Rasmus in the US

Last days in Yankee territory

2010-06-14T16:06:00.001-04:00

Long time no see!

My journey sadly had to come to an end. Right now I'm back home in Denmark, chilling at my parents' house. There are a few good things about being home though. It's really nice to see everybody again and I was kind of getting near bankruptcy :P

Anyways, after Vegas Hugo and I flew to Philly. We stayed there for one night before we took the bus to New York the next day (Friday June 4). Hugo got off in Newark, New Jersey to take the plane home to France but I still had almost a week left. I had a hostel for one night in Upper Westside, Manhattan. Saturday I met with a good friend from Bloomsburg and we took the ferry out to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The weather was nice although it was very warm and humid.

Ellis Island is where all the immigrants used to enter America but now it's been made into a museum.

It was very interesting. I learned that there's more than 800,000 people in the US with Danish descent. There was also an area with artifacts donated from families who entered the US through Ellis Island. I got really exited when I saw a display case with stuff from a Danish family. But when we got close we found out that it was empty because they were doing some cleaning and preservation. So my bad luck from Vegas continued...

However, I did find and old Danish Krone from 1918. The only thing stopping me from taking it with me was that thick glass around it ;)

After an hour or two at the island, we took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

We didn't have tickets to get into the statue because they were sold out when we booked the ferry but it was nice to go out there and walk around.

Sunday I had to take the train back to Manhattan where I had another hostel for two nights before meeting up with Lotte whom I was flying home with.

This hostel was located one block from Times Square and it was way better than the first one. The first one was hot as hell. The AC didn't work properly and therefore I didn't sleep at all the first night. But here everything was perfect and the bathrooms were nice too. So if anybody is going to NY, I would definitely recommend you to stay at the Big Apple Hostel! I had two cool roommates, one from Brazil and one from Belgium. So we hung out for a few days. And finally I got to walk through Central Park. It only took me 3 visits to do that :)

Lotte came Tuesday and we had to go home Thursday. We went to a stand up club Tuesday night which was quite alright. Wednesday we went to an outlet mall in New Jersey. Everything was so cheap so I went as crazy as I could baring in mind that my suitcases were already pretty full. In a few hours I got 8 t-shirts, 3 shirts, 3 pair of shorts, 1 pair of pants and a sweater. I got it all for $300. In Denmark that would probably have cost me more than $1,000 since most of it was Banana Republic, Levi's and Calvin Klein... Why don't we have outlets like that here? Anyways, I managed to fit everything into my suitcases and Thursday night we boarded the plane to London. From there we flew to Hamburg, Germany where Lotte's parents were waiting for us.

Here we are in Hamburg at what would be 7AM Bloomsburg time... I didn't sleep much on the planes but funnily enough I wasn't that tired.

The weather was warm and humid like NY but as soon as we crossed the border I was like "What is going on here!?"

It rained all the way home :(

As I said, I'm currently at my parents' house. I think I'll do another post once I get back to Aarhus. Maybe I'll take some pictures so my readers in the US can see how I live here in Denmark. But other than that I don't know how active I'll be on this blog anymore. I don't know what else to write about...

So make sure to tune in some time next week for what could be the last post!

Take care :)

Viva Las Vegas

2010-06-04T19:27:00.003-04:00

Currently I'm in New York again for the third time :) But that is not what this post is supposed to be about...

Monday we got a car and drove from San Diego to Vegas. It was a 4-5 hour drive where Hugo and I took turns to drive. This time we had a Chrysler PT Cruiser

Actually there was quite a lot of traffic on the way to Vegas but the last two hours into Vegas the opposite lanes were just packed. But after a few hours of driving in one of the most deserted areas I've ever seen, all of a sudden there it is - VEGAS

We exited the freeway in downtown Vegas which is in the northern end. We then drove all the way down the Strip to the southern end to find the Las Vegas sign passing all the big casinos on the way.

Back in the car again we drove to Harrah's, our hotel on the Strip, where we had gotten two free nights if you remember. We had heard about something called the "Las Vegas sandwich" which is something you can try if you want a room upgrade. Basically, when you are about to check in, they are going to need your credit card and passport. Before you give them your passport and credit card, you slip a $20 bill in between and ask if they have any complimentary room upgrades. We did that and it worked, so instead of just a basic room we got one with a little more bang for your buck.

By now the clock was around 7-8 pm. We decided to take a shower and then head downstairs for something to eat. It wasn't mind blowing but we were pretty hungry. Then we decided that it was time for some gambling! We headed to the Venetian right next door. It's one of the newer casinos in Vegas and it looks pretty cool

I only had $200 in my wallet and I figured I might as well take out a lot of cash since every time I have to pay a pretty big fee. At first I tried with the mastercard I have for my neteller account (kind of online bank I use to handle my poker bankroll). The only reason why I had that made was because I would use it in Vegas... Of course, I couldn't get it to work. Somehow I had written down the wrong pin number for it, so that was no good. Then I tried my other cards and to make a long story short, I couldn't get any money.

Anyways, we were gonna play at a $200 buyin table and so I figured that I might as well just win the money I needed ;)
I was kind of rusty so I played pretty bad and ended up losing a bit at that table. On the other hand, Hugo was winning pretty big. After a while he wanted to cash out his winnings and didn't mind finding another place to play. One of the guys at the table told us that the game at the Flamingo was really soft. So we went there. Hugo kept winning and I kept losing because of a little bit of bad luck and a lot of bad play. I decided to call it a night and quit with a $270 total loss :(

Grand Canyon
Tuesday we got up kind of early (around 11) because we wanted to drive to Grand Canyon. We had to drive up north on the strip and on the way we came by a bank. I still needed money so I tried to take out some cash in the ATM. The machine !"#!"¤ ate my backup debit card. I went inside the bank and they told me that they couldn't give it back to me because I wasn't a customer so they would just destroy it. There was nothing I could do and luckily it was only my backup card!

Still with no cash we continued towards our goal. On the way I was wondering if I was near my monthly spending limit or if maybe my card had been blocked. I soon found out when we ran low on gas. To my luck, my card worked at the gas station.

About halfway you have to exit the highway and drive on smaller roads. The scenery was kind of spectacular!

And when you have to drive for a few hours on a road like this with absolutely no traffic, we started to think about things we were not supposed to do to do. We found out that out car had a top speed of 114 mph downhill...

After 4 hours drive we arrived. We walked along the rim and took a lot of pictures. Here's some of them

The mountains you see in the background are more than 100 miles away!

After 30-45 mins we drove back to Vegas. It was kind of a crazy day... spend 8-9 hours driving to see something for half an hour.

Back at the hotel at 10pm we took a shower and hit the casinos once again. We decided just to stay at the Harrah's. I had learned a bit from my mistakes the first night and won around $130 - unfortunately, Hugo ended up losing a little bit that night.

Wednesday we checked out at noon but our plane wasn't leaving until 11.30pm. I had contacted my bank to find out what was going on with my card. I had almost hit my limit and they were so kind to reset it for me. Hugo had to do some shopping so I went to Bally's to play some poker. The game was really soft and I was up a good amount of money but then I ran into one unlucky hand where my top two pair lost to a straight.

I got up and walked by a craps table that seemed to be on fire. I got $200 in chips and started to play. Craps is the game where you shoot the dice to the other end of the table. I lost $40 right away but then the magic started to happen. The basic rules are that once you "establish a point" you can only lose if the shooter rolls a 7, which is the most likely combination of two dice. He just kept on shooting for 15-20 mins straight and by the time he finally rolled a 7, I had won more than $250. So I was even steven for the day. I headed back to Harrah's and lost a bit of money. All together I ended up being down $300 for my Vegas stay which is kind of acceptable.

Then it was almost time to go to the airport. So we got something to eat and got in the car. We were not in a hurry so we decided to drive by the fountains at the Bellagio. I shot a video of it... quite a party piece!

That was it for now... As I mentioned, I'm in New York right now and I'm gonna stick around until Thursday when I fly back to good ol' Denmark.

Take care :)

San Francisco

2010-05-31T00:16:00.001-04:00

After LA it was time for a little road trip to San Francisco on Wednesday and, as I mentioned in my last post, Hugo and I had rented a car to drive that little 6 hour stretch.

It was pretty cool but it was also kind of thirsty! We used almost two tanks of gas but we managed since it is so much cheaper over here than in Europe...

At one point I got tired of driving so we pulled over to switch. By coincidence we stopped at a Danish hotel in the middle of nowhere!

Notice that it says "velkommen" in stead of "welcome"

Anyways, we finally got to our hostel around 7.30pm (which has been rated as #2 in the entire US and with good reason!). There was a board at the hostel with information about the day's events. That night there were $1 drinks all night long at a bar not far from the hostel, so we figured we might as well give it a try :P It was a pretty cool place but we paid the price in the morning! We had to get up early to turn in the car Thursday morning. Also, we had to be ready for a guided tour around the city at 10am.

The guide took us around in a minivan and he was so funny and he knew all the interesting stories because he was born and raised in San Fran. He took us to a lot of different neighborhoods and even though it was pouring down in the beginning, it was definitely worth it! He took us to Twin Peaks, which is a hill not far from the center, and the view there was absolutely amazing!

Next up was the corner of Haight and Ashbury.

All the "true" hippies used to live in that neighborhood during the 60s and 70s but now, Dylan (the guide) told us, that it's mostly wannabe hippies that live there. Because of the general demographics in Haight and Ashbury, there are a lot of people smoking many other things than tobacco ;) At the same corner, there was a watch where the clock is stuck at 12 all day long.

