. That's a thought to remember.

San Diego university is full of harmless geeks. This is the first police car I've seen anywhere near campus.

So I woke up and started looking where I should start. Then I went to the lab and started doing programming. I had lunch in the sun with two girls and I volunteered to helped with some tedious lab task that even a monkey could do. Wasn't that bad. And then some more programming. In the afternoon, Internet disappeared so I packed up and went home where I continued. Well, it's 8 o'clock in the evening and a moment ago I was still doing that. Perhaps it's enough for today. Lets see if I manage to stop. It's not slave-labour or anything like that! It's just so much fun! Extremely addictive. Like Sudoku but something actually gets done so there's satisfaction from that as well.

Fog hasn't cleared yet.

Sometimes I just walk on the same home-university road like I've walked many times already and just see something that makes me stop and take a picture. Currently it's winter here, and although it's summer for me, some plants actually seem to be losing their leaves. At first I thought that the ground is always covered with leaves, but some trees just simply remind me of fall in Estonia!

Pretty red leaves. (Picture taken yesterday. Sky was more clear.)

America is very car-friendly, but it's not pedestrian-unfriendly. In some ways they even think about walking people more than in Estonia. They have all sorts of sections for walkers. Basically it's all because they just don't want us walking people in their way. Well, some things here I have never seen anywhere else - like Drive-Up ATM machines (PS! No, these don't accept my card either).

Pretty convenient for car drivers.