Guess what...
I've been climbing at Smith Rock again! Hehe soon this will have to be called my climbing blog :). Paul(a guy I met on an earlier trip to Smith) and I decided to organize a trip with some of our friends this time and we were there for the whole weekend. On the way there we had some car trouble, and I was worried for a second that we would not get there, but everything worked out after some fixing and reorganizing. Although we came to camp in the middle of the night and had to set up our tents in the dark, but it worked out fine:)
The next day we went climbing all day, and I climbed 5.10s for the first time! The climbs are graded on a scale and 5.8-9 is what I've been climbing before. 5.5-6 are like really easy and 5.14-15 is like the most difficult you can climb.(and the grades are different in Sweden though) I'm a long way away from climbing that though.
It was an amazing trip and I had so much fun! Climbing and hanging out with awesome people! :D
The next day we went climbing all day, and I climbed 5.10s for the first time! The climbs are graded on a scale and 5.8-9 is what I've been climbing before. 5.5-6 are like really easy and 5.14-15 is like the most difficult you can climb.(and the grades are different in Sweden though) I'm a long way away from climbing that though.
Later it rained! Which was surprising because it has never rained before when I've been there, and I thought that I would just freeze all night, but it was actually ok, the tent was dry. And after a day of climbing I was so tired that I fell asleep almost right away. The day after that was nice and sunny again, and it was time for more climbing! Another amazing day, and I lead climbed a route for the first time! Which kind of means that I climbed first and set up the rope in the top (difficult to explain). Only downside was that we saw two superbig snakes...ughh...scary..
It was an amazing trip and I had so much fun! Climbing and hanging out with awesome people! :D
Not a bad morning view Emma climbing
Group picture! :)
Paul climbing
Climbing again!
Feels like the only thing I'm writing about anymore is climbing:P Because this weekend I went to Smith again! Although, this time we also volunteered to help with some clean up etc. around the park. It's like a big event that they have every year, and everyone who helps gets free breakfast and dinner, and at night they have a raffle with awesome climbing stuff etc. you could win, and an auction. It was a lot of fun! The next day we hiked and climbed. This time I hiked like around the whole main area where you can climb, up the hill and then around, which took about 2-3 hours. It is just so amazingly beautiful there!! I love it! And then I also did some climbing and met some really cool people! Another wonderful weekend!
Also, besides climbing we also had a little show in my swing class for the other students in the class. It was a lot of fun! This week we started with a coreography that we will then dance at another show at the end of the term. This was also so much fun and I'm starting to get really into it now :) It's a really fun dance!
Finally, spring is really here and it's been warm and sunny! :)
Smith Rock 2
This weekend I went to Smith Rock again, and it was amazing! It was much warmer and I did so much better than the last time! (didn't have to freeze like crazy during the night either :P). We did a multi pitch(this one was 3 climbs to get up a mountain). It was so beautiful up there, the view was incredible, and I can almost not believe that I did something like that. Last time I felt like I was high up when I was 10 meters up... Thanks to everyone who was there and made this happen! :D
On Sunday I went to the hot springs again and that was great too! Although we ended up doing a crazy hike through the forest to get there, crossing several streams etc. and at one point I kind of thought we would never get there:P, but it was actually a lot of fun :)
Overall, a really wonderful weekend! :D
Sister
Last week my amazing and wonderful sister came to visit me:D I'm so glad that she could come, and it was so good to see her again!
It was nice to show her around Eugene, and that she got to meet some of my friends here :)
One day we went to Silver Falls with Carla, which was very very beautiful! Otherwise we walked around Eugene, ate some good food, and just hung out :)
Thank you for being so amazing!
Spring Break part 2
Update about the rest of my spring break. A bit late, I know. Went to Seattle with mom and dad, and saw Bob and Jody again. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to see Seattle and Bellevue again. I like it :) Got to see some new places too so that was nice, and of course fun to spend some more time with my parents. I'm so happy they could come and visit.
Now school has started again, and my classes all seem pretty good.
My sister has been here for a week and it has been amazing!! So great to see her again :D
Next time I'll tell you all about that!
Bellevue EMP and Space Needle
Spring Break part 1
Last Sunday my mom and dad came here to visit! It was so great seeing them again, and so much fun to show them around Eugene :)
On Thursday we went to see Bob and Jody in Seattle:) More about that next time!
On Monday we went to the coast, from Florence to Newport.
On Tuesday I showed them around campus, the art museum, and downtown.
