Author: Blueadmin

The last days in San Diego went by quickly with visits to the beach and hanging out with awesome people. We found a magical little place by the harbor, with beach shops and old American style trinkets stores. The place was also home to a bookstore/café with furniture that seemed taken out of Alice in Wonderland. Imagine if I liked it. Earlier this week I also got to see my dad’s cousin and his wife who live in San Diego. It was such a delight to finally meet some of my distant relatives in California! We went to Coronado, a peninsula in San Diego, and had some delicious food at a restaurant just by the water. I had a great time! 🙂

So a sudden change of events have occurred. I met a guy from Switzerland (the country that people mix up with Sweden) at the hostel in San Diego and he was going to Las Vegas next. So I decided to tag along before I continue more up north. In a dark blue convertible ford mustang we set off for the road trip this morning, but not before visiting the USS Midway. It’s an old army ship from the second world war, which they’ve turned into a museum. Really cool place! I even found an Jurassic Park like kitchen.

 

I am now in Las Vegas and the city is just as vibrant as portrayed in the movies. I cannot imagine how much electricity it takes to power this city… Tomorrow we’ll be going to visit the Grand Canyon. So I should probably get some sleep in the Hostel Cat, the hostel we’re staying the night at. No, you don’t actually sleep in the trailer.

 

Sunshine and a soft breeze was in the air today. I slept in this morning and joined a few people from the hostel in the afternoon. We went to Ocean Beach and visited a restaurant with the theme of Bali. I had some spring rolls (really tasty) and a Mai Thai, which was the strongest cocktail I’ve ever tried. The drink was disgusting to be honest and I failed to finish it. The Restaurant offered an iconic view of the ocean and the other side of San Diego. We continued to a beer brewery which had a beautiful garden and heaters so it was very comfy to sit outside.

Moving on we went to a Farmer’s market nearby and enjoyed looking at random trinkets and listening to great street performances. A Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha later we continued back to the hostel to get ready for the weekly Pub Crawl.

Some of the hostel friends and I went for sushi at a place called Bang Bang, which had a lot of interesting Japanese styled things to offer. For example, a bathroom completely wallpapered with Ryan Gosling. A tiny bit creepy. I taught my friends how to take Sake Bombs, like my friends taught me in Pomona, and we had some really tasty sushi and miso soup. I chose the salmon skin rolls, crispy and so delicious!

Afterwards, we joined the others for the pub crawl and went to an amazing place called the Shouthouse. The special thing about the Shouthouse was that the entertainment consisted of two guys dueling each other on pianos. Two pianos were put together center stage and the guys took turns playing songs and occasionally singing together. My friends told me I should sing with them and I asked if it was okay, but open mick with them cost 20 bucks, which I thought was a bit too much. Of course they have to make money somehow. The most beautiful thing happened then. All the wonderful people I met at the hostel chipped in and collected 20 dollars for me to be able to sing. My heart was filled to the tip with joy and love at this gesture. I went up and sang Nothing Compares by Sinead O’Connor and had a good amount of people cheering for me. A few even came up to me afterwards to compliment me. Wow. My head was in the clouds for the rest of the night.

Yesterday, I tried Frozen Yoghurt for the first time in the US. It is really popular and was surely worth a try. You could choose as many flavors as you wanted, for example New York cheesecake and Chocolate Twilight. Then you chose some toppings, like fresh fruit, cookie dough and pieces of walnuts. Finally you added some kind of sauce, in my case it was chocolate sauce, of course. It was delicious! I really loved that it was self-served, so you were totally in control of the amounts of everything 🙂 Awesome!

Today we went exploring Ocean Beach by spending some time there meditating and throwing Frisbee. We continued on to Sunset Cliffs where we sat and watched the crashing waves. We were even sprayed by the ocean water once. My dress was soaking wet, but I still had a smile on my face.

A had some lunch the Italian cafe near the hostel and got the waiting number one. Oh yeah. I ordered a delicious scrambled eggs, salmon and mozzarella plate. Good food – happy soul.

