just a girl living the expat life
Hey everyone,
this is my last day at work for at least a week *yay* It’s been kind of busy around here lately and I am definitely ready for a break.
J and I are going down to Ventura over the holidays!
I hope everyone is going to have a wonderful Christmas with lots of presents and good food enjoy being with your family and get some rest.
I wish you all the best and a happy New Year!
Love, Sannie
Last weekend was fun, although Friday night I was just dead-tired. I had driven to San Francisco this morning at 5.15 a.m. (!) to attend the AGU (American Geophysical Union) Meeting with Gerald and it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to get there. Traffic to the Bay Area has been getting worse the last few months and it’s no fun anymore to drive there. It’s unfortunate.
When I got to the Marriott @ 8:00 a.m.- I tried to call Gerald on his cell phone, but couldn’t reach him. I didn’t even now if we were supposed to meet at the hotel or the convention center, but I thought I would try the hotel first. So I went to the reception desk to have someone call his room, when I saw him walking by. I ran over and he was obviously happy to see me – and rightly so. It turned out, he had lost his cell phone the night before and had absolutely no idea how to contact me, let alone find me at this meeting of about 10,000 people! So we were quite lucky, I guess.
The rest of the day was just great. We put up the posters for the poster sessions and set up the screen with my animations that I finished the night before and I must say, they were a real eye-catcher. Lots of people just stopped to see the animation and Gerald kept talking about our research for 5,5 hours straight. It was insane. In fact, he was supposed to present another poster, too, but he didn’t get around to that… but he was really pleased with the turn out and thanked me over and over again for coming.
We attended a short lecture on the Parkfield earthquake after that (because that’s what our poster and my animations were about as well!) and then I had time to explore the convention by myself, because Gerald had other duties.
I drove home around 4 pm and again it took me about 2,5 hours to get back to Sacramento. I was exhausted!
But we had no time to lose, because we were going to the bookclub Friday night and J joined me this time, because we weren’t sure if he was going to see Alicia again as Andi and she are flying out to Germany after Christmas.
The book club meeting was at Rachel’s and it was great. Alicia had made little photobooks for everyone with pics from our meetings and everyone was supposed to write a few lines for the others.
Everyone else also had small Christmas presents for everyone – Rachel got everyone a little stuffed animal, Robin brought chocolate, Silke had bookmarks and I had gotten little cookbooks for everyone. It was fun :)
Saturday I was so tired that I slept till 12:45 p.m. – over 12 hours straight. It was awesome! Then we got dressed and Jon and I went to Bakers Square to get a late lunch/early dinner and then we went for a walk in McKinley Park. It was kind of chilly outside, but it was great and we looked at a lot of really nicely decorated houses.
In the evening, we drove back to Davis again, because we were invited to Gerald’s Christmas party.
When we turned onto the street, there were a lot of houses that were decorated with lights and I kept thinking “Hopefully Gerald’s house is not one of these” – but sure enough, his car parked right in front of a house with white lights and illuminated, huge snow flakes. I was really relieved though, that he didn’t have these colored light strings or an over-sized Santa Claus in his front yard :)
Gerald opened the door and right away offered a tour of the house. I must admit, his home is beautiful and eclectically arranged. There were appetizers and drinks and about 18 people total.
His wife, Clare, is really nice, too, and we had a really nice conversation with a bunch of people. Later on, Clare’s brother Rob and her sister Margret sat down with her guitars and we sang Christmas carols. I felt like being in an American Christmas movie, but it was fun. It turned out that J and I were the last guests to leave the party at 1:30 a.m. in the morning, after J and Rob had started their own little musical performance. It was great. I really didn’t think that we would stay that long, but you never know.