On Wednesday we went to Spencer Butte. It was my first time there too and it was really amazing. We were lucky and had sunshine :) The view is so beautiful and we could see all of Eugene. After that we went to lunch with Ariston, and then to Autzen Stadium.
We also went to some of the nice restaurants and cafés here in Eugene, like the Pizza Research Institute, Sweet Life, and Off the Waffle, mums!(=yummy!) :)
On Thursday we went to see Bob and Jody in Seattle:) More about that next time!
Birthday!
I had an amazing birthday! First my mom called me in the morning, which was a really nice surprise! Later I also got some skyping time with my sister, and she told me that she is coming to Eugene!!! The best birthday present ever!! :D I was totally surprised and I'm so happy! So April 4th she will be here!
In the evening I went out to dinner with my roommates and some friends to The Vintage, which is a really nice restaurant, and I had a very good crèpe and champagne:) After that we went to a concert with William Fitzsimmons which was also really nice!
The next day we had a Birthday Party at my house, which was also a lot of fun :)
In total my birthday was very good, and being 25 feels kind of good actually hehe.
Now I have two finals left and then this term is finished:)
By the way, woke up today and saw snow outside! I don't want snow right now, I want spring, it's called spring break Eugene! Come on! :P
And on Sunday my parents are coming!! :D (I just hope the snow is gone then)
Columbia River Gorge!
This weekend I went with Bene, Iida, Corinna, and Finley to the Columbia River Gorge in northern Oregon. It was raining so the view was maybe not that great over the gorge. Although, later we went hiking around Multnomah waterfalls and it was amazing!! So many waterfalls everywhere and the rainy mist gave it all a mysterious touch :). From time to time the fog lifted from the river too. At first, we had planned to camp, but then Finley's mom offered to let us stay at her house, which I'm very happy that we decided to do, because after 2-3 hours of hiking we were all pretty wet! The next day we explored some parts of the Washington side of the river. Different, but very beautiful as well! It's just amazing how many beautiful places there are in Oregon (and Washington) :D
This week I will start studying for finals, can't believe it's the last week of classes! And on Thursday it's my 25th birthday(Can't really believe that either :P)
Some guy had made his own version of Stonehenge
Supervarmt!
Idag var det helt otroligt varmt här i Eugene! Nästan som en sommardag! Hade dock föreläsningar och pluggade under förmiddagen så det hann inte bli så mycket tid i solen tyvärr. Men på eftermiddagen gick jag, Emma och Kristina för att köra lite gympa utomhus :). Emma har inte kört gymnastik men jag måste säga att hon är ganska grym ändå, kan hjula, stå på händer och huvudet. Har nästan inte kört någon gymnastik alls sen jag kom hit så det var kul att köra lite igen! Kunde fortfarande göra stillastående salto(även om den inte var lika bra som förut) wuuhuu! Kommer bli fler gånger med det. Kollade in vädret för nästa vecka när jag kom hem och det visade att från och med imorn ska det regna i en vecka typ. Men men jag är glad att vi fick en dag som den här redan nu iaf :) Förhoppningsvis är prognosen fel.
I helgen ska jag åka med ett gäng här till Columbia River Gorge, något liknande Grand Canyon tror jag, men mindre och på gränsen mellan Oregon och Washington. Ska bli kul, hoppas bara att det inte regnar för mycket!
I'm sorry for the Swedish you non Swedes who are reading this, hopefully google translate doesn't destroy the meaning completely :P
Willamette Pass
Last week I went skiing again with Emma. Most of the day was pretty sunny and it was a lot of fun!! :) I also bought a new pair of skipants! Really happy with them!
Last night Kristina had her Birthday party! It was so much fun, and they had made so much good food! I have to steal the recipes. She had also made an awesome Swedish strawberry cake!
Portland :)
Last weekend I went to Portland with Carla and her mum. Really nice to get away for a few days, and Portland is a really nice city :). First we went to Powell's, which is a really big bookstore, like several huge floors! Awesome place!
The next day we went to OMSI, which is a science museum. They had an exhibition about the body with skeletons and body parts etc. that were from real bodies! Interesting but also weird! Then we walked around the city a bit, and down by the river. On Sunday we went to the rose garden where we saw one rose :P. It was too early for them to flower, but still a pretty nice garden.
Tomorrow I'm going skiing again!! :)
Portland house view from the garden funny house
the one and only rose Giraffe in the garden
Midterms
The term is going so fast! Now I've had all of my midterms. Except for one class where we have three exams spread out over the whole term. One of them went really well, but it was not very difficult either. For the other ones I'm still waiting for the results. And one of them was pretty difficult.
