TravelStream™ news feed for member hookah87 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/hookah87 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:14:45 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227302160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227302160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227302160/tpod.html Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:14:45 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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Cleveland- Somewhere in Missouri, Ohio, United States

Welcome to
the show-me state, Missouri!
That's where we are, the road is long and straight and
everything around us is pretty much flat. We left Strongsville, Ohio
yesterday evening around 6pm which means that we have been on the road for
about 15 hours now. When we started it was a blizzard in Strongsville but we all agreed that we had to
finally get started with the trip after being delayed almost two days because
of the car renovation and some part that was very hard to find. we drove
through the snow chaos for about a half an hour and before we passed Lodi there wasn't any snow
anymore and there were stars on the sky! Sara fell asleep like a little baby. If
she would be a superhero her power could be falling asleep whenever she wants
to. This is really good because then when it is her turn to drive she can be
all rested and ready to drive. My power was to stay awake all night talking to
the drivers and read the map. It was
actually more fun then it sounds like and poor nick was not sleeping so well
and got woken up by giggles from the front seat every now and then. Well the
point is we made it driving all night long without too much problems and now we
are worried to get to Tulsa where we are gonna meet Alina, but way to early.



Yesterday
we stopped after driving about three hours in Columbus and introduced Sara to Mexican fast
food. Even more importantly we met Bethany and Pat for some coffee. We also
discovered that something was wrong with one of the front doors, it was
impossible to lock and I guess that's when we decided to drive all night
through...



So we have
seen both Indianapolis
and St.Louis´s skylines by night and when it finally got light outside again everything
was as flat as it was when we left, or flater. And now we are just driving and
driving and driving never turning and never up or down... §Malin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1228441740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1228441740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1228441740/tpod.html Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:10:31 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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Fresno, California, United States

Hej! Det var länge sen!

How are you
guys doing? We haven't come around to writing for a while...I hope you haven't
been worried! The last few days we have been living here in Fresno,
CA. which is the home town of Greg.
Fresno might
not be the most exciting city on earth but it's located close to some pretty
amazing national parks! We spent last night in Kings Canyon/
Sequoia park which was really cool. The Sequoias are the world's largest trees,
some of them more than 300
feet or 100 meter high! The park is situated high up on
a mountain, 7000 feet
above sea level!

The view was
stunning! The 3 of us hiked a 7 mile tour while Astrid and Greg waited by the car. We
were a bit afraid because of the fact that there are LOTS
of bears in the area!  All food must be
stored in specially made bear proof boxes. You are not even allowed to keep the
food in the car! (Bears crush cars if they smell food, Greg has seen it with
his own eyes).  It was here that the suspicious thudding sound coming from the bottom of the car started...one of those sounds that cant easily be ignored.  But for the life of us we could not find anything that could be making such a noise.

On our way
to Fresno we made a stop in a
place called Santa Barbara.

In the end
of the summer Malin and Nick met an American guy named Kieth at Lunds train station.
He had just gotten his Swedish Visa and was able to give Nick some tips about how to get his. Kieth just moved back to USA
two weeks ago (long story) and lives in Santa
Barbara so we decided to go and see him! We surprised
him and his mother, who were in their garden putting up Christmas decorations. Luckily
he recognized Malin and Nick and took us out for a guided tour in the pretty little town
of Santa Barbara! We saw the shore that all the famous people visit (butterfly beach), the pier and the
fabulous downtown! Santa Barbara is one of the
most expensive places in America
to live at, and a square meter and the local cemetery (with an ocean view!) costs
2 million dollars!!  That was all for now! Tomorrow we will go to San Fransicso, we will keep you updated! Peace. sara-nick-malin

 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227985260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227985260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227985260/tpod.html Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:06:23 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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Hollywood, California, United States

Hi! The Swedish invasion has now reached the pacific ocean!!
Yesterday me, Malin, Alina and Nick hooked up with Brian who was Malin and
Alina's mother's best friend when she was an exchange student in Colorado. He lives in Hollywood really near the Hollywood
boulevard so we walked down there from his house. We felt like real tourists as
we walked down the street looking at all the stars with celebrity names on
them. A member of the scientologist church tried to catch and convert us but we
escaped with the help of Brian's boyfriend Eric. As we got closer to the Grauman's Chinese theatre with foot and handprints of famous people in front there were
more and more tourists. There were also people dressed up as famous characters
like Batman and Jack Sparrow. My favorite was Homer Simpson. The footprints
were also really cool, it turned out that Nick has the exact same size feet as
Harry Potter! As it was Alinas last day on our trip (before she had to go home
to her host family in Oklahoma)
we had to do all the touristy typical LA stuff in one day! Luckily we had a
wonderful local guide. After the Boulevard we went up the hill to get a better
view of the Hollywood sign. We found an
amazing Observatory with a wonderful view over the LA skyline. Then we got in
the car again and drove thru Beverly hills on
our way to the shore in Santa Monica.
We didn't se any of the cast of the TV-series and not even the Peach Pit witch
was kind of disappointing for me who grew up watching the 90210! But we saw
some really impressive palm trees so i guess it was ok. The beach at Santa Monica was amazing;
we got there just in time to se the sunset! At this point we were all very
hungry so we went back to the house, picked up Eric and went to a Thai restaurant.
It turned out to be a really good choice of restaurant. After a while we discovered
that Cameron Diaz sat at the table next to us! A perfect way to finish a day in
Hollywood celebrity land!