The reason behind is that 12 o'clock is also known as "HIGH noon" = it's always high noon in that area! Jimmy Hendrix and The Grateful Dead also had their houses close by.

But it was an interesting place to be and there were many funny small shops

We also came by those famous San Francisco houses. They where some of the only houses to survive the great earthquake in 1906.

Maybe I should tell you that San Francisco is actually quite small. It's only 7x7 miles so everything is close by!

Then we drove to the coast to get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

After that stop we got in the car and drove to Muir Woods where they have those tall trees. On the way we crossed the Golden Gate

These trees grow more than 100m tall and they are 6-800 years old!

After Muir Woods, we drove back to the hostel crossing the Golden Gate for a second time. Our tour was over and we definitely got our money's worth! 5 hours around my new favorite city in the world with the best guide ever for only $45.

We were pretty tired when we got back so we took ourselves a good 2-3 hour power nap before getting something to eat and going on that night's pub crawl arranged by the hostel.

Friday we had planned to go to Alcatraz but we almost didn't make the ferry because we were late as always :) We were the absolute last people to board the little boat at 12.34 and they closed the gates at 12.35!

We got our to the small island and walked around for a couple of hours, seeing everything along the way.

When we though that it was time to go home, we missed the ferry by literally one minute so we had to wait for the next one... but at least I'd rather have it that way than missing our ferry to Alcatraz!

Back on dry land we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 where all the sea lions are. It's kind of a tourist trap with a lot of different artists and weird souvenir shops.

Saturday (yesterday) morning we took the plane back to San Diego.

In total San Francisco is an amazing city! If anybody is considering to go, GO! The fact that it is so small and compact with a lot of different neighborhoods makes it so special. It hasn't been taken over by all the big companies so you wont see a Mickey D's or Starbucks on every corner. And unlike cities like LA, Philly and Washington DC it doesn't seem like there's that many really bad neighborhoods close to really nice ones. In those cities just mentioned I have been in a very nice place, walked two blocks down the street and find myself in the ghetto...

Next stop on our little trip will be VEGAS tomorrow (monday) :D
We have two free nights at the Harrah's. I might do a bit of gambling and we also wanna drive out to see the Grand Canyon.

That was it for now! Take care :)

Welcome to Hollywood! (Now with pictures and video)

2010-05-28T22:51:00.002-04:00

This week we started our little tour of California. Monday we took the Greyhound to LA. Our hostel was right across from the Kodak Theatre on the Hollywood Boulevard. We got there around 2pm so we still had a lot of time to do stuff the rest of the day. The room was quite alright and the location was perfect!

Kodak Theatre

After having dropped off our stuff we walked down Hollywood blvd. We came by one of the many guided tours and so we figured we might as well take one. So, we hopped aboard an open minivan and the driver took us around Hollywood and Beverly Hills. It was pretty cool and the weather was really good for a tour like that.

Will Smith's house in Beverly Hills

We also came across a nice little car on Rodeo Drive!

Back at the hostel we got ready for a night out in LA. First we ate at Hooters, right next door and then later we walked down Hollywood blvd to find a good place to get a few beers. We came across a place that looked pretty nice from the outside so we paid the 7$ cover to get in. When we got in we found out that we were really not like all the other people there! I have never seen so much black makeup and leather jackets... If I was goth, I would be in absolute heaven - but I'm not ;)

So we had one beer and then got on our way to another place. A little further down the street we found a nice Irish pub with pretty cheap beers, so we stayed there until it closed.

Tuesday I was pretty hung over but we still got up "early" to go to Universal Studios. We got there around 1pm and stayed there until it closed at 6pm. It was a really good experience and we saw some great shows and toured some of the sets from different movies. Here are a few pictures:

We also experienced an earthquake...

At night we walked down towards the Irish pub again. Just across the street from it there was sort of a party outside of a pretty sweet hotel. We went over there and had a drink or two. While we were there I saw my first "celebrity". It was this black guy at the bar. I knew I had seen him somewhere, I just couldn't remember where. Then it hit me that he was in Sisters Act 2 with Whoopi Goldberg and Lauren Hill. His name is Ryan Toby.

I took a ton of pictures but my internet connection here is kind of slow, so I can't put any in as of right now.

Then, Wednesday we had rented a car to drive from LA to San Francisco where I am right now...

Swimming in the Pacific

2010-05-22T00:11:00.002-04:00

Hello again

I know it's been a while since my last post but I have been busy chilling by the pool and going to San Diego :P Also, our internet has been kind of crappy the past few days but it seems like it's okay now.

Hugo and I landed in San Diego last Thursday. He knows some people, Chastity and Daniel, that live 30 mins north of the city in a suburb called Escondido (I found it on google streetview) and we can stay at their place as long as we like which is awesome. They have been so nice to us ever since we got here and it's just been absolute heaven! We have the guest house to ourselves and the first couple of days we just crashed by the pool:

Then on Saturday our hosts had some guests over for dinner and of course they asked us a lot of questions. We told them about our plans and that we were gonna go to Vegas for a few days before we fly back to the east coast. Then, one of the guests runs to his car and comes back with a gift certificate for two free nights at Harrah's and gives it to us :D I can't wait to go and I just hope that I'll be able to, if not win anything, then at least just break even because even though we stay in San Diego for free, I have almost been spending money faster than I can count them :P

Also, one of my classmates from back home, Kamilla, lives in San Diego - 3 houses from the beach. Her roommates are Danish too, as well as the neighbors so it's cool to meet someone that I can speak Danish with. Even though it feels kind of weird because I have gotten used to speaking English all the time. It's funny... after having been away for so long, I have started to think in English. But it's always nice to meet new people and we have been to Camilla's place a few times to go to bars at night but during the day we stayed at the beach!

The water is not that warm yet but we were baking pretty well in the sand so we had to cool down!

Next week we're going to LA and San Francisco which hopefully will be a good time... but how can it not? I sure could get used to living in California!

But that was it for now... see ya

Greetings from Philly and DC!

2010-05-12T00:45:00.000-04:00

Hi there!

Hugo and I arrived in Philly yesterday together with Lain and Dan. Hugo knows another French guy who studies at Temple here in Philly and we can stay at his house for free...

Over the weekend we stayed at Lain's house (one of my roommates from Bloom). Lain offered to drive us to Philly if he could stay here for the night. He brought a friend too, Dan and the four of us went out clubbing last night. It was pretty cool! At first we got a Philly cheese steak at a place called Geno's which is really famous cheese steak spot here in Philly. Right across the street from Geno's lies their arch enemy, Pat's. Pretty much you're either a Geno's man or a Pat's man! We had to find out what we were so we had another cheese steak at Pat's right after Geno's :) Geno's won! After that we went to Old City which is where all the bars are. Because it was Monday there were no covers at all so we tried a few different bars until we came across one called Mad River. Some nursing graduates from Temple University, was having their graduation party there and they told us that we should just tell the bartender that we were nursing graduates too because then we could get in on a fantastic deal - pay 15$ and you get to drink as many beers and drinks as you want. We were at the bar paying those 15$ before one could even say "Hmm.... let me think about it for a sec"

This is a picture of Lain, Dan and me..

Washington DC
Today we had planned to get up at 8am to go to DC by train. Those plans changed! We got up at 10 because we had partied a bit too much last night... Also, we knew that round trip tickets by train would be 130$ - but then someone told us that we could take the "Chinese Bus" to DC and back for 28$ total! So we figured we might as well do that. Lain and Dan drove us to China Town to catch the bus before they left for home. The bus ride itself was quite an experience but I'm glad we did it because we saved a lot of money.

We arrived in DC around 3pm and we had to catch the bus back to Philly by 8pm. We got something to eat and walked to the White House.

After that we we met up with Paivi and Natalie (her roommate from Bloom) at the Lincoln Memorial. They were in DC too by coincidence.

After Lincoln we went to the Korean War Memorial

And then the Vietnam War Memorial

Then Paivi and Natalie had to leave so Hugo decided to go see the Capitol. On the way we passed by the Washington Monument

And here is the Capitol

So, we got to see a lot during the five hours we spent in DC. The weather wasn't that good but it was still a great experience. We also got to see Obama's convoy of cars! He came by in his Cadillac limo while we were at the Vietnam Memorial.

Our plan plan for the future is that we fly to San Diego on Thursday morning at 6.30am. Again, Hugo is well connected and we have a place to stay there for free as long as we want... So I can't wait to go to California for a few weeks :D

Other than that I guess this is it for now.

Take care,
Rasmus

Last week in Bloom :(

2010-05-04T15:16:00.002-04:00

Yup, that's right! Last week in Bloomsburg coming up... I am really gonna miss all my friends here but then again, I can't wait to go traveling this amazing country. I guess that all good things must come to an end :(

This week is called Final Week but I really only have one real final and that's an easy one.

My schedule is like this:
Tuesday: Online Journalism (Present a website that I did about Peter Eastgate)

Wednesday: 8am - PR final (Group presentation of a PR campaign we did about TWLOHA)
7.15pm - Management final (open book, take-home, multiple choice)

Thursday: 12.30 - Sociology final (real final)

Friday: 2.45 - Intercultural Communication (Research paper + take-home final due)

Saturday: Hungover and have to be out of the apartment by 10pm...

I already did more than half of my take-home for Intercultural and right now I really should be working on my research paper instead of posting this ;)

Anyways, if I can, I'm probably going to fit in a few bar visits this week which means that I'm going to be busy during the day doing school work which again means that this might be the last update for a while...

What I can say already now is that me and Hugo have some of our plans sorted out. We have a place to stay in San Diego for free as long as we like. However, if it's possible we really wanna go to Philly and DC next week before catching a flight to San Diego... but we're still working on that. Also, we're pretty sure that we're gonna be in Vegas from May 31st to June 2nd - so let me know if anybody is there at that time too :)

Other than that we are planning to go to LA and San Francisco before hitting Vegas...