This Tuesday was Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. It was celebrated in the streets of San Diego with parades and performances. Unfortunately it cost 30 dollars to see the festivities so me and some people from the hostel chose to celebrate in a different way. Tuesday is also Taco Tuesday so we wandered down the streets of Little Italy and found a Mexican restaurant called Hola. I had the smallest taco ever. We had plenty of nachos with dip too so I did not leave hungry. Margaritas was a given on the menu during happy hour so of course we all had some. Then it was time for karaoke. I decided to attempt to honor Queen and sang Somebody to Love. I acquired some beads for the performance, so when we later moved on to a club downtown, I fit right in with the crowd wearing bead covered necklaces. It was a perfect Mardi Gras!

This past two days have been kind of lazy. Thankfully I have a nice room to chill out in. Here are pics from above my bed and the adjacent Wall of Fame 🙂 Can you find me?

It stopped raining last night and we had a lovely jam session in the front garden. Passing around the guitar and singing covers. I also played a few original songs.

I had another jam session today when we visited La Jolla shore here in San Diego. Even though it had stopped raining it wasn’t very warm, but cozy enough with a few layers on. The view was stunning and a few seagulls kept me company as my friends went surfing. I wrote a new song where I sat in the soft sand. “May be stuck at the bottom, but there’s only one way up”

Yesterday, I arrived in San Diego. I’ve heard so many good things about it, so I am truly excited to be here. So far I haven’t seen much of the place. This would be because a rainstorm started on Friday, all over the South of California. This is the first time I experienced rain in Cali, and it won’t soon be forgotten. On Friday I went to Apple Valley to watch my friend’s live gig, it was great fun! I then travelled back to Pomona on Saturday and during both car journeys the weather was pretty okay. However, the case was not the same when I carpooled with a friend to San Diego on Saturday. The rain was relentless. Pouring down on the freeway, making it hard to see. It was splattering the windshield with heavy droplets. Large puddles had formed along the way, and or aquaplaning was recurrent. My carpooling driver and I were pretty scared. When we arrived to San Diego safe and sound we thanked our lucky stars.

For the first time this trip, I am staying at a hostel. I imagine it can only be a great experience. The International Travelers House Adventure Hostel is a small and intimate refuge for international travelers from all over the world. It features wonderful pieces of art on the walls of every room. The first impression I got can be narrowed down into one word: Welcoming. Just in one day I have met a lot of cool people. I went out to a cafe nearby today and got some scrambled eggs and gelato. First meal out in San Diego was a great success! 🙂 Strangely enough they did serve orange juice, which regardless of the sign was not hot, thankfully.

Last night, I performed I private live acoustic gig for all the other guests at the hostel. It seemed much appreciated and it may well become a tradition during my stay here.

I feel so lucky for having music in my life. It is such a profound source of happiness.

Today, I decided to get a lifelong souvenir from Pomona. A memory that won’t fade in the first place. As mentioned before, I’ve fallen completely in love with the city of Claremont. The first time I visited the town, I browsed a small retro boutique filled with a variety of objects. One thing that I found was a postcard, a small piece of art with a design that hit me spot on. The picture featured a girl with magenta colored hair, a red striped bow and eyes blue as the ocean. It had an air of mystery and wonder. It instantly made me think of Alice In Wonderland. My path was clear. “I want this as a tattoo”, I thought. I had never felt so sure of anything. It would be the perfect memory of wonderful Cali. Of course I wanted to link it to Pomona, where I’ve spent so much time. There is one tattoo place in downtown Pomona, so today, a few weeks after the event in Claremont, I visited the tattoo place called Ink’d Chronicles. One of the artist names was Sean Kreitlow – perfect since the house I’m staying in harbors three Sean’s – and we had no problem communicating and exchanging ideas. Soon the plan was formed and we got to work.

 

Now, I want to share a bit more background when it comes to the design. I started researching the artist, Mab Graves, before I got the tattoo. The picture I found in Claremont, had put high expectations on her skills, and I was not disappointed. Browsing her website, I found countless of wonderful pieces of art. She even has a collection called Candyland, which features the same air as I express in my song Garden of Unicorns. Her pictures feel fantasy based, with a hint of sadness. This got me more intrigued and after a bit more research I found out that we share sources of inspirations. Fairytales and stories, like Alice in Wonderland. Like I, she seems to find the madness part of it most fascinating. If you feel like checking out her work, click here.

Truly inspiring!

So finally, here’s my baby. My first tattoo, based on the original piece of art “Sophia and the Shatterclaw” by Mab Graves.