The day before yesterday was also really wonderful. We went to a Thanksgiving
party at a Collage here in LA held for all the International students at the
school. The food was a amazing, it was actually the first time that I can think
of that I've actually have had turkey! After dinner all of us (Greg and Astrid,
Greg's mom, step dad, sister and uncle and me, Malin, Alina and Nick) went home
to a friend of Greg's mothers who lived in a house with 4 dogs and three cats!




Malin, Greg and Nick dropped Alina of at the airport this morning so now we are sitting in Greg's mom and step dads apartment dividing what we will do whit the rest of this day. I really want to go to Chinatown but we will see what happens. This was all for now!

Please make a comment (in swedish or english) so that we knows how you all are doing and so we can see who's following our trip!

Love
Sara, Nick and Malin.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816660/tpod.html Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:39:58 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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San Antonio, Texas, United States

At 3am this morning we got woken up by the motel phone ringing. It was kind of scary cuz we had no idea of what was going on! It was hard to fall a sleep again for some of us. Greg went down to the office to ask what it was all about, and appearantly there was a mistaken wake up call, either a prank or some sort of computer glich. After a second "meeting" with the manager in the morning we got a free night there out of it, non of us could really complain too much about it. We had a fast breakfast and then we went in to San Antonio and the Alamo. The Alamo is a battle ground where 183 settelers in texsas was outnumbered by the Mexican army defending Alamo for 13 days and were killed to the last man. This is a very important point in the Texsas history, and an even more important pilgrimage for Texans... since it helped the rest of the texsans to gather and fight for their independence from mexico... anyways, it was a pretty garden and a pretty old church, in the middle of san Antonio, filled with school kids and other tourists. This place is almost a religious mecca for some Texans! I cant get the thought of king of the hill out of my head when Hank teaches bobby about the Alamo! So after that we saw the famous river walk... a very impressive artificial river going thru the middle of shopping districts and restaurants. It was very beautiful with waterfalls, fountains, and palm trees. It was here in San Anton that I finally found my cowboy hat...Greg and I just found it extremely necessary to buy these. I mean a cowboy is something every little American boy has idolized. So needless to say Texas has treated us very well. Now I sit in the car after hours of driving with many more ahead of us. We drove through some very beautiful dessertous country with mesas, dry rolling hills filled with cactus and just some of the most amazing scenery in US. Now that its dark we have lost the thrill of looking out the window and found it a good enough time to type. We are headed to El Paso. This has new significance to me since my deceased best friend josh was born there. I was hoping to make a trip down to Big Bend park in south Texas but seeing as we need to make it to LA by thanksgiving we are slightly pressed for time. So pretty soon we'll be fixin to eat some supper. Goodnight y'all.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816720/tpod.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:49:08 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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El Paso, Texas, United States

after hours of driving....we stopped to eat at Taco Cabanna! We knew once we left Texas it would not be possible to eat at our beloved Tex-Mex restaurant. We even bought some extra tortillas for breakfast!
Texas was done it would be straight sailing for Los Angelas, everything was great in all of New Mexico. Then we got stopped by the immigration people. After pulling up they said, "are y'all american citizens?...no, Swedish?" This surprised us, how did they know? They said pull over and don't get out of the car. well, the point off the story is that all of us were very swedish looking girls and Nick was american citizen but still they had to double check us and since Malin didnt have her passport with her they had to check her up in the computer and ask her wierd questins in order to not send her back to mexico...?
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816480/tpod.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:09:32 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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Austin, Texas, United States