Last, but not least, I've been playing a little bit of poker on and off - taking half an hour here and there. And I'm glad to say that I've been doing quite well (no jinx!). During the first two days I played in April I was able to get stuck around $800 (8 buyins) at one point. Ever since then I haven't had a single losing day which means that the status as of right now is plus $400. I have a funny ritual every time I finish a winning session. It's the only time I allow myself to play this song - it's called "For the Love of Money" by the O'Jays and, even though it's not as loud as my stereo back home, I always play it at maximum volume when I log off the tables. So I've been hearing that tune a lot lately... may that continue to last forever.

I think that's it for now - Peace

Buhuu

2010-04-29T11:33:00.000-04:00

Last night we played the final of the intramural soccer tournament. We scored the first goal but it was like most of us were having an off day. Pretty quickly the other team got ahead by a few goals and they were able to cruise the game home. The final score was 8-2...

It was still a pleasure to be part of the team but I just wanted one of those champion t-shirts so bad...

Also, as part of my online journalism class, I uploaded a story to a campus news site called BU NOW.

See ya

My first B and TEAM USA!!!

2010-04-27T22:11:00.000-04:00

Hey there!

Last night I had my second exam in my management class... In the first I got a 91/100 without studying for the test so I just figured I would do the same this time. However, this test was a bit harder and I ended up getting 82/100 which correlates to a B. The teacher is soooo boring in this class that I just can't bring myself to do anything at all and my grades will eventually be translated into pass/fail no matter how good I do over here. Now, I don't wanna complain about getting a B since that is what I usually get back home but I was sorta getting used to all the A's over here ;)

Also, my intramural soccer team made it to the play offs and we played our semifinal last night too. I was a close game all the way and it really could have went either way. They scored the first goal, then I scored to 1-1. They scored again and now Sam made the equalizer to 2-2. Same story again, they scored and Sam equalized. Then I scored and they made it even 4-4.

Now we had to play overtime. 2x5 mins, first goal wins. We owned them hard and Eileen scored the winning goal after 1.30 mins :D

The championship game will be tomorrow night and I can't wait!

I also played a good half an hour session of poker today winning 65$, so hopefully it won't be too long before I will be back in plus even though I probably wont have time to play before I get back home to Denmark.

That's it for now,
Razz

Video from Penn State

2010-04-26T00:53:00.003-04:00

Here's a little video of a play from the Blue White game. If you guys wanna see it in HD, just click the video again to watch it on youtube...

Penn State and Blue White Weekend

2010-04-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend, Hugo, Lain and me went to Penn State for the annual Blue White Weekend. Penn State is a pretty big University and they have one of the biggest stadiums in the country. On Saturday, the football team played a scrimmage game... Meaning that it's just a practice game where the team plays against itself.

We arrived Friday afternoon at one of Lain's friends... We pre-gamed at the house before leaving for the clubs and it was nice to see something else than Harry's for a change :) We came back to the house around 4am after having found a few things we were not supposed to do to do ;)

Quite a few people were crashing already so we had to sleep on the floor... but it wasn't too bad. Then we had to get up early Saturday morning to clear the downstairs living room. Dan (Lain's friend) and his roommates were throwing a huge party Saturday night with DJ, light show and everything. So, we took all the furniture out and left to do some tailgating at the stadium. The stadium seats around 110,000 spectators but we were told that they 'only' expected around 70,000 this weekend. Here is a few pictures:

We didn't stay to see the whole game because it wasn't that good. But the atmosphere was amazing. Also, it was getting quite cold and all I was wearing was a t-shirt because it had been quite hot when we left from Dan's around noon. But as I said it was pretty damn cold in the afternoon, so Hugo, Lain and me went to the merchandise shop at the stadium and the two Europeans got some nice hoodies...

After having tailgated the whole day, we went back around 6pm. The party had 100 confirmed guests and around 50 maybe's... so all we had to do was get something to eat and then wait for people to arrive.

It was the most crazy house party I have even been to. The DJ played some really nice music and with more than a 100 people at the party, it was quite alright :) Also, the light show was amazing - maybe it's because the brand of the light cannons was MARTIN, which is a Danish brand!

Between 2 and 3 am, we ran out of beer and people started to leave. The DJ packed his stuff together and the floor was just so bad because it had rained a bit during the night. So we started cleaning the worst parts and around 4.30 am (I think) I found myself on an air mattress in the living room...

Then today, Sunday, we got up at 9 am to go home again. Lain took us to his parents' house again for some breakfast on the way home which was really nice!

So, I wanna give a shout out to a few people. Lain, thanks for taking us to Penn State. Dan + roommates, thanks for throwing a crazy party and thanks to everybody for showing us a good time the entire weekend!

Until next time... peace :)

P.S. Oh, I almost forgot. I started playing a little bit of online poker again last week. A combination of rusty play and a good amount of bad luck sent me 800$ in the hole at one point but I managed to win some of it back so now I'm only minus 275$ for last week. I'm not gonna play a lot, I just had an easy week last week and I was kind of missing it. After all I haven't played a single hand of poker online since I got here in the middle of January...

New York again :)

2010-04-18T13:34:00.000-04:00

Today is the day after Block Party, which was crazy btw, so this post might be a bit foggy ;)

Anyways, my timer woke me up at 4.30am. At 6 am we left Bloom. I pretty much slept all the way in the bus but I woke up a few times. One time, this was what I saw:

But I was so tired that I just fell asleep again... The next time I woke up, the view was a bit better!

You never get tired of seeing that skyline!

At first we went to the United Nations which was pretty interesting. We got a guided tour around the premises. We saw the temporary Security Council because the normal one is being renovated. Here is a few pictures:

Here's one with my main man, General Secretary Ban Ki-moon

After the UN we got taken to the Rockefeller Center where we had about an hour to get something to eat. After that we drove down to the financial district and on the way we passed Ground Zero where it looks like some construction is going on... Haven't heard what it's going to be though.

We just walked a bit around in the financial district and on our way around we walked by the famous bull:

We also walked down to the water front were there is a small park. In that park there is a sculpture of a globe that used to stand in the lobby of one of the Twin Towers. Somehow it survived and now it's in the park as a memorial.

The weather was pretty good so we could see all the way to the Statue of Liberty...

Then, we got in the bus again and we drove up to see the MET which is one of NY's most famous art museums. I have never been that interested in art but at least I was trying!

After the MET we got dropped off at Times Square and we then had two hours for ourselves to get something to eat and then be at the Shubert Theatre for the Broadway show, Memphis at 8pm. We ate at a place called Applebees. I had a really good steak but it was a bit expensive after American standards... think it was around 27$ but I guess they have to make the money somewhere to pay for the massive rent I bet they are charged!

The play was pretty good. It's only a few months old so no one knew anything about it. It was about this white radio/tv guy in Memphis in the 50's. He gets a black girlfriend who also sings really well. Then he gets her on his tv show and all hell breaks loose because of the race issue. But as I said, it was a really good show.

After the play, we got picked up by the bus and we arrived in Bloom at 2am... pretty long day :) But it was very nice experience and I still can't believe that we got it all for only 50$!

Here's a slideshow of all the pictures and I'm out :)

Concert, TEAM USA is in the ropes, and NY!

2010-04-12T23:58:00.001-04:00

As I wrote earlier I went to a concert with a band called Jack's Mannequin last Friday. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so I can't show you any pictures from it... I had never heard about the band before but they were actually not half bad - I just wish I had taken some time to at least get to know one of their songs! But the best thing about the concert was the guys who warmed up... They were two guys on stage, one with a guitar singing and another playing on a box. The guy who was singing is called Kevin Hammond and I will bet a lot of money that he is going to make it big one day, or at least I hope so :)

Soccer
Up until Wednesday last week, Team USA was undefeated in the indoor soccer tournament but we only managed to make a draw. So, technically we were still undefeated but tonight we lost the game 4-3 against the number one team. If we had won, we would have been number one in the league but because of the loss we are now 3rd :(

On a side note, I had another exam today in Sociology and even though I only looked over the slides yesterday, I still managed to get a perfect 100 :) So far, the exams have been pretty easy but this one was by far the easiest one! But I shall be the last one to complain about that since I'm on exchange and wanna be able to a lot besides school...

The Big Apple
I also got the plan for the NY trip on Thursday:

6:00am: Depart Bloomsburg
9:30am: Arrive United Nations
10:15am - noon: United Nations Tour and Briefing
Noon - 2:00pm: Lunch at Rockefeller Center on your own
2:00pm - 3:00pm: Travel to Battery Park and Wall Street
3:30pm - 5:30pm: Metropolitan Museum of Art
5:30pm - 7:30pm: Dinner on your own
8:00pm - 11:00pm: Broadway Musical - Memphis (anybody heard if this is good)
2:00am: Return to Bloomsburg

So, it's gonna be a long day but 50$ for the whole thing was just too good an offer! The only thing that is bothering me a little bit is that my new favorite singer, Kevin Hammond is playing at a place called Piano's in NY that night at 9pm and it's free to get in - but I guess that a Broadway show isn't too bad after all ;)

Just to finish off with something that looks good, here is another song by Mr. Hammond:

Easter dinner at Dr. G's

2010-04-09T15:03:00.003-04:00

What I didn't tell you in my last post is that I went to an Easter dinner at Dr. Ganahl's last Sunday. He's my professor in Online Journalism and PR: Theory and Practice and he is by far the coolest professor I have ever had but it was still kind of weird to get invited to his house. Apparently, he always invites his international students for dinner on Easter. This year I'm his only one though so he told me that I could bring a friend. So, I asked Hugo and he was game.