Otherwise, my climbing class is a lot of fun, and I'm learning so much. I'm definitely going to continue to climb in the future :).
Yoga and aerobics is fun too.
This weekend I'm going to Portland from Friday to Saturday. It will be fun to explore Portland a bit more. Even though I've been there two times I fell like I haven't seen that much of the city.
I hope all of you will have a great weekend!
Smith Rock!
This weekend I went rock climbing and hiking at a place in Oregon called Smith Rock. It was amazing! It was my first time climbing outside, and I've only climbed inside for a couple of weeks. So it was pretty difficult, and a bit scary to be so high up! But a lot of fun too :). The others on the trip were much better than me, but it was fun seeing them climb and get some inspiration. We camped there too one night, which was pretty cold, probably around -5 to -10 degress Celsius, but it was worth it. Smith Rock is also an awesome place. It wa so beautiful and unlike anything I've ever seen before, so it was worth it going there just to see how beautiful it was! Emma and I aslo hiked to the top of the rock, the view up there was so amazing! I just love Oregon with all of its different climates :)
Skiing!
On Saturday we went skiing at Willamette Pass with the Outdoor Program. It was so much fun! I hadn't skied in maybe six or seven years so it was a lot of fun doing it again! There wasn't that much snow so some of the slopes weren't open but it was good anyway and we didn't have to stand in line at all. It was also a clear and sunny day so the view was amazing :)
One week of school has gone by and all of my classes seem good. It's especially fun taking the PE classes(yoga, aerobics, and climbing). So I hope it will be a good term!
Roadtrip!
After Vancouver Island I went back to Seattle to meet my wonderful friend Hannah! She is so awesome for coming to visit me! :D We were in Seattle for about 1 1/2 half days. We went to the EMP museum(Experience music project). It was an awesome museum and they had a lot of stuff about Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. You could also get to try to play music instrument which was fun. They also had an exhibition on horror movies, which was also interesting. We also got some shots of the Space Needle since it is right next to the museum.
After that we rented a car, although we had some problems at first because they didn't want to rent it to us unless I had a credit card, since I was staying in the US afterwards. Since I didn't have a credit card we had to rent from an antoher company which was a bit more expensive, but at least we finally got a car. I also thought that I might have some trouble at first driving an automatic car, but it went better than expected actually.
So finally we were on our way to the Olympic Peninsula! Yay! Although first we were going to make a stop at a school that Hannah was maybe applying to. So we wrote the address in our GPS and followed the instructions. However, after a while we realized we were somewhere in a forest and no school in sight. And right there our GPS told us: "You have arrived at your destination" We looked outside and all we could see was an empty little clearing and not even a house there haha. Hmm we decided that we were probably not at the school :P.
Next stop was Port Angeles. A nice town surrounded by mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. We spent New Year's Eve there, and we went to a Casino; the first time for me. They had an 80's theme so we bought some funny clothes at a thrift store. It was a lot of fun and I won 8 dollars! So happy haha!
From Port Angeles we also went to see Lake Crescent! Amazingly beautiful!
After three days we continued our trip towards Forks. On the way we stopped at two waterfalls :)
Forks is a small town(population is around 3000) and it's probably most known for Twilight now. They had embraced that fact and you could see Twilight stuff in a lot of places. For example, they had a sign that said: "Forks, humans: 3000(something), vampires: 8, werewolfs: 16".
Unfortunately, it was raining all the time while we were in Forks. But we went to the Hoh rain forest which was amazing! So cool! We also went to see the beaches, which were also really nice! But it was raining and the wind was blowing so forcefully that we almost blew away on one of the beaches. It was literally difficult to stand still!
After that we went to Portland. We did some shopping here and the next day we continued to the Oregon Coast. First stop there was Depoe Bay where we lived really close to the water(first picture). After that we continued south and stopped at a really nice beach close to Florence. I really like this coast!
Then it was back towards Eugene! :) Whoops, this became a really long one! But I hope you enjoyed reading it anyway :) It was an awesome trip! And thank you so much for coming Hannah!
Vancouver Island
Next stop on my winter break was Vancouver Island(Victoria area). Here I also visited some relatives(my grandmother's brother and family). It was really nice meeting all of them and I had a really good time here too.
We celebrated Christmas and they showed me around the area. It's a very beautiful place too. We went to the Butchart Gardens, where they had filled the whole garden with thousands of Christmas lights and it was super beautiful! Unfortunately my camera didn't do it justice at all. The next day we went to the Royal BC Museum, it was really nice and they had an amazing wildlife photography exhibition. We also went to see these amazing ginger bread houses that people had made. They were really cool, one looked like a Christmas tree and one like the Eiffel tower. Made our attempts at making ginger bread houses seem less amazing hehe :P.