One funny thing: There were a bunch of photos on the wall in the living room and of course, I had to take a look at them… some really cute pictures of their sons Zach and Benjamin and wedding pictures. And right there and then I could have peed in my pants… because Gerald was wearing a white tail-coat (I hope I am using the right word here) and he had what we call in German a “Vokuhila”-haircut (which simple means that the hair is short in the front, and long in the neck!). OMG! Wasn’t that like hip in the 80’s or something? But Gerald isn’t that old… only like 10 years older than I am. It was a good laugh though :)
Sunday was terrible. We wanted to meet with Alicia and the bookclub again for a last (late) lunch together at 2:00 pm – and since it was Sunday, I didn’t expect the traffic to be too bad, so we left around 1:30 pm. Usually it doesn’t take longer than 25 minutes to get to Davis. But this time it was insane! It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to get there, so we were about 1,5 hours late. I couldn’t believe it. And there wasn’t even an accident or other obvious cause for that delay! I was so mad.
The rest of the day was pretty nice then. We had some Mexican food and then went over to Robin’s place and played “apples to apples”. I love that game! We stayed until the evening and then we took Alicia and Andi home. Andi and J hardly spoke any words with each other and I really felt bad about that – but Andi is really acting weird right now. I won’t even tell J what’s going on and that’s really not fair. I mean, what’s wrong with him? He could at least let us know why he doesn’t want to hang out with us anymore, but instead he just doesn’t say anything at all. I hate that. I like to sort things out.
I thought you might like some more photos :)
Monterey “Bubba Gump” … and my sister is “Forrest Gump” :)
My sister and I – don’t we look like twins?? No one believes us!
And it’s seven days later again… the last week was really busy at work and I never get to write my diary anymore. Isn’t that just unfair?
Anyways, I am doing good. I got all my Christmas Shopping done last weekend and already sent most of it off. It sucks that you always have to remember that it’ll take a while to get to Germany…. I usually think about Christmas presents very early, but end up buying the last one the day before Christmas oh well. I am done for this year pretty much.
The actual shopping was insane. I went to the Mall and it was packed! What was I thinking?? You should never go to the Mall on a Saturday in December whatsoever!! I definitely learned my lesson. I had to wait at an intersection through four green lights, because some idiots had to make a left turn from the opposite side and couldn’t get into the parking lot … so they blocked the whole intersection and people started honking and swearing. I was one of them (well, not the honking). But hey, in return I know “Rudolph, the red-nosed Reindeer” by heart now – it was playing EVERYWHERE!
But I enjoy it, it’s only once a year, although I am wondering if the radio station (yes, there is an actual Christmas radio station) plays only three songs over and over again, because every time? I am in the car, I hear the same songs… even in the same order!
Anyways, I hope you have all the stress part done as well and you can enjoy the last 10 days before Christmas without any worries!!
Damn it – I missed to post on December, 6… so happy “Nikolaus” to everyone. Unfortunately my shoes turned out to be empty yesterday morning, might be due to the fact that there’s no “St. Nick’s” in the US. Oh well, I guess I have to introduce it.
My weekend was great – I slept a lot again (which is no real news by now!) and did some Christmas shopping at Michaels. A Christmas wreath and some accessories that is. I also getting ready to send off my Christmas cards soon.
Then Saturday I went over to Heather’s to have tea and brownies and watch “the Phantom of the Opera”. Heather claims that the main actress looks like my sister – well, kind of… I can see where she’s coming from.
Anyways, on Sunday, J and I went out for dinner. We really had a craving for burgers that night (oh well, so shortly after we watched “Supersize me”- bad sign!) and went to “Mel’s Diner”. I ended up having a Club Sandwich hoping that this is somewhat healthier than a burger.
We watched “Gangs of New York” which is a real good movie, although I didn’t really get the message. But hey, maybe there was no message ;)
Hi there… since I haven’t really posted any photos yet from my family’s visit, I want you to see at least one picture of my family and me that was taken when they were here :)
We really had a fantastic time!
Today is the first of December which means that it’ll be Christmas in about 3 weeks! Can you believe it?
Last weekend we went down to Ventura for Thanksgiving and we had a great Turkey dinner at J’s parents’ house. His mom is a fantastic cook!