But as I said, it still felt kind of weird because there's no tradition for doing that kind of things back home in Denmarkistan. And, if any of my other professors had asked me, I would probably have been like "Oh shoot, I already have other plans" :) But Dr. G is something else, so I figured 'what the hell'...

Dr. Ganahl is the gentleman to the right

We got there at a around 5pm. The weather was really nice so we had some healthy snacks and wine outside in the sun. Then we went inside for the dinner. It was really good actually. His wife had cooked some ham, some kind of seasoned potatoes, vegetables etc.

But it was a good time even though it was a bit awkward at times but everybody there was very interested in France and Denmark, so we always had something to talk about.

By the way
What else? Well, I'm going to a concert tonight with a band called Jack's Mannequin.

I have never heard about them before but they are playing in the arena tonight, which is right next door, so why not? Besides, it's Spencer's birthday today (21 - Congrats man!), so we are gonna pre-game here before the concert and then we're gonna take him down to the bars! Maybe I'll even treat him to one of the Carlsbergs I bought yesterday for 30$ a case(!). But I felt like being patriotic and teach them some Danish culture :)

Also, I'm leaving for NEW YORK once again next Thursday on a one-day trip. The school arranges this trip where you get transport and all of the following for only 50$!!!

Depart from BU at 6:00 a.m.
Tour United Nations
Free Time in Rockefeller Center
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Financial District
Free Time in Times Square
Broadway Show- Memphis
Return to BU at approximately 1:30 a.m

I can't believe how cheap it is, so I'm definitely going even though it's gonna be tough to get up for class on Friday.

Catch ya later!

(Just wanted to post this picture again. Honestly, I think it's the best picture I have ever taken! I should sell it as a postcard on something)

Easter = Road trip to Lain's house

2010-04-06T23:56:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, Lain (my roommate) had invited me and Hugo to go home with him between Friday and Saturday. We already knew in advance that his parents were gonna cook us some nice food... baked potatoes, salad and steaks on the grill - yummy!!! Furthermore, there is a nice mall close to his house (even though it's in the middle of nowhere) so maybe I could finally buy myself a spring jacket.

So, we left Bloomsburg in the afternoon and as you can see on the picture below, the weather was amazing!

Lain had told us that he could guarantee that we would see some Amish people that weekend because all the "neighbors" were Amish (A Danish Wiki can be found here). To make a long story short, the Amish has chosen to live without electricity, running water etc. They live as though the year was 1850 or so. Because of this they drive around in buggies with horses to pull them. We didn't see any on the way to his parents' house so we didn't quite believe him.

But when we left for the mall, we saw quite a lot of the buggies on the way:

We spent a few hours at the mall and guess what, I bought a new jacket! Other than that I bought two T-shirts and a pair of jeans.

It was time to eat when we got back from the mall. The dinner was great and Lain's parents are pretty cool. Later, some of Lain's friends from high school came over and we had a few beers. We played pool, darts and other games until 4 a.m.

At one point two guys were playing darts and one of them managed to pull of this shot:

He hit the freakin' tip of another dart. How is that possible?

Sunday morning we had to get up early because Lain had to go to work. I took a good 3 hour power nap once we came back up to Mount Olympus.

If you wanna see more pictures, you can find them in the Bloomsburg slide show in the menu to the right or you can click here. It's probably the last 20 pics or so on picasa.

Finally, a little update about the indoor soccer game last night (Monday). As usual I couldn't play because of my stupid management class but they did good and beat the crap out of the other team. The final score was 10-1. What's crazy is that even though we have a goal score of +22 after just three games, we are only second in the league :S

Oh well, that's it for now...

Team USA still undefeated!

2010-03-31T22:14:00.001-04:00

Tonight, we (Team USA) played the second game in a co-ed indoor soccer tournament. My roommate, Lain, asked if I was interested in joining the team. I don't know how much I like the name though. Basicly, it's 6 on 6 with 3 guys and 3 girls from each team playing at a time. Hugo (France), Sam (England) and my other roommate, Tim are also on the team. And I got a pleasant surprise because our girls are so good at soccer... it's actually unbelievable compared to Danish standards! No offense to my Danish readers, but as we all know, Danish girls can't play soccer! At all - period...

Anyways, I couldn't play in the first game (Monday) because I had my !"#¤#"¤# stupid management class that night. However, they managed without me beating the hell out of the other team. When the whistle blew, Team USA had annihilated the other team 12-2 - Well done!

Tonight we had more resistance but we pulled through and won the game 5-2. I can't wait until next Wednesday when, hopefully, we will be 4-0!

What else? Hmmm... have gotten a few more A's on various tests and assignments, so it's all good! Also, today the weather was fine but the next few days it's gonna be between 22 and 25 degrees and sun :D

Finally, Lain is taking me and Hugo to his house this weekend. He lives out in the country side but we're gonna have lots of fun. He has his own pool table and he says he is gonna beat me. I don't know about that though, since I beat him pretty convincingly last time we played... broke the 8-ball in the whole winning the game in one shot!

Then on Sunday (Easter), I have been invited to a dinner at Dr. Ganahl. He is my professor in my Online Journalism class and also PR class. Apparently he invites all his international students on Easter every year. He said I could bring a friend, so I asked Hugo. I look forward to that too since Dr G is a pretty cool teacher.

I think that's it for now...

Later

Fun story!

2010-03-29T16:43:00.001-04:00

Hi everybody!

Not much has happened since the last time. I think I did pretty good in my exam in PR, though. I also got my grade for the other blog I have been doing for my Online Journalism class, Ace On The River. It turned out to be pretty good - 95/100 points :D

Anyways, as I said, not that much has happened since my last post. But I read this funny story today and I just thought I would share it with you guys. Just click 'READ MORE' if you want to read it...

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell,then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

A short update

2010-03-22T23:25:00.001-04:00

Today I got the grade for my first exam in Intercultural Communication. In the exam there were 30 multiple choice questions, and 10 questions on two movies we have seen in the class. I scored 100% :D

But it's really not that hard when you get to take the exam home for two days to do it! So, until now it's been all A's for me in all assignments and tests - weeee :D

But I have a bad feeling that the good times are gonna change. I have to hand in an assignment on the book Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama on Wednesday and I haven't even started yet (on the paper - about half way through the book, though) - so that one is probably gonna suck! Also, I have a test in my PR class on Thursday. Even though Dr G is the coolest professor ever (he also teaches my Online Journalism class), I don't think I'm going to get an A on that test. I've heard from several people that his tests are pretty hard compared to other professors'.

To make matters worse I have an exam in my sociology class on Wednesday too... However, I thought it was today so I already studied for it. So, I guess I'm ready for that one...

But I really can't wait for Friday to arrive. I get out of class at noon-ish and at 5.30 PM a lot of the international students is going to a Cultural Diversity Festival thing. I've heard that the food is great there but, sadly, there's no alcohol - no worries, though! I got invited to a birthday party downtown later that night :)

Later

Sommer i Bloomsburg :)

2010-03-19T18:13:00.001-04:00

De sidste par dage har vi næsten haft sommervejr. 15-20 grader og sol, sol, sol! Jeg tog lige et par billeder på vej ned til frisøren

Dette er et kig ned af Main Street fra Carver Hall som ses nedenunder.

Og til sidst kommer her et billede af selve Main Street... ikke meget gang I den som I kan se...

Ellers kan jeg fortælle at jeg havde en to-timers take home multiple choice eksamen i Management i mandags. Jeg havde kun læst ét ud af de otte kapitler som eksamen dækkede, men alligevel fik jeg 91/100... who needs studying!? :P

Onsdag fejrede vi St. Patrick's Day på Harry's. Alle klæder sig i grønt og drikker sig fulde. Jeg har stadig ikke helt styr på det, men det er en irsk tradition. Men på selve dagen er alle fra Irland :)

Jeg vidste på forhånd at min time i dag var aflyst, så vi benyttede lejligheden til at smutte forbi Harry's endnu engang i går... om torsdagen har de $1 drinks, så man kan gå i byen ret billigt!

Håber I hygger jer derhjemme - jeg gør i hvert fald. Og vær endelig ikke bange for at smide nogle kommentarer... Det føles lidt tomt uden feedback en gang i mellem

Video from Daytona

2010-03-15T21:59:00.000-04:00

Here's the video I was talking about in my post about Spring Break

This is where I reside!

2010-03-15T14:04:00.003-04:00

Før Spring Break lavede jeg en lille video af hvordan jeg bor, og som I kan se, er jeg lidt af en linselus :P
Stedet hedder som sagt Mount Olympus og alle lejlighederne er ens. Lejlighederne er i to etager, og der er plads til seks personer i hver. To bor nedenunder og fire ovenpå. Men I kan se det hele i videoen...

Som I måske kunne høre til sidst, er jeg gået hen og blevet finkulturel... flame away :)

SPRING BREAK In Daytona Beach, Florida

2010-03-14T04:04:00.002-04:00

I just came back from one of the greatest trips in my life! This concept of Spring Break is amazing - especially when you go somewhere warm :) So, this post is probably going to be a bit long - even though it's just a summary...

It all started Saturday morning at 7 AM. Lotte, Eduardo, Hugo and me met up to walk down to the bus. We had to take it to Philadelphia. In Philly we then had to take the train to get to the airport.Then we had to fly to Atlanta and then to Daytona Beach, Florida :D

Everybody had left on Friday... but it was a beautiful morning.

