Articles.

Today was a rather busy day I must admit. But fun though, I’ve god to know the city a bit better, and I saw a peek of the Golden Gate in the distance, but first things first.

So today I woke up at 4am, reason being – apparently the campus housing buildings switch off all heating at night.

The day before I had managed to get myself a pillow, and a pair of sheets, no quilt cause I figured I could just leave the heater on, and I would be fine for at least the first night. ..So I was wrong, and so at 4am I woke up absolutely freezing, probably 7 degrees C outside, and perhaps 10 or 11 inside. At least that’s what it felt like. So I’ve been up since 4am this morning, maybe I got a few minutes extra, but nothing that saved my day. So I had a long Skype chat with Mari, before I went off to campus to my 10.30 ESL (English as a Second Language) appointment.

On the way I decided to stop by Wells Cargo in order to get my US bank account setup, and so I did. 45 ins later I stepped outside with my first checkbook of all time. I thought this was 2010, but apparently americans are still using this form of payment. So once that was done I rushed down to campus to meet with the ESL staff. When I got there we received a pencil and a piece of paper, and I was told to pick between two topics and write an essay of three paragraphs or more.. in 20 minutes. The topic I chose was “Please describe your best vacation ever, and what made it so special” – So I started writing about my trip to Dubai last spring, and about 10 minutes later I had filled the entire paper. I looked over at the people sitting around me, and I realized many of them were struggling with finding something to write, or how to write it I guess. Some of them were still on their first paragraph, so I quickly realized I was in the wrong place, and fortunately so did the ESL staff, and so they grabbed my essay and two minutes later I was pulled out of the class, and told I didn’t have to be there as I was such a special case, and then into “an interview” with two faculty members at the graphic design department I think. So we talked for 5 minutes about me and norway etc, before I was told that I could leave, and they saw no reason to bother me with the ESL program, which I was delighted to hear. :)

Then I went to see my student advisor, and we went over my waived classes, and so we agreed that I should have a meeting with the department director of the new media dept. or something like that. So that will probably be my plans for tomorrow or monday. Then I went down to Market to sign-up for a cellphone plan with at&t for my iPhone. I actually had to pay a $500 deposit because I don’t have a social security number, what a waste of money.. fortunately I will get them back in a year.. yeah.

Then I sat down a few hours at the Starbucks across the street while waiting for Bjørn and Morten to get a car to go to IKEA. I had to find myself a quilt, so I decided to join them. In the mean time I went a few blocks down and into the Apple Store on Market, huge store with everything mac/apple accessories and macs of course. It was a little piece of heaven, I’ll check back there next week after the Jan. 27th event, and the new tablet might have been released.

A few moments later I met up with Bjørn and Morten, who hadn’t managed to get a car due to a cranky lady at the car rental who claimed their drivers licenses weren’t international. So instead we took the Bart out to IKEA between Berkley and Oakland, and had a good time enjoying swedish meatballs and a glass of Pepsi which wasn’t anything like Pepsi.. We took the Bart back, and I carried two huge blue bags almost all the way up Powell St, which was kind of a pain in the ass.. So by all means a pretty long day. Now the clock has just passed nine, but I’m so beat, and without any internet in my apartment yet I think I’ll just jump into bed. I’ll try to check out Fisherman’s Wharf and Lombard Street tomorrow, the weather reports say that it might be a sunny day, so that would be a perfect way to spend my saturday.

Quite a long post this, but if you’re still reading this, then I can tell you that now I’m done writing this. Thanks for reading.