We watched “Supersize me” after that and I felt kind of good about having a real meal and not fast food for dinner :) Have any of you seen this movie? It really turns you off to junk food – oh my god. I can’t believe that some people actually eat McDonald’s, Burger King, Jack in the box, Carl’s Jr….etc. every other day! I am not big into fast food anyways – just once in a while I get a craving for a burger or fries. But hey, then you can still go and have a “real” burger at a restaurant – they usually look and taste much better and hopefully are not as crappy as fast food burgers. Am I betraying myself now??
Anyways, one more thing I have to tell you about my last weekend… we went to the beach on Friday, because the weather was beautiful and Southern Cali never gets terribly cold. And guess what… we saw dolphins!! Two groups of about 4-5 dolphins and they were pretty close to the shore! I was so amazed, because I’d never seen dolphins before!!!
Back here in Sac it’s 10°C which is kind of cold and it’s starting to feel more and more christmasy… I am drinking tonz of tea right now (which I always do in the winter!!) and we’ve been lighting candles every night, which makes our place so much more cozy. I love that time of the year.
By the way, who wants Christmas cards???
What’s up everybody? Thanksgiving weekend is almost here and that means we have really short work week *yay*
Today was one of the laziest days of my life… I slept until noon and spent the rest of the day on the couch under the blanket :) nice and cozy… watching some funny and romantic Barbara Streisand-movie.
I don’t know why, but I am so tired by the end of the week that I need to get lots of sleep on the weekends! Is that normal? Do you experience the same? I talked to my sister this morning and she told me it’s the same thing with her, so I actually don’t feel too weird about it ;)
Guess what? I got my first full-time-paycheck last week – in fact, I got 4 (!) checks which was just awesome! I guess they’re trying to make up for all the last months, where they didn’t really appreciate my work *lol*
I got my normal paycheck, one for the holiday pay, one for an extra hourly pay rate for being a federal employee AND a tax refund, because they (whoever “they” is) decided that I don’t have to pay any taxes except disability tax (which is nothing!). That makes my monthly budget a lot better… no more “flipping every penny” anymore :)
So, what are you guys doing for Thanksgiving? J and I are going to Ventura!!
Ok now… finally some news from California :)
I had my parents and sister visit for the last two weeks of October, so that’s mainly the reason why I haven’t updated you on the latest news.
We had an awesome time!? I was finally able to show my family where I have been living for the last year and it was my sister’s first time in the US. I think she was seriously overwhelmed. I think she never realized how BIG California is compared to Germany.
On October, 18 it was J’s birthday and I got him a shirt and the new Michael Moore book. First I had thought about organizing a surprise party and inviting some of our friends over for dinner, but then I changed my mind and we had a nice romantic evening on our own.
We had to get up early the next morning, pick up our rental car and drive to SFO to pick up my family. OMG. I was so excited when I finally saw them again after such a long time. I think by the end of that week I had seriously gotten on my Mom’s nerves by repeating over and over how much I loved them to be here.
We spent the first week down in Southern California with Jon’s parents. It was their first meeting with my family and it couldn’t have gone better. I was really surprised and pleased that both my parents and my sister made a real effort to speak English – plus we were lucky that J’s Dad is fluent in German. That made things easier.
Wednesday and Thursday my family went to Las Vegas and Death Valley for two days, while I was attending an InSAR Workshop from my work in Oxnard (which is right next to Ventura).
On Sunday we finally set off for Northern California. We took Highway 1 along the coast which was beautiful and stayed over night in Monterey.
From there we drove up to San Francisco and tried to squeeze all the important sites into a day trip around the city.
Then we got to Sacramento and our new apartment. My family loved it. They really thought it’s a nice place (and it is!).
The rest of the week we spent with day trips to Davis, Downtown Sacramento and Napa Valley. We had planned to got to Yosemite NP for two days, but unfortunately we had to cancel that because of snow in the Sierra Nevada. I was so disappointed, because Yosemite would definitely have been a highlight of their visit. Well, that could only mean one thing… they have to come back!
Saturday we met with Mr. Swain and his family to go to the Farmers Market in Davis which is always quite an interesting event. This time it was “Harvest Festival” which meant that there was even more going on that usual.