The guys waiting for the train... I only brought my skiing jacket over here but the plan was to buy a new one in Daytona.

We have to wait a little more than an hour in Philly after clearing security so we eat some lunch and drink the first beer of what feels like thousands :)

We get on the plane and arrive in Daytona on time at 8.30 PM. Because it was the last night of the Daytona Bike Week,we had to wait for a while for the cab to take us to the Daytona Beach Oceanside Inn.

We were pretty tired after the long journey but me and Hugo wanted to experience the last night of Bike Week. The cab driver told us that it usually attracts around half a million bikers during the 10 days it lasts. Later we were told that there had been around 60,000 that night. It all happened on Main Street and I have never seen that many bikes in my life! We saw the most amazing Harleys, sports bikes, trikes and customs! So, that was quite an experience... unluckily, I didn't take that many pictures but you can see them in the slide show at the bottom. What we found out that night was that all the bars on Main Street closed at 2 AM :(

Sunday
Sunday, we sleep in till noon. The weather is alright. Around 20 degrees Celsius but the wind is quite strong. We walk up and down the beach to see what was happening. The ocean was pretty damn cold though! But the pool was okay, so we stayed there until it too became too cold.

At night, me and Hugo had learned that we needed to go to a street called Seabreeze. We go there and immediately find my spot called Razzle's.

I brought my jacket because it was a bit cold that night but I just looked like an idiot... but when the lady taking my 10$ in entry fee (cover) saw the two extra I flashed, she took my jacket with a smile even though she wasn't allowed to...

Monday

Since Spring Break is pretty much all about having fun, we followed the same schedule - beach/pool during the day and party at night. At the pool we met three guys who all knew each other. They were exchange students in St. Louis but they all studied in Sweden. Although one of the guys was Russian.

We all agreed to eat together that night. Me and Hugo knew just the place since we had had a few beers there the night before. It is called Winghouse and the waitresses there are all pretty - well check it out:

This lucky guy has birthday and so all the waitresses sing him a song while he is dressed like a chicken :)

We had dinner and then we found out that they served free beers until midnight at a place called The Plaza. We couldn't believe it since there was no cover either! But it was true... free beers :D

At midnight we were even more surprised to know that they only charged 1$! But we certainly did not complain!

Tuesday

Still same plan. The weather was okay but a bit cloudy at times. Hugo, me and Kirill (Russia) were at the pool. At one point I was looking out over the water and I spotted a group of dolphins

You can see them to the left on the picture.

Kirill and me got the crazy idea to got swim with them. We figured that if we got in the cold water, our pool would feel like a jacuzzi when we came back. So we did it and it worked :) Hugo filmed it all and I'm trying desperately to upload it to youtube but it doesn't seem to work. However, I will get it on here somehow later!

Btw. Some girls came by in their truck (yes, you can drive up and down the coast!). I managed to shoot a picture. If you click on it and zoom in, you can read the text saying "BAD ASS Ladies DON'T DRIVE Mercedes!" :P

At night there was a 'Girls Gone Wild'-event at the Coliseum downtown. Eduardo had gone to Disneyland in Orlando for two days so it was just me, Hugo, Lotte and the Swedish plus Russian. And since this blog is being read by a lot of different people, let's just say that we had a fun night :P Below there is a picture of their bus...

Wednesday
On Wednesday the weather was really nice! Probably around 24 degrees and sun, sun, sun! This is how it looked from the pool...

Everything was perfect until around 2 o'clock when I decide to go to the toilet. I had my wallet by the pool. I figured that I'd better take it with me. I went inside, walked to the toilet, put my wallet on the toilet, did my thing and walked out again. About 30 seconds (!) after leaving the toilet I realize that I forgot my wallet. I turn around and start running because I had a funny feeling. When I get inside again, I see a man leaving the toilet in an awful hurry! I just take a quick look inside the toilet and see that my wallet isn't there. The man is heading to the car park but I catch up with him. He is a big black man with NFL potential! And I don't want to get him cornered since I was all alone with him. I ask him if he has seen my wallet, he says no. I ask him again with the same response. I then ask if he would mind showing me what he has in his pockets. He says I'm insulting him. By then he was standing by his car and I was maybe 10m from him. Just before he gets in the car I tell him that I'm an exchange student from Denmark and that all my important stuff is in that wallet. He still feels insulted and gets in the car. I don't know why I don't take his plates. But I run inside to the front desk and says that this man has just stolen my wallet. By coincidence the manager is there and we run out to see if we can see where he goes. But he is all gone. We then go inside and they call the police. It was maybe 2 mins from I caught up with him in the car park to this point. I wait by the front desk for the police to turn up and then this guy comes back again and discretely gives me my wallet back! I could not believe it! I don't know if he felt bad because of what I said or because he figured that I would have taken his plates and that him and his car were on camera.

Since we are 5-6 people by then I have the guts to tell them that it's the guy. But since he gave me the wallet, they say that they can't do anything about it. I check the wallet while the man is still there and nothing is missing. I try to stall him so the police could have a word with him. I check the wallet several times and count the money over and over again. But after a minute or two he has enough and runs out the door.

2 mins later the police shows up. I have a word with the nice officer but he tells me that since my wallet was actually never 'stolen', he can't do nothing...

Since the guy was only gone with my wallet for like 5-7 mins, I was thinking that maybe he had used my credit cards to pay for stuff. So I go to my room and get all my cards blocked.

But wow! I was so lucky to get it back!

Later, me, Hugo and one of the Swedish guys walks to 7-Eleven and come by this place:

I have no idea why that Danish flag was hanging there - but of course I had to get a picture :)

At night we knew there would be free drinks on the 509 Lounge on Seabreeze until midnight.

At midnight, the other guys left because they had to catch their plane home at 4.30 or something like that. Me and Hugo stayed. It was fun but but it had started raining when we left.

Thursday
The next morning the weather was so bad! So we just slept in...

At night it had stopped raining, so me and Hugo figured that we would have some fun the last night in Daytona. We went back to where it all started at Razzle's

I think that's the best club in Daytona - just a shame they didn't serve free beers :P I left at midnight since I didn't want to have a hangover on the day we went home but Hugo stayed behind to party with some French people he had met the day before.

Friday
Our plane was supposed to take off at 12.05 noon to Atlanta. However, when we tried to check-in online Thursday, we found out that Eduardo somehow was missing on the itinerary. So we thought that would cause a huge problem and therefore we were at the airport at 10 AM. 'Unfortunately', they fixed it right away and so we had to wait for two hours - or at least we thought so.

Half an hour before scheduled departure we board the plane. At noon the captain says that there is some really bad weather in Atlanta and that no planes can land at the time we are supposed to land. He says we have to wait on the ground for half an hour. So, we wait but then he announces that they have to extent it to 1.5 hours. We have a connection flight to make in Atlanta, so we get a bit worried about missing that. They give us the choice to unboard the plane. We do and go talk to a lady from the airline to ask what they can do for us if we miss our flight. She tells us that hour connection flight is delayed by an hour, so we're good.

We get in the air after waiting. When we get to Atlanta we just make the plane to Philly. At first we wait in the plane again but then finally takes off. We we're supposed to land in Philly at around 6 PM.

By now, I should probably tell that Hugo has a friend in Philly and that we can stay there. His friend has asked us to go see an NBA (Basketball) game with him between the 76'ers and Cleveland. He even has box tickets! We were so exited to go!!!

Then, after flying for 10-20 mins, the captain announces that we have to turn back because there is a problem with the nose gear. He says it's nothing serious but we can't fly all the way to Philly like that. So we land in Atlanta again. When we get off the plane some ground personnel look at it and we are told that they have to cancel the flight!

We all get off again and since we we're in the middle of the plane, there is already a huge line to see the airline folks (I should say person because there was only one young lady to serve the 150 passengers!). She did a great job but it went quite slow since it's pretty difficult to find new seats for everybody etc.

After 2 hours in line we finally make it to the front. She gives us four tickets to the 9.15 PM flight. Which, by then, was only 45 mins away. But then they delay it to 10.30 and then later 11.10. Finally, at that time we board the plane and fly to Philly! We arrive at 1 AM but we were supposed to have been in Philly at 5.25PM.

It was a really bad day and I'm pretty sorry about missing that basketball game! But all in all Spring Break 2010 was one of the most amazing weeks ever.

I think that was it for now... catch ya later,
Razzle Dazzle

P.S here are some more pictures

Atlantic City

2010-03-03T01:03:00.003-05:00

Last weekend was absolutely crazy! Friday night I was hanging out with Päivi, Hugo and Päivi's roommate, Natalie watching the Olympic semifinal in ice hockey between Finland and USA. During the game Natalie tells us that she is going to a concert in Atlantic City (Las Vegas, only on the east coast and smaller) on Saturday and then she asks if any of us wants to join her. Me and Hugo looked at each other for 5 seconds before deciding that that was a great idea!

So, Saturday at 3 pm we left Bloomsburg in Natalie's car. We drove through Philadelphia which has a really nice skyline! Then after 2.5 hours we saw this sign:

The concert was at the Taj Mahal so we just booked a room for the night there. However, it cost a fortune - 450$ total for one night!!!

Once we woke up from passing out, the girls went shopping.Me and Hugo went to Hard Rock Café to get something to eat. That was a really cool place where the waiters wore sunglasses and were generally rock and roll. Even though it seems pretty much common knowledge, they had the funniest sign :P We had a really good stake and tipped the nice waitress accordingly :)

After the great dinner, we went to the ATM to get some cash and then signed up at the poker room. On the way there we had to walk through the whole casino and it was just huge! According to the website, there are 3,000 slot machines and more than 210 table games (roulette, blackjack etc.) and 70 poker tables - can't wait to go to Vegas where the casinos are even bigger!