I’m back on the blog and also back in Pomona for a few days. I have some great stories and photos to show from this past week when my friend was visiting from Sweden. Our week started out by going to Universal Studios. We went on 3D rides, saw the mechanics of special effects and went on tour behind the scenes where parts of the top movies of all times have been recorded. It was a lot of fun! We also wandered along the Citywalk, just outside of Universal Studios and ended up doing iFly. iFly is a vertical wind tunnel, like indoors skydiving. It was insane!

 

The day after we went to Venice Beach in Culver City, LA. Walking along the boardwalk you could see a variety of booths selling art, rare objects and henna tattoo. It was also crowded with street performers. Dancers, musicians and even freak shows. We had some lunch along the way at a corner place called Poke Poke. Similar to sushi, only you got it in a small bowl, rice, tuna and seaweed mixed together. I also tried Funnel Cake for the first time. It kind of tasted like waffles with strawberry jam and whipped cream. Delicious!

Later this week we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita to go on the most crazy rollercoasters I’ve ever experienced. It was like nothing I’ve ever been through before. Rollercoasters with a variety of loops, slopes and positioning. Tatsu, was a clear favorite. The seats were positioned underneath the tracks and your body in a horizontal position. It was like flying! It was also very fast and even had a large inverted loop, so strange! Goliath was also one of my personal favorite. An enormous rollercoaster built with steep vertical drops and high velocity. What a day!

We then continued on to Santa Barbara, a city by the coast a bit outside of LA. It had a downtown which actually offered walking distance to different parts of the city, a rare situation in the states from what I’ve seen so far. It was a really pretty town with a lot of small boutiques along the sidewalk. We sat down with the homeless for a while and played a few songs for them. Then we continued to the pier and street performed a bit. We also visited a Salt Cave downtown where you could get different kinds of salt treatments like massage, scrub and also inhaling salt particles for cleansing. We skipped the treatments but got to visit the cave for a while anyway. It was unique. We also went to do some chocolate tasting. Truffles of Santa Barbara are truly delicious!

The last day we spent in downtown LA by the Hollywood Walk of Fame and took pictures with the stars. We ate lunch at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles which I’d heard a lot of positive things about. I was not disappointed. Such a friendly staff and food consisting of fried chicken and a tasty waffle covered in maple syrup. So unhealthy, but so good! We continued to Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum, which as expected was a strange experience. So many weird facts. Fascinating!

      

We finished off the week by going to The LA Gun Club to try out some real guns. It was the first time I fired a real gun. It was very loud in there and we wore both ear plugs and the large ear protection to decrease the noise. At first we shot a regular hand gun and I was surprised about how much you had to tense your body to soften the recoil. It was an experience but not my cup of tea. So when my friend decided to try an AK-47 I stood by the sidelines and watched him shoot the picture of a zombie.

So now I’m back in Pomona for a few days and will probably be going back to Apple Valley for a few days this weekend to record some music with a friend. The weather is still amazing and I love California. Thankfully I still have half of my trip to go 🙂

When I was in Monterey during my first week in the states I went to explore Pacific Grove by bike. I had to bike down a long hill and everything went so well, especially since I haven’t biked in a year, until I was getting off the bike. Then I fell off and felt really stupid. I got away with some bruises and minor scrapes on my right shin. I was just embarrassed when passer byes asked if I was okay.

I continued my exploration by visiting Lover’s Point, a beautiful beach by the bay in Pacific Grove. I sat by the cliffs surrounding it and read for a while. After that I took my bike along the shore and enjoyed the sunshine. I passed the beach with seals that I saw once before, only this time an enormous elephant seal was taking up space next to the smaller harbor seals. I explored the surroundings, a local art gallery and enjoyed reading by the beach as the tide was coming in. The sound of the waves crashing was soothing and I worshiped the sun on my face. What a beautiful day!

The day after, Johan’s grandmother took me to see the local hospital up in Forrest Hill. When we arrived and I saw the façade, I couldn’t help thinking that we must have come to the wrong place. The architecture of the building was exquisite, and it was not a big surprise when I heard that one of California’s leading architects was responsible for the blueprints. Well inside I did a double take, trying to grasp the beautiful environment and the fountain taking up most space in the large cafeteria. Was this a hotel? A spa? No, it was a hospital built from a patient centered point of view. I could totally see how this calm atmosphere, zen-like inner garden and art covered walls could make people instantly well. Have a look and see for yourself.