The next day we spent in Austin was incredible...after packing up the tent we drove into down town UT Austin campus. We walked around and realized we weren't dressed to impress, so we quickly found a Longhorn Team shop. Many of us came out sporting new threads. GO Longhorns! After all the shopping and what not...we decided to get some food, seeing that only two of us had ever been to chipotle, we decided to grab some burritos for lunch (by the way the definitely raised the prices of them, I dono what that's about). But all the Swedes definitely devoured the food. So seeing as I still didn't have a cowboy hat, and knowing that I can't leave Texas without one, and furthermore having passed two good opportunities to buy one (and feeling stupid for having not bought one) we walked about 14 blocks to a place where we thought they sold hats....to our disappointment they had the worst selection of fashionable cowboy wear in all of mid Texas. Oh well though, Greg's friend stopped by and hung out with us for a while. We didn't really have anything good on our list to do so we decided to go to the Texas capital building. That was an interesting experience. Hmm what did we see there, well nothing extraordinary, but there was a picture of George Bush on the wall, lots of pictures of the fight for independence, and a really big ceiling in the center of the building. Well after that we decided to do something everyone who goes to Austin must do....the Congress Bridge. Every dusk in Austin, under the congress bridge, one can witness thousands of bats flying out of their sleeping in a continuous stream for about 15 minutes...it was a very different kind of experience. And what would cap off a day better then whataburger, said quickly by a native Texan, "water burger." Greasy, fatty, good Texas food. And now we sit in yet another motel 6 in San Antonio. In case anyone cares the song of the trip is "All my ex's live in Texas." Tomorrow the Alamo.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227816060/tpod.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:08:41 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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Fort Worth, Texas, United States

Now we are in Austin, Texas, at Greg's grandfathers. We have spent the night in our portable three bedroom apartment in his lovely garden. Two days ago, we left Oklahoma to go to Dallas. We wanted to visit the famous Cowtown and dance the night away with the cowboys! Yeeehaa! We had heard that all the Cowboys go to a place called "The Honkeytonk" so we went there! The Honkeytonk was like a department store with all you need in entertainment, bull riding, dancing, food, bars, gift stores and live country music! The bull riding was exiting but I felt sorry for the bulls... I myself wouldn't want heavy cowboys on my back!
We spent the night in Fort Worth in a motel 6. The next day we went to a Waffle house for breakfast. "Fett och grisigt," as Nick would have said! But it was nice. I had waffles with pecans and warm syrup :D After that we went back to Cowtown to buy some cowboy hats. In a store we met a woman who asked where we were from in "Sweden" we said and she was like "oh, I have a friend in Sweden, in whore" and we where like "in Höör?!? You must be kidding!" but she was not. Random! There is people in Sweden that doesn't even know that Höör exists...In the evening we arrived to Austin and were met by real Texsas hospitality. We had a wonderful dinner on the porch together with Gregs grandfather, his girlfriend Billy and his uncle Chuck.. after that we had a good time by the fire makin s´mores which also was something new for some of us. In the middle of our conversation about all the scorpions and poisonous spiders that lives in the yard we were about to sleep in, we got company from an opossum calmly walking by on the fence. Since coming into Texas there wasn't a drop of rain, so going to bed without a cloud in the sky we thought heck with the rain fly. Well at about 6 o'clock in the morn we were woken by the pitter patter of rain, so we scrambled to put on the rain fly which didn't seem to fit but effectively stopped the rain, latterly it stopped raining before we were back in our sleeping bags, oh well. ByeYaalll as we say it in Texas.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227365520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227365520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hookah87/1/1227365520/tpod.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:20:34 -0500 Swedish Invasion

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Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States

Oklahoma came out of the Missouri plains... "it looks just like Missouri!" but that quickly changed. All the leaves were brown, all the grass was brown, all the cattle were laying around the prarie. It sounds boring but in all reality Oklahoma´s rather beautiful. Rolling prarie greeted us as we closed into Tulsa. Upon arrival we headed to Alina´s host-fathers place in the suburbs of Tulsa, but since he was not home we decided to find some lunch and wait. Well the three of us grabbed some subway and found a park....after eating we slept like we were at the beach. There was not a cloud in the sky and under the sun it must have been about 70 degrees. I was wondering if we were the only ones that thought it was so incredible weather...all the oakies were wearing coats. So after our Mann, Mark Mann came home we went there and showered and relaxed.
Alina, Gregorious, and Astrid our other traveling party arrived and it was off to the church dinner. There we were welcomed with reral Oakie hospitality and fed. It was a nice evening...after we got back Sara and i quickly fell asleep and when I woke up everyone was busy getting ready for Sara´s 20th birthday!!!! Grattis på födelsdagen Sara!

So what we did in Tulsa....well,, we when to a RODEO! The one thing I wanted to do down here. And It was not dissapointing...they had womens barrel riding featured. This is where a women on a horse rides out of the shoot, around one barrel then to another one across from it, a third one and then straight back into the shoot. It was pretty impressive. A good time was about 16 seconds, but if they would knock over a barrel they would be slapped with a 5 second penalty. Pretty stiff. That was all good fun so then we decided to go to a western wear store and look for boots and hats. Greg bought a pair of ropers and I wanted a hat to go with my boots, but man are they pricey. So we will wait until Fort Worth.

until then we are in Oklahoma city...today we will get on the road again to Dallas-Fort Worth.
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