By the way, this is what two (wannabe) high stakes poker players look like :)

*DISCLAIMER* The following might get a bit too much poker for some people - so just scroll down if this has no interest to you.

Poker

The lowest stakes was $1/$2 with a minimum buy in of $60 and a max of 300$. Beforehand, I had decided that I wouldn't lose more than 3 buy ins of what I normally play online = 600$ total. So, I found a table and sat down with 300$. Unfortunately, I didn't get the same table as Hugo but at least we could see each other and sometimes we would walk over and ask how the other was doing.

I started out folding a lot because I wanted to see how the table dynamic was and I didn't get any good cards anyways, so I really couldn't do anything else. However, the bad cards continued so I figured I would try to steal some blinds. The first time, this guy, lets call him Mr. Aggressive, re-raises me and I had to fold. A couple of hands later he just calls my raise and check-raises me on the flop where I have to fold. He shows me a total bluff. 15 mins later he does the same and later he does it again. Still, I wasn't getting any cards whatsoever, so I really couldn't do nothing.

Actually, I can sum up all my good hands from the +4 hours of play right here: 2xKK, 1xAQo, 1xKQo and 1x88 - that was it! I had no other pocket pairs all night, no good aces, no suited connectors - NOTHING!

Back to the story... After losing with some bad hands and bad bluffs, I was down to about 150$. Finally, I got my first real hand - a pair of kings. The short story is that I get my last 150$ all-in against another guy with QQ and doubles up to 300$.

Later I get KQo in the BB. Mr. Aggressive now tries to steal my blind again and I just call. Flop comes Qxx and I check-call his bet. Turn and river are blank and I decided to call him down after he had been bluffing all night long. Unfortunately he woke up with AQ this time and he won my stack of 300$ from me on that hand. Maybe I should have folded since he hadn't bluffed that big before. I think we had played about 3 hours at that time.

Anyway, I buy in for another 100$ and after literally folding all hands except a couple of blinds for a whole hour, I get kings in early position. I raise it big but somehow I get no respect and five people call me. Flop comes 235 rainbow. Since I'm first to act, I just check because I want to trap Mr. A somehow. As I predicted he takes a stab at the pot and I just call. I don't raise because he will only call me with something that has me beat already. The turn opens up for a flush draw but is otherwise blank and I check to him again. He puts me all-in. I really had a tough decision but I was short stacked. Preflop, he could have called with 22, 33, 55, 66-TT, suited aces and suited connectors. So either he had a hand or either he was bluffing or semi-bluffing. I ended up calling after a minute or so and he showed me A4, which means he had flopped a straight on me :(

I decided to call it a night at the poker tables because the deck was so cold. I really should have quit earlier but what can you do when it's the first time at a casino.

Roulette

Hugo had lost his 100$ too and we decided to head for the bar. The drinks were quite expensive though, so I figured it would be better and more fun to sit at the roulette and get free drinks :) I bought 140$ worth of chips and started out losing a bit. I sat next to a gentleman from Costa Rica who seemed to have a great time. He was kind of crazy though. He had a mountain of chips (about 2,500$) in front of him and he almost bet it all every time on the numbers. If you hit a number it pays 35:1. I asked him if he was up or down and he said he was down more than 9,000$ that night! But he just laughed about it and put 200$ on two different numbers and then smaller amounts on a lot of other numbers.

Hugo and me then moved to another roulette table because every spin took 10 mins at the old one because the guys at the table were betting so much. We found another table with only one guy playing. I started winning and had almost doubled my money. I guess I just should have quit because I ended up losing it all :( When I had about 50$ left I decided to put it all on red - no matter what happened that would be the last bet of the night since it was 4.30 in the morning. My overall bad luck continued and I ended up losing 540$ - I'm never staying or playing at the Taj ever again 'cause that place has just bad luck written all over it!!!

When I got up to our room on the 36th floor, we all talked for a while. The last time I looked at the clock it was 5.30am and we were supposed to check out at 12 noon. At 11.58 we were still laying in the beds! So we called to get at 'late checkout' which they accepted :)

In conclusion and even though I lost a huge amount of money, my experience hasn't scared me off from going back to a casino... Next time I'm just gonna leave the tables if the deck is cold for that long and of course I'm gonna win...

Well, that's all folks. I'm signing out with a picture from the lobby at the Taj

P.S I don't know who jinxed me beforehand - but if you feel like it was YOU, then you owe me a lot of money! :)

Let's Go, Huskies

2010-02-24T22:12:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since my last post but that's because I've been busy doing nothing = not much to write about. One thing happened though. Last Saturday, Hugo, Päivi and me went to see the basketball team play their last home game. I think that's why there were a lot more people to this game than the first one we saw.

During the game we were down by more than 10 points a couple of times but we made it back and won the game by 6-8 points. So, it was all good and hopefully they will win the last two games = we go to the play offs and thereby we get more home games :) Who knows, maybe they will have a baby race in one of the breaks if that happens...

The cheerleaders also had even improved their skills since the last time...

Other than that we have to find out what to do for Spring Break which starts in less than two weeks!

Peace out,
Razz

New York, New York

2010-02-17T18:25:00.002-05:00

Hi folks!

Last weekend I went on a road trip to the city that never sleeps with 6 other international students. We were Lotte (Denmark), Päivi (Finland), Sam (England), Eduardo (Mexico), Hugo (France), Thomas (Belgium) and good old Razzle Dazzle! We left Friday at noon and were home again Sunday at 8pm.

Friday

We took off from Bloomsburg in our rented mini-van (which was actually really nice!). We put on the good music and just cruised all the way to NY on the Interstate. We only made one wrong turn, so we got to NY in 3 hours. We found the Hostel in Manhattan and then we had to find somewhere to park the car. After looking at some different, really expensive car parks, we found a nice parking lot a few blocks away from the Hostel.

On the way back, we walked by Madison Square Garden. Coincidently, the Harlem Globetrotters were playing that night, so of course we had to get tickets!

The game was at 7 pm and since the time was only 4.30-ish, we decided to go to the Empire State Building.

We spent 45 minutes going through security checks and getting up the elevators to the 86th floor.

The first picture to the left is of Lower Manhattan (Wall Street, WTC etc). Under here you see the view to the north east with the Chrysler Building in the middle.

We stayed at the top until it got dark. The view was just amazing!

Then we had to hurry back to the basketball game! The Globetrotters is a real team in the sense that they claim that their games are official. However, they have only lost maybe 10 games out of 23,000 in total! So, I categorize their games as show games :)

Here's a video I recorded of one of the plays:

Even though the game sometimes dragged out a bit, I think it was a very cool experience!

After the game we wanted to see what the NY night life looks like. Since none of us were that familiar with the good bars, we had some difficulties in finding any. Eventually, we found a nice place though...

Saturday

Hugo, Päivi and me had bought tickets to an NHL game (ice hockey) beforehand. It was the NY Islanders against Tampa Bay Lightning. The arena, Nassau Coliseum, is situated on Long Island so we had to take the train to get there. It was really easy since the train left from the train station under Madison Square Garden.

The Islanders has a Danish guy, Frans Nielsen, and two Finish dudes playing for the team - of course we were rooting for those guys! I even brought my Danish flag.

Before the game started, we sang the American national anthem. It actually gave me the goosebumps!

Below: Frans Nielsen taking a face-off

Actually, Nielsen played a good game - he didn't get any points though. The Finish players got so many penalties that, by the end of the game, we were calling the penalty box for the Finish box.

In the break between the 2nd and the 3rd period they held a baby race in the middle of the rink, you heard me - a baby race! We were like "What the f*** is going on up in here!?" The parents of the baby who came in first won $500... Only in America, I guess :)

Not long into the game a fight broke out between two players and over here the referees don't stop the fight immediately - Wuhuu! :D

The fight had already lasted about 30 seconds before I got my camera out.

In the end, the Islanders won by 5-4, which was perfect!

We got back to the hostel at 6 pm. Then we went out to get something to eat at a restaurant with the others. After eating some good food, we wanted to check out some more of the night life. First we had a few beers at a few different bars. Later, we went to a club which was supposed to be nice but when we got there the line outside was just enormous! We didn't want to wait that long, so we just decided to go somewhere else. So, Sam, Lotte and Thomas got in a cab really quickly but we hadn't really discussed where we wanted to go and before we knew it, they had closed the door and driven off - so me and Hugo jumped into another yellow cab and screamed at the taxi driver "FOLLOW THAT CAB!" - just like in the movies :)

We got dropped off at the hostel. Some of the others went upstairs to get some sleep but me, Sam, Hugo and Lotte wanted to see if we couldn't find a nice bar in the area. Then we found it! Just around the corner on the other side of the street we found a really nice Irish pub. This was by far the best spot we found that weekend. Isn't it weird that it always happens? You try so hard to find a really good bar/club/pub for a whole weekend and then you find it in the last minute, almost right next door...

Sunday

Sunday we had agreed to meet at at 3 pm at the hostel to go home. When I got up, me, Sam, Lotte and Hugo went to a huge store called Macy's. I had to buy something for my sister, Julie, who turned 18 on February 8th - Congrats by the way! After that we walked up to Times Square. I have never seen that much police in my entire life! But it was really cool to see all the buildings and stores around the square and all the people.

After Times Square we took a stroll down 5th Avenue on the way back. We walked by a lot of nice stores and buildings incl. the Rockefeller Center which is where they always put the official NY Christmas tree in December - some might remember it from the movie "Home Alone 2"...