Well, and then it was Sunday, the 31st… and we had to take them back to the airport. Time always flies! We got up at 6 a.m. which turned out to be 5 a.m. as we had forgotten that the clocks were changed from summer to winter time. We left quite early for SF and had lots of time to have a nice breakfast at the nearest IHOP and then to check them in (which turned out to be quite complicated, because they kept sending us from the domestic terminal to the international terminal and back… until they finally decided to let us know that the flights were re-booked to a direct flight to Amsterdam!).
J and I spent the afternoon with my godmother’s son, who came to SF with a student group from my old school and my godmother had emailed me if I wanted to meet with Marcel. We took him over to Berkeley and showed him the Campus and places where students hang out. I think he really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately by the time we got home it was so late already that we ended up not doing ANYTHING for Halloween, which was kind of sad as it is J’s favorite holiday.
Now I’ve been working again for about a week and it almost feels like I hadn’t been on vacation at all. It’s weird.
*Tsss* what’s wrong with me? It seems like I can never keep my word of keeping you updated more regularly. Well, I think it’s just that I sometimes forget I have this blog? in English :)
Well, our weekend was crazy… we had decided to drive to the Bay Area on Sunday and when we were on the freeway one of our tires blew out! Of course, it was me who was driving and I was shocked. I’ve never had that happen to me before… of course, I was also in the far left lane of a five-lane freeway and apparently there wasn’t even an emergency lane on the right side, because we were level with an exit. So, since I couldn’t get over to the right lane anyways, I had to stop on the median between the freeways. Of course, we didn’t have a cell phone (because we refuse to have one ), so we were stuck there for almost 3 (!) hours before a police officer on his motorbike stopped. His first question was “What are you doing on the left side” and when we showed him the flat tire he was like “You could have gotten over to the right side anyways”. Sure.
Anyways, another police officer slowed down the traffic for us so we could “drive” over to the right side and change our tire. It was quite exciting… but not quite what I had expected for our great weekend trip to the coast. Oh well.
Monday was a Holiday (Columbus Day), only that nobody really got a day off except the government agencies… so we went shopping. Took care of the tire (and got 4 new ones!) and then also shopped for a bed which had been long overdue. We spent quite a bit of money that day, but hey, it was really necessary! And the new bed is awesome!! I slept so good last night!
Apart from that, have I mentioned that my parents and sister are coming in 5 days!!!!! OMG! I am so excited.
Hey guys… it’s me again.
I am tired after a really short night (J has been in a very talkative mood the last few days and keeps me up, but hey, I like it when he shares his thoughts – so I won’t complain).
It’s getting a little cooler here finally… but still around 85°F, so it’s not really fall yet, but I like that weather a lot! I tried to send some sunshine to Germany last week but my friend told me it didn’t really get there. Oh well. It’s a long way from here to Germany ;)
Have you heard about the Parkfield-earthquake on Tuesday. Man, that’s so exciting! I couldn’t believe it was happening, because an earthquake in that area was long overdue (according to the very little research knowledge that scientists have so far about “predicting” earthquakes). Oh well. I was thrilled! I am following the scientific news every day and it’s so interesting for my field of interest (did I mention that I wrote my master thesis about the San Andreas Fault?)
Anyways, everything else is going great. We had a really fun weekend… went to Davis for the “Causeway Classic” Football game on Saturday (UC Davis vs. Sacramento State) and ended up watching the game from the upper deck of the parking garage, because tickets were sold out which hasn’t happened before… last year the game was in Sac and we got tickets at the ticket box that day. Anyways, it was a fun game (Davis won 58:23 ) and later on we had a BBQ at our place with Claudia and Stoyan, Peter and Silke. It was fun!! Alicia and Andi couldn’t come, because Alicia had a really bad migraine attack and couldn’t leave the house. They still haven’t been to our new apartment and we’ve been living there for over 2,5 weeks now!
This weekend we’re going to Ventura with Susi and Peter. Susi’s going to leave for Germany in October, so we’re taking one last trip together so to speak. It’s going to be fun! We’re planning to hang out in Santa Barbara on Saturday.
I’ll keep you posted! Hope everything is well with you :)