The time of my life

What we are listening to here in SoCal....

2008-11-12T21:58:00.001-08:00

Miscellaneous

2008-11-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Our neighbors moved out last week and since we'd "shared" their wireless Internet connection it's kind of a hassle right now to go online and keep this blog up to date. I'll try me best to recall everything that has happened over the last couple of weeks.

Well, first of all we went on a rock climbing trip, which was part of our University class. Pretty cool, even though we had to get up at 5:45 in order to get there in time. It was worth it!

Last week we drove up to Santa Barbara, the "Mekka" for people celebrating Halloween. It was sick! Thousands of people, many cops arresting and fining people for drinking on the streets. Imagine carnival in Cologne without being allowed to drink in public. Hard to imagine...

Unforgettable!

How was your day, honey?

2008-10-19T17:59:00.002-07:00

Well, it wasn't too bad I'd say. We got up quite early, drove up to La jolla Shores and went snorkeling with Leopard Sharks!

That's actually quite a popular thing to do around here. The scary part wasn't swimming right next to them, we were kind of scared when we came back home. Sound funny, huh?So, we would come home after a surfing in Mission Beach (saw some dolphins..) and check out our new friend the Leopard Shark on Wikipedia and other related Websites to find out:

Quote: The leopard shark is slim and has a small mouth which is used to suck up invertebrates on the ocean floor. Although leopard sharks have small teeth, they swallow their food whole, without chewing. Leopard sharks feed on crustaceans and other invertebrates that live in mud and sand, like worms and crabs.

Still not scary in fact. Actually we were aware of them not being dangerous for humans. But what we saw on the shore, right where we went into the water, was a seal, a baby seal in fact with a hugh hole in it's side, offering us a spectactular view of its guts, rib cage an other things you normally don't like to see. So what we first thought was this: Leopard Sharks are not dangerous for us, but they apperently feed on seals. No big deal, because the seal we saw was much smaller then we are, so we would't have to worry, right? According to the definition provided above, that attack couldn't possibly have been a Leopard Shark's. It must have been another species who might also be a danger to us...We'll never know what it was, but it must have been another type of shark. They are out there:-)

Youtube video

2008-10-19T17:59:00.001-07:00

Goodbye my love!

2008-10-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Sarah had to go back home. 6 weeks can pass so quickly, oh boy! Since her flight departed from LAX on late Saturday afternoon we decided to drive up to LA on Friday and stay in Venice for the night.

Sticking to my principles I'll let pictures tell you the rest of the story...

San Diego County:

Orange County:

Newport Beach: Tasty burrito! (Finally we've figured out the one thing we didn't like in our burritos right from the start: CILANTRO = Koriander)

Los Angeles:

Santa Monica: Got ripped off big time. We paid 8 Dollars at a car park and left shortly after because the Pier was boring and it was way too cold outside.

I'll post some pictures of Venice Beach as soon as I upload them to my notebook. Anyways, from now on, actually the first time since we got here, we're living on our own. Just Mehmet, Patrick and me. We'll see how it's gonna work out:-) We're probably gonna live right in the middle of a massive mess, but it'll be fine!

Sarah, thanks for those wonderful weeks. I love you!

Quick update...

2008-10-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

Well, what has happened here recently? Let me think...

It's unnaturally hot for this time of the year, even during the nights:

The waves are getting bigger from day to day...

The burritos are still tasting the same: DELICIOUS

I've got my last midterm coming up...

and... I almost forgot: There's been a stabbing right in front of the University's recreation centre last Saturday night:"One man dead and three wounded in violent street fight". After a party. Not here at the beach. So we're safe....

++++News+++News+++News+++

2008-10-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody.

Quite a few things have happened during the last couple of days. I had my first midterms, we went to the Zoo and the Wild Animal Park and had a "bad taste" party last night, which was just hilarious! Check it out!

WILD ANIMAL PARK & ZOO

Latest impressions!

2008-09-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth more than a thousand words!

The following pictures were taken on various spots during the last Week that Benny stayed at our place.

Enjoy:

Benny's last night @ HOOTERS! (I guess this was one of the best days of his life:-)

Del Mar

Yet another party

On Campus

That's all folks... for now. To be continued...

P.S. We went to Tijuana two days ago. In the end it turned out to be a bad decision. Tijuana sucks! At least the particular part of town where we had to get off the bus. People were trying to verbally drag us into their shops, brothels, restaurants or whatever establishment they were running. Some of them even offered us Viagra or 'anything you want'. It was a very strange and bizarre trip that only took 45 minutes and is not to be repeated again!