As I said, we met up at the hostel, walked to the car and I drove all the way back. About 20 miles from Bloomsburg, the highway was totally jammed up. We talked to a truck driver who said that another truck had rolled over and blocked both lanes. I think we waited in the queue for about an hour or so...

Wow... this was a long post... if you are still with me, I can say that I'm definitely going back to NY! I still need to go see Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Lower Manhattan, ride the subway etc...

Catch you on the flip side!

Razzle Dazzle

P.S. You can find all the pictures from NY at http://picasaweb.google.dk/rasmus.andreasen1987/NewYork#

Also, I have uploaded a few videos to youtube at http://www.youtube.com/rasmusAND

It finally happened!

2010-02-11T19:08:00.000-05:00

Sooner or later it was bound to happen... I have maxed out my credit card which means I have spent more than $4,000 the past 30 days - oh mama! It doesn't make it any better that I'm going to New York for the weekend! I still have money in my account, don't get me wrong :P So I just hope that my back up card still works as it is only a Visa Electron. Otherwise, I would have to use the card I have connected to my poker account - but I don't want to touch my bank roll before I absolutely have to.

So far the plans for the weekend is to go to the Empire State Building and to go to see the NY Islanders against Tampa Bay Lightning (ice hockey). I can't wait to see the game since there's a Danish guy, Frans Nielsen, playing for the Islanders. Other than that I think the must sees are Central Park and Ground Zero.

Snowmageddon in Bloomsburg :)

2010-02-11T00:04:00.003-05:00

Finally we have serious amounts of snow in Bloom. It started during the night and continued all through the day, so now we have around 40cm of snow! School was closed today so I slept in. When I woke up, me, Lain, Spencer, Eric and Tim (my new roommates) went to Monty's for some good old fashioned breakfast.

I had a cheese steak with french fries and a soda. It tasted great but I didn't feel too good about myself after eating that sort of food for breakfast... So, this was the beginning of what turned out to be a really good but unhealthy day! After breakfast we went to play in the snow. Lain put on his skis and the rest of us shared a tray we found. I'm almost certain that I will catch a cold after spending an hour in the snow... but it was fun!

Later, some of us international students had planned a surprise party for a French girl, Sonia. From 5pm to 10.30pm I didn't do nothing but eat. At first there were loads of different cakes. Then we had some taco shells and after that we ordered pizza. So really, apart from maybe half a liter of water, I have really lived like a true American today.

Maybe I should spend a couple of hours in the Rec Center tomorrow?

Oh well, see ya!

P.S. This is what Bloomsburg looks like after almost 24 hours of continuous snow:

Eduardo and Hugo on the way to the surprise party

Nye roommates :)

2010-02-09T17:14:00.001-05:00

Yiiihaarr! Så er jeg endelig flyttet over i min nye lejlighed, og ny lejlighed er jo lig med nye roommates. Jeg har virkelig ondt af de to andre fra min gamle lejlighed, som i den grad har trukket nitten i forhold til at bo med stjerneidioten Keith! Men der er jo ikke så meget, jeg kan gøre ved det...

Men en af mine nye roommates, Lain, tog godt imod mig i dag. Han virker til at være rigtig flink, så hvis resten er ligesom ham, ser det rigtig godt ud. Derudover føles den nye lejlighed meget mere som et hjem. Der er en rigtig fælles stue med sofaer og fjernsyn, og så er der rent faktisk gryder og pander, så man kan lave lidt mad - hvis man har lyst :P Jeg skal nok tage nogle billeder af lejligheden lidt senere. Hvem ved, måske det endda bliver til en video-rundvisning med mit nye kamera!

Har leget lidt indretningsarkitekt, nu jeg lige fik chancen for at pakke alle mine ting ud igen. Så her er lige et billede af hvordan der ser ud nu.

Men bare lige for at understrege hvad det var jeg kom fra:

Har ikke lige taget billeder af toilettet eller resten af lejligheden, da jeg var ret bange for, at linsen på mit fine nye kamera ville tage skade! Forresten, til dem der ikke har bemærket det endnu, så er det ikke alle billeder, jeg smider ind på selve bloggen. Men ude i højre side ligger der et galleri, I kan klikke på for at se alle mine billeder.

Det var vist det for nu...

Super Bowl XLIV

2010-02-07T23:23:00.000-05:00

Jeg er lige kommet hjem fra den fedeste super bowl fest ever. Mig og Hugo havde først tænkt os at se den på Harry's (en af de få barer i Bloom), men pludselig tikkede der en besked ind på Hugos mobil. Indholdet af denne var en invitation til at se kampen i et frat house (Tror det hedder Kappa Sigma). Det sagde vi selvfølgelig ja til. Da vi kom var der spandevis af chicken wings og drikkevarer. Selvom selve huset vel meget pænt sagt var lidt af et "fixer-upper", så var der alt hvad vi skulle bruge. Et big-ass tv, store sofaer og masser af chicken wings!

Alle pånær én holdt med Saints. Så et stykke hen i kampen var den enkelte Colts-fan ret højt på strå, men han kom hurtigt ned igen, da Saints først scorede og derefter interceptede bolden og afgjorde kampen :) Btw. hvor var det sindssygt, at Saints vælger et onside kick på så "dårligt" et tidspunkt i kampen. Hugo kendte ikke så meget til NFL i forvejen, så havde faktisk fortalt ham, at Colts spiller perfekt fodbold, mens Saints spiller smukt fodbold. Synes det onside kick illustrerede min pointe ret godt. Men go Saints! De havde virkelig fortjent det i år - nu når Vikings ikke havde chancen for at nappe det flotte Vince Lombardi trofæ!

Lige en lille sidebemærkning... Jeg har fået lov til at flytte ud af min nuværende lejlighed og lidt længere op ad gaden. Jeg kunne dog ikke få det ledige værelse i Hugos lejlighed af en eller anden mærkelig grund. Men jeg er bare glad for at komme væk fra stjerneidioten Keith og alle hans højtråbende venner (Har ikke noget imod at folk har det sjovt, men når de render rundt og råber og skriger kl. lort om natten en ganske almindelig onsdag, så synes jeg måske liiiige de presser den - og de er ikke ligefrem typerne man har lyst til at sige STFU til enemand ;). Så nu håber jeg bare mine nye roommates er flinke og at jeg ikke har trukket nitten endnu engang. Jeg har dog skrevet med en af dem over facebook, og han virker til at være cool nok...

That's it for now. Good night and go Saints!!!
Rasmus

Snowmageddon and first exam

2010-02-06T17:18:00.003-05:00

Wuhuu! Finally some snow in Bloomsburg. We only have about 5cm of snow right now, so we have only been strafed by what Barack Obama calls the "Snowmaggedon" - the worst snowstorm to hit Washington DC for several years. I think they have gotten about 75cm overnight...

In fact, Thomas, Eduardo and two other girls were supposed to have gone to DC this weekend. They had rented the car and all but they didn't want to risk it driving down there right now. So instead they went to Boston today.

The car they have rented is a white Chrysler PT Cruiser. It still has that new car smell to it :) So we took it to Walmart last night. I don't think I would ever like to own one of those but as a rent-a-car it was simply amazing! I certainly wouldn't mind driving that car all the way to Miami for spring break in March!

I also had my first exam yesterday in Sociology. It was a 25 question multiple choice exam. We did it electronically, so we could see the final score immediately after we had completed the exam. We had an hour to do it but I was done after about 15 mins - I even managed to check my answers three times in that time. So after 15 mins I got the result: 24 correct answers out of 25... I wonder which one was wrong :)

After the exam I went down to the post office to pick up my new camera. I bought it for 200$ and free shipping on Amazon.com. It was already at a discount but at Walmart, I found the exact same camera for 170$ :( But I really can't do nothing about it, so now I'm just waiting for my memory card to arrive on Monday...

Oh well, take it easy out there!
Rasmus

Bingo Night

2010-02-04T16:44:00.000-05:00

I'm just doing a bit of catch-up here because I waited so long to get this blog started.

So, last Friday, Lotte and Thomas talked me into going to a bingo night along with some of Lotte's roommates. At first I did not want to go because I really don't feel that old yet! But since I had nothing else to do, I figured "What the heck... this MIGHT be fun". So we went all out and payed 25 cents pr. plate. I, obviously, got the maximum allowed, the gambler that I am :) So I had to manage six plates at a time.

The first game was worth 15$ for a row. So, there I was - sitting with 200 Americans going crazy over 15$. Maybe it's just because I normally play poker for 10-20 times that amount that it seemed strange to me. The next game was worth 20$. The game after that was then again worth 15$. So the prize kept changing along with the requirements for bingo. Sometimes you had to make a "T", others a circle around the edge etc. After about an hour I got a headache from staring at my plates because the announcer just drew numbers waaay to fast!

However, I woke up for the final game. 94$ for a full plate. I came close - I was only missing one number on two of my plates but some idiot won it before me!

But I guess I have to admit that I had good time... just don't tell anybody! :)

Midnight Pizza
After Bingo was over, Lotte and her roommates went home. Me and Thomas stayed for midnight pizza. This is a great concept! Free pizza and soda. This is really as good as it gets over here since the campus is dry (= NO ALCOHOL!). Anyway, Thomas and me got to talk to a couple of guys and it turned out that they all worked for the Community Center which, among other things, handles room transfers. So, I told them about my problems with Keith and they said that they would see if they could pull some strings.

That was Friday. Today it's Thursday and I did not get any response from them. So, I figured that I would just go talk to the boss-lady, Kim, who helped Glenn move up to Kozloff. I think I might have hit the jackpot, because she said "How soon can you move?" :D She told me that she would get the vice boss-man to call me tomorrow or today to arrange for my transfer...