Seattle
I spent the first week of my break in wonderful Seattle! I lived with my (Swedish) relative Bob and his wife Jody in Bellevue(a city just outside Seattle). They were very nice and I had a really good time. They showed me around Bellevue, Kirkland and Seattle. A very nice area and a few days were sunny so we could see the mountains surrounding the city:) The last night we went to see the Christmas ships, which was a lot of boats and ships on the lake with Christmas lights on them. Very beautiful! They also updated me on American Christmas movies, which was also really nice:)
Finals,concert and Christmas!
Now I have finally had all of my finals! And I think that it went well.
Last Saturday Emma and Allison had a Little Christmas Party! It was very nice and I got some Christmas feeling:) They had made some awesome pastries and Glögg! So Nice! Also we had secret Santa, so everyone bought a small gift and then everyone got one each:)
Last week I gave some of my salty liquorice candy to Ariston, and he screamed and had to spit it out, so funny! haha!
On tuesday me and Iida went to Portland to see Mumford & Sons. They were amazing!! :D
We also went to H&M there hehe, and I bought some nice stuff...
On this tuesday I am going to Seattle and I'm really looking forward to that and to the whole break.
Oh and I forgot! Yesterday Dave and Linda(Emma's host family) took me, Emma, and Allison to dinner and then to see some Christmas lights on the houses around Eugene:) Completely crazy some of the lights some people have! And some of the houses are sooo big!
Here's a link to a house that we saw, with syncronized music :P
Thanksgiving!
Åkte till min rumskompis Aristons familj i Klamath Falls(i södra Oregon) för att fira Thanksgiving:) Det var väldigt trevligt och de lagade massa god mat! (Kalkon med fyllning, sötpotatis, tranbärssås, potatismos mm och pumpapaj till efterrätt). Alla i hans familj var jättesnälla och det var kul med en traditionell Thanksgiving:)
Deras tradition i familjen var att gå och kolla på bio innan middagen, så vi gick och kollade på Hugo. Vi var helt själva i salongen hehe men det var en bra film och man blev ju inte störd av någon:)
Vi åkte också runt lite i staden också och såg en familj som höll på att sätta upp sina juldekorationer. De var ett bevis på stereotypen om att alla i USA har extremt mycket juldekorationer i trädgården haha. Tomtar, pingviner, snögubbar, ljus, en skylt som pekade mot Nordpolen. Hela alltet! Jag ville ha en bild så Ariston frågade om vi fick ta en haha, så en bild finns på facebook.
Efter maten kollade vi på Punkin Chunkin' på TV. Det var en tävling som gick ut på att ett lag skulle försöka slunga en pumpa så långt som möjligt med hjälp av en slags katapult som de fixat själva. Det fanns allt från handdrivna gammaldags katapulter till moderna saker som kunde skicka iväg pumpan över 1000 m! De tävlade i olika klasser beroende på vilken sorts katapult de hade. Alla var extremt seriösa och de hade förberett sig för årets tävling ända sen tävlingen året innan.
Hehe, riktigt roliga och intressanta saker man kan få se här:). Så jag är tacksam för en ritkigt bra Thanksgiving!
De hade två jättesöta hundar
Stora kontraster under bilresan
Turducken!
This weekend I learned about an interesting Thanksgiving tradition. It is called Turducken and as the name implies it is a chicken inside a duck, inside a turkey. So three layers of meat! Thought this was kind of funny:) Thanksgiving means that we are free from school Thursday and Friday so I'm looking forward to that. I'm going with my roommate Ariston to his family, and I hope that Leah(my other roommate) will come too:)
I have chosen some of my classes for next term too. I'm taking Anthropology: gender/inequality, and Climate Change Policy. I'm also taking rock climbing(inside), jog-run, and maybe yoga. I'm not entirly sure about all of the classes, but right now these are the ones I am taking. I have to choose one more class though. Hopefully I get one in Environmental Studies.
Some beautiful trees in Eugene! There are a lot of them, but they are starting to lose their leaves now though :(
I have chosen some of my classes for next term too. I'm taking Anthropology: gender/inequality, and Climate Change Policy. I'm also taking rock climbing(inside), jog-run, and maybe yoga. I'm not entirly sure about all of the classes, but right now these are the ones I am taking. I have to choose one more class though. Hopefully I get one in Environmental Studies.
Some beautiful trees in Eugene! There are a lot of them, but they are starting to lose their leaves now though :(