Patrick's birthday... or just an excuse to have another big barbecue

2008-09-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we celebrated Pat's birthday and some people came over to our place. We'd bought some beef, corn on the cob, maybe a few beers:-) and a great variety of barbecue sauces and made his birthday a true "American" one.

If we keep on eating as much as last night (by the way: Simon had 4 steaks, 9 sausages, a big baked potate, and about half a gallon of "Bull's Eye" steak sauce) we're probably gonna end up like this hottie we ran across a few days ago...

By the way, from now on I'll keep posting more and bigger pics. Benny just introduced me to a tiny but powerful program that lets me resize my jepg's really easily. The time it took to upload them before was the main reason I've been quite lazy to post pics.

Anyways, to show you how glad I am to finally have found such a program, here you go...

Benny on his air bed:

Sarah and Crystal preparing the corn on the cob:

San Diego Downtown and Gaslamp Quarter:

Pacific Beach ... and other stuff!

2008-09-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

Goodbye OBI:

After 4 really funny but exhausting weeks living in the Ocean Beach International hostel, we finally made it to our own condo in Pacific Beach. When we fist got here everything looked like a mess but after a 2h session of "extreme room service" we were almost all set.

We had bought a few pieces of furniture from the previous tenants and as we're not demanding anything more than the "basics" our appartment was ready to move in shortly after.

Accessories for the bathroom and the kitchen were bought in a Thrift Shop (we even got a student discount on the BEAUTIFUL crap we purchased there:-) We were thrilled.

Some pics for ya:

Right now 6 people are living in our 2 bedroom app. and after picking up Benny at the airport tonight we'll be 7. Quite cozy, as you can imagine. Anyways, everybody is happy and our decision to move to this exact spot turned out to be a very good one. People who were visiting us confirmed our place to be a real beauty...

As far as you're interested (some more, some less:-) in the progress I'm making at University, I'm all set. I'm taking 3 IDS and Marketing classes and 2 sports classes in order to fill up my schedule to the 12 unit limit. Well, to those whom it may concern, I'm enrolled both in a rock climbing and a beginners surfing class. Yes, that's right. Surfing is considered a science here in California.

Speaking of surfing. Last week we were part (at least Patrick, who actively participated) of a huge paddling event called "Paddle for clean water". Hundreds of surfers paddled around the OB peer as a part of an annual protest campaign.

Well, we've had enough of words! Let the pictures talk!

P.S. One day we drove up to Orang Couty to check the beaches and surfshops, just in case you're wondering where some of the pics were taken.

It's been a while...

2008-09-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry! But a lot of things are happening right now. Sarah arrived on September 1st, University classes started right the next day and we're STILL living in the hostel, which is the main reason for not posting for such a long time. Things will get better as soon as we move in to our own place, which will be next Monday, FINALLY.

As some of you may know, foreign students aren't allowed to register for their classes in advance which means, that we have to "crash" the classes. Crashing aperently is a pain in the ass, because what you have to do is run around campus the whole day begging the professors to sign your crash form, which they normally won't:-) To make a long story short, I've got the classes that I wanted, but still I have to enroll in two sports classes in order to comply with my Visa regulations.

I'll post some pictures soon but I haven't uploaded them to my laptop yet. And for now, the part y in the hostel must go on.

Take it easy

Update

2008-08-30T11:17:00.001-07:00

Hey folks. Nothing much has happened over the last few days, so I'll keep it short and "basic".

"Basic", that was the word our car insurance broker used at least 20 times:-) But still, our car is insured by now and we're not driving around illegally anymore. The others even got pulled over by the police yesterday night and everything just went fine. That's our ride by the way!

Probably I will post some more news later on. Gotta go...

Dude, where's my car at?

2008-08-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

We keep on riding the "lucky wave".

Since we have to return our rental car the day after tomorrow we finally need an own car. Weighing up the alternatives, we decided to buy a car instead of a long term rental.

Question: Where do you buy a car?

Answer: At our hostel!

As a matter of fact Patrick and me were just returning from the beach last night at about 3 AM talking about our car problem... when, all of a sudden, we saw a FOR SALE sign inside a Jeep parked right in front of our hostel. We doubled up laughing about the coincidence and decided to give it a try. We placed a note with our mobile numbers and indicated our interest in the car. It turned out that the car is in a very good shape and the owners are a couple from Switzerland staying at ou hostel leaving tomorrow:-)

We met up today instantly connecting with those guys ending up not only buying the car but also their surfboards. How good can it get? Problem solved. As Chaz, a local working at a surf shop would put it: Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

I'll post a picture soon.