Saturday
On Saturday, Lotte, Eduardo (Mexican), Thomas, Hugo and me went to Harry's. Harry's is a classical American bar with the brown wooden bar and all that stuff. We came just in time for happy hour, so drinks and Budweisers were only $3 (Vodka shots was $1). Thomas and Lotte went home around midnight but Eduardo asked if Hugo and me wanted to go to a birthday party he was invited to. Beforehand, Eduardo had drawn a map of where we had to go. Our moderately drunken eyes could not figure out the last part of the map, so we asked some random guys that we met if they knew were it was. At the same moment the Drunk Bus came by.

This is another good thing about Bloomsburg since there is no cabs. The Drunk Bus is an old yellow school bus that goes on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays until 02.30. You just get on, tell the bus driver where you need to go and he takes you there for free :D

So, we got on and gave him the address. 45 minutes and a lot of loops around campus later we were there. He dropped us off 100m from where we had gotten on the bus... but he was right. It was a very cool party, though. It was almost like in the movies with red cups and scary punch from a big ass container.

Today, Hugo asked me if I wanted to go to a frat (fraternity) party. If it wasn't because I have my first exam tomorrow, I would definitely go check that out. So, I hope some of you guys back home are glad that I'm actually giving my school a little bit of thought ;)

I think that was it for now... take care
Rasmus

College basketball

2010-02-03T22:04:00.003-05:00

Maybe I should do this post in English...

Anyways, me and Hugo went to a basketball game tonight between the Bloomsburg Huskies and Mansfield. It was pretty funny although the crowd seemed rather dead at times. The Huskies were up 8 points or so going into the 2nd period. However, in the end they trailed Mansfield 68-66 and with 0.3 seconds to go we got two penalty shots. The first one was good but the second bounced off the rim and we therefore lost by one point. Actually me and Hugo didn't know that the game was over since we thought it would last four periods... but in college basket they only play 2x20mins.

During one of the time-outs, I recorded a little video on my phone. Compared to Denmark, the cheerleaders are supertalents! Unfortunately, I did not record in another time-out when the pyramid collapsed... They just need a little more practice ;)

P.S I just ordered a new camera today :)

Bloomsburg - den første tid

2010-02-03T18:44:00.000-05:00

Hej Alle

Efter flere opfordringer har jeg endelig fået lavet denne blog. Jeg håber på at have tid til at opdatere den jævnligt. Smid endelig et par kommentarer engang i mellem! Jeg har efterhånden været her i Bloomsburg i lidt over to uger, og indtil videre har det været super.

Rejsen
Rejsen herover gik fint for mit vedkommende - Lotte blev lidt skidtmads i flyet, men det gik da :) Vi landede efter en lang rejse i JFK Airport i New York torsdag aften (14. jan). Vi havde arrangeret transport fra NY til Bloomsburg fredag morgen fra Newark Airport, der ligger ca. 40km fra JFK. Så vi havde booket et hotelværelse i Queens. Det var ret nice til prisen.

Fredag morgen tog vi så en taxa fra Queens til Newark - dette indebar en lille tur tværs over Manhattan :D Her er lige et par grovkornede billeder. Lotte tog dem mens vi sad i kø over en af de store broer. Regner i øvrigt med at få chancen for at tage nogle lidt bedre billeder på et senere tidspunkt.

I Newark skulle vi hentes sammen med et par andre udvekslingsstuderende. Efter en del kaos fandt vi alle hinanden. Kaosset bestod i, at vi bare havde fået at vide, at vi skulle være ved terminal C kl. 12 middag. Nu er terminal C en ret stor bygning med drop off/pick up i tre etager. Mig og Lotte løb ind i en belgier ved navn Thomas. Vi gik så helt tilfældigvis ud på den nederste etage. Lige da vi kom ud af døren så vi en mini-van med et skilt i ruden. Vi fik også selskab af en mexicaner, Andrea, men vi manglede stadig den sidste mand, inden vi kunne køre mod Bloomsburg 3 timer væk.

For at gøre en lang historie kort, så kørte vi rundt og rundt fra etage til etage i en halv times tid for at finde den sidste mand - en englænder ved navn Sam (Som i øvrigt har været tenniscoach for Gordon Ramseys og David Beckhams børn - nice). Vi fandt ham dog til sidst.

De første dage
Fredag eftermiddag havde vi så alle fået udleveret vores ID-kort, som også fungerer som nøglekort og betalingskort. Vi blev kørt op til vores lejligheder, men da vi kom, så vi, at er der kun var en seng, et skab, et skrivebord og en stol på værelset. Så Dr. Sharma, præsident for det internationale kontor, tilbød at køre os ud til Walmart for at købe sengetøj, mad, service osv. Det var en sjov oplevelse, men det sjoveste var nu, da vi kom ud på parkeringspladsen igen.

Den blå bil på billedet var hoppet ud af gear, trillet tværs over parkeringspladsen og smadret ind i vores bil. Så vi fik hilst på både politi og den 16-årige ejer af bilen - som ikke havde hørt at han var blevet kaldt over højtalerne flere gange, da han sad og græd fordi hans kæreste lige havde dumpet ham... talk about having a bad day! Men vi fik da købt det vi skulle.

Weekenden gik med et par ret ligegyldige informationsmøder.

Mount Olympus
Selve campus er delt op i Lower og Upper Campus. Lower Campus er der hvor alt undervisningen foregår. Det er også her de fleste dining faciliteter og administrative bygninger ligger. Derudover er der også en masse kollegier. Upper Campus ligger oppe på et lille bjerg. Deroppe ligger stadion, opvisningshal, baseball, tennis osv. Derudover er det også her de bedste lejligheder ligger. Jeg bor på Upper Campus i et område, der hedder Mount Olympus. Her har jeg mit eget værelse i en 6-mands lejlighed (nr. 2 "hoveddør" på billedet).

Det er nu meget rart, men væggene er meget tynde, så man kan faktisk næsten høre hvad hinanden tænker! Til at starte med var vi fem i lejligheden - to nedenunder og tre ovenpå (plads til 4 ovenpå). De to nedenunder er meget flinke, men de siger ikke så meget. De to ovenpå sammen med mig er to ekstremer. Den ene, Glenn, er rigtig cool. Den anden, Keith, er en komplet idiot! Ham og hans venner er ikke ligefrem guds bedste børn, og de larmede helt vildt den første uges tid. Det er dog blevet en smule bedre. Desværre for mig valgte Glenn at flytte op til nogle kammerater i sidste uge. Men jeg møder ham stadig tit på skolen, og det første han spørger mig om hver gang er "So when are you moving out?" Og jeg arbejder skam også på sagen... Jeg er nemlig blevet gode venner med en franskmand, Hugo, som bor lidt længere oppe af gaden. Hos ham står der et værelse tomt, så det håber jeg meget på at kunne blivet flyttet over i!

Problemer med fag
Efter den første weekend med intro, startede timerne først om tirsdagen. Mandag var Martin Luther King Jr. day, så der havde vi fri. Fra tirsdag til fredag var der "add/drop week", hvilket vil sige, at hvis man ville skifte fag, så skulle det gøres i den uge.
Jeg skal have fem fag herovre, men jeg havde kun fået fire på plads hjemme fra. Herovre kører de med forskellige levels af fag. Level 100, 200, 300 og 400. På forhånd vidste jeg, at jeg enten skulle tage fem level 200 eller ét level 100, ét level 300 og tre level 200. Der gik ret meget kaos i det, for jeg kunne ikke få noget level 300 fag. Enten var fagene fyldt, eller også havde jeg ikke de rette kvalifikationer til at tage dem. Så jeg blev nødt til at droppe det level 100 fag, jeg havde fået på plads inden. Nu manglede jeg altså to level 200 fag. Igen var problemet at mange af fagene allerede var fyldt, men onsdag troede jeg endelig, jeg havde fået det på plads. Nu skulle fagene bare godkendes af ASB. FAIL! Ét af dem ville de ikke godkende, så jeg skulle finde et andet. Det gjorde jeg så torsdag og fik det skam også godkendt.

Så nu har jeg følgende fag:
1. Intercultural Communication
2. PR: Theory and Practice
3. Online Journalism
4. Principles of Sociology
5. Principles of Management

Jeg har den samme professor til PR og Online Journalism. Han hedder Richard Ganahl, men vi kalder ham bare DrG :) Han er vildt sej! Han er en rigtig medie-mand, og han elsker sin nye iPhone. Han sagde, at sådan en skulle vi anskaffe os - han ville endda skrive en seddel til vores forældre om at de skal købe en til os :) Sociology er også ret spændende indtil videre. Det samme er Intercultural Comm - her har vi allerede set "Hotel Rwanda", og idag gik vi i gang med "Bend it Like Beckham".

Management burde egentlig være spændende, men vores lærer er bare så kedelig, at man tror det er løgn! (Se evt. hvad tidligere studerende har at sige om ham her) Jeg lagde faktisk mærke til, at der var en, der sad og sov i mandags...

Mit skema ser sådan her ud:

Mandag:
12-12.50 Sociology
15-16.15 Intercultural Comm
18-21 Management
Tirsdag:
9.30-10.45 PR
11-12.15 Online Journalism
Onsdag:
12-12.50 Sociology
15-16.15 Intercultural Comm
Torsdag:
9.30-10.45 PR
11-12.15 Online Journalism
Fredag:
12-12.50 Sociology

Jeg tror det var det for denne gang. Til sidst vil jeg bare lige sige, at jeg er positivt overrasket over mig selv! Jeg har kun spist på McDonald's én gang siden jeg kom!

Håber I har det godt derhjemme!