Untitled

The landscape between here and Las Vegas is mostly dry and desert ish, so I have seen a lot of sand when we were driving. Hehe. Our route was, Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita to a place in death valley to Vegas to Santa Barbara. A good week of traveling and a quite big area covered. Lucia and I worked good a traveling partners every other day driver and navigator. We decided not to bring a GPS and find our way with map and that worked 90% of the time. The other 10% were used to see the back streets of Vegas and more than planed of Santa Clarita. All in an a successful trip that we survived.

I'm really glad that I got to see Death Valley because it did not look like anything I have ever seen. I don't really know how to describe it properly to give you the right picture. What I of course realized is that the name is such a good description of the place. Dead, everything is dead! In the summer you can might spot a fish in a small river at one place but that is it guys! Dead and dry and sandy and no green stuff. We got up really early one of the days to see the sun rise over the sand dunes, that was a once in a life time experience. We went to places where everything is completely covered in salt, dried out and I have been 855 meters under sea level.

We drowe 1117 miles (US) and I have a new speeding record!

Happy Thanksgiving my dear friends and family!

This is as you all know a big thing in the US, so I made sure that I stayed with a family today to get the proper thanksgiving experience. I'm currently located in LA with the Flug-entin family. I meet a young girl around my age (Joanna) in San Luis Obispo. She invited me to come stay with her and her family in Granada Hills, which is in LA. Hopefully she will be coming to visit this winter or summer. ANYWAYS We had a traditional thanksgiving with a 20 pound turkey (see picture). The family and I spent the whole day preparing the food and table. The biggest difference between this food and Norwegian food is that they put so much sweet flavors in the food. Ok so here is

the menu of what we ate:
-organic mixed green salad with tomatoes, goat cheese, pears, and candied walnuts
- organic turkey with homemade gravy
- homemade stuffing
- mashed potatoes (made by Joanna and myself)
- sweet potato casserole with peaches, cashews, and ginger
- warm dinner roles
- homemade cranberry sauce
- homemade lemon cake with glaze
- peppermint cookies

During the dinner there was much discussion. Everyone laughed a lot and shared things they are thankful for.

I am really starting to miss all of you and look forward to coming back to Norway in less than a week (Oh my god). You can all use this week to fight over who will pick me up from the airport. Any volunteers????

I posted new pictures so you all can experience what i have been doing during this American Holiday

(typed by Joanna)

Las Vegas baby!

So, as you all know now this girl has been to Vegas and she loved it :D When you drive in the desert for three days and everything is dry and dead it was relieving to find a place where there was civilisation. Although the people of Vegas is not what you would call civilised! Hehe. For those of you that don't know it: Everything about Las Vegas is a fake. This town is buildt in the middle of nowwhere for one reason and one reason only, TO GO CRAZY. There is sooo many casinos and free drinks and night clubs and money in this place that you cant help but smile, it's not like any other place in the world. We spent 3 nights in this notorious place, all in different hotels. First night at "Plaza" with was a cheap hotel located next to the Fremont experience. A bit dirty and not too interesting here, so we decided to move down town. The next night was spent at a hotel called Excalibur, which I know you all recognise from the film. Oh! What you all need to know is that the hotels in Vegas all have different themes. We have Venice and Paris and New York and Egypt and god knows what! Back to the point here, Excalibur was built as a HUGE castle where everything, down to every little detail, is fake. This was a nice hotel which was much more fun to stay in. The last night we went Vegas all the way and we stayed at ............ THE BELLAGIO!! I have never ever seen a hotel as fancy and nice as this and I enjoyed every single second of what it had to offer. Almost everything! I have picture of so you can see for yourself.

In Las Vegas there are tons of things to see if interested, they have lions and the MGM, dolphins and tigers at the mirage, sharks and so on. What you need to see if you ever go here is the famous fountain show at Bellagio, it is simply BEAUTIFUL. Never ever to be underestimated.

Of course we did some gambling, I learned to play the roulette and Craps and I left Vegas with 75 dollars for the "Gro is travelling and always need money" trust.
We went to a show called "Thunder from down under" with was important to see to understand how Vegas works. Hehe! I'm not going to explain about it but I am sure that if you are interested information will pop up if you google it;D

What I found out are two things:
a) Vegas is NOT a city, it's just a big amusement park,
b) Everything is fake
Oh! and C, this girl is going back!

Thank you all for following me and waiting for this update, it really means a lot to me.