I think all of this is happening just because of a little fortune cookie I got after eating in a Chinese restaurant. All it said was: You can achieve anything you want. Sweeeeeet!

Long time... no see

2008-08-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Even if I don´t have to apologize for not posting here I´ll do it anyway. I just didn´t have the time;-)

Things are just going fine here. We rented a car, a Ford Thunderbird V8, found a place to live right away (people are having a real hard time finding something close to the beach: we were lucky to find a 2 br. appartment just 2 blocks away from the beach in PB, Pacific Beach) and basically I´m having the time of my live.

OB (Ocean Beach, the part of San Diego where the hostel is at) is just such a great place to be.

See Google Maps

It´s calles "Hippie Town" and the people living here, as well as those guys staying at the hostel are just so laid back, it´s amazing. We've been going to the the beach every day, renting body boards most of the times, trying to catch the "perfect wave"...

The school's orientation week is about to start tomorrow so I'll let you know what University will be like. We went there once, and it's simply astonishing. Nothing compared to Koblenz:-)

Anyway, I'm on the run. Later skater!

A lot of things...

2008-08-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

...can happen in just 3 days! I just say: Queens, Philadelphia, Washington D.C.

Back on Friday we got up, had a nice breakfast at Big Daddy´s and decided to explore yet another part of NYC: Queens. Even if it involved a lot of walking around, we didn´t regret this decision at no point. For those of you who know or like the TV show "The King of Queens", the following spots could be familiar:-)

The following morning at about 8 am we finally set out for a rather big trip- NYC--> Philadelphia--> Washington D.C. --> NYC in 36 hrs.

To make a long story short. The trip was simply amazing. Philly is a nice city with lots of places of historical interest: Liberty Hall with its Liberty Bell, just to name the most important.

After just 5 hrs in Philly we caught the next Greyhound to Washington D.C. (stops in Wilmigton, Baltimore, White Springs) and after a 4 h ride we fortunately found a Motel instantly, ordered a Pizza and some Buffalo Wings and swithced on the TV just in time to watch the triumphs of Michael Phelps and the hilarious 100 m world record of the "Lightning Bolt".

If I wanted to accurately desribe the unforgettable impressions we got from Americas capital, that would definitively take too long so I´m keeping it short. We´ve probably seen all the famous sites (The White House, the Capitol, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, FBI Building etc.), including the Archives which house the Declaration of Independence (signed in Liberty Hall in Philly), the Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights and the original Constitution.

Totally exhausted but still happy we boarded the bus back to NYC at about 5 pm and after a five hour ride we finally got back to where we started from.

NYC: Update

2008-08-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

Right now I don´t know what´s bigger: Manhattan or the blisters on my feet? I´ve been walking around A LOT! Since I´m not much of a storyteller here´s just an overview

of what I´ve seen or what I´ve visited:

Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown, Riverside Park, Brooklyn Bridge (@ night), large parts of the Central Park, Madison Square Garden, Greenwich Village, Times Square, NYSE...

.... and last night: the Empire State Building, especially the 86th floor...

That´s it for now! Enjoy the view:-)

NYC: First impressions of the Big Apple

2008-08-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I arrived in NYC after a long and quite stressful trip. Instantly I was blown away both by the size and the beauty of this city.

I took a cab from JFK to my hostel and after meeting with good ol' Benny and killing a cockroach trying to sneak into my room we almost directly took the Metro to 5th Avenue starting to explore the city until I was too tired to go on and we headed back to our hostel (which apparently is a Catholic house now giving shelter to somebody definitely irreligious, ME!:-)

Today I was on my own, since Benny had to work and I made the best out of it. 6 hours of hardcore walking up and down Manhattan and looking like a dumbass tourist. Frankly, I didn´t give a fuck. Starting at Grand Central I made my way down to Bowling Green and took the Ferry to Staten Island.

After I got back to Manhattan I forced my way back North. Wall Street, City Hall, World Trade Center Site, Madison Square Park, Union Square... just to name a few highlights. Now I´m back in the Kolping House eagerly waiting for dinner! I will keep you guys informed about what´s going on here.

First, well second post

2008-07-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

this is my first real post on this blog. As all of you visiting this site know, I will be going to study in San Diego this fall semester. Even if it´s gonna be quite a task, I´m trying to keep posting in English. Hopefully you will see a steady improvement in my language skills over time:-)

Time´s all you need...

So guys, not even two weeks left until I catch the plane to New York. As soon as I get there I will actually start to inform you about my "adventure" on a regular basis.

Cheers

Christian

Welcome

2008-07-18T02:09:00.001-07:00

to my blog...