Saturday, November 24, 2007
Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas :-)
Even though Christmas decorations are in the stores earlier and earlier every year, even side by side with Halloween decorations, the Christmas season starts the day after Thanksgiving for me. Black Friday for my family does not mean waking up early and starting Christmas shopping, for us it means cutting down our Christmas tree. Yes that is correct, we actually cut down our own tree. We wake up reasonably early, pack the dog and our whole family (and this year that included my boyfriend and his family and my little brother's girlfriend) and we drove to Apple Hill. Apple Hill is infamous in Northern California for amazing apple donuts, cider, pies, carmel apples, and the list goes on and on. Its about 1/2 way between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe. We drive up there and get breakfast at this hole in the wall place called The Wagon Wheel. And then we go to this Christmas Tree Farm and Apple Orchard place called th Harris Tree Farm. They provide the saws and 6 foot poles so you can measure how big your tree is. They have all kinds- cedar, silver tip, pine. And you wander around the farm to find the perfect tree just like you would anywhere else. But then once you find the perfect tree (and with 6 people in my family that always takes awhile for us to all agree) then we get to cut it down ourselves. You get a little sappy but its so much fun. Once we cut down our tree we all eat apple cider and apple donuts, yummy!! Going to apple hill always gets me in the Christmas spirit. We've been going for as long as I can remember, we've gone in rain, snow, and like yesterday days where it was perfectly sunny and beautiful. So now that we have the perfect tree and I'm full on apple cider and apple donuts, its time for Christmas :-)
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Thanksgiving dinner... in the garage?
Yes that is correct. For the past year, my house has been under a HUGE remodel. It all started when my mom wanted a bigger kitchen, then that meant expanding the living room, the family room, the entry, and while doing that why not make their room bigger, add an outdoor patio, and completely redo all the landscape? Obviously that seems like a logical progression of ideas. So for the past year our house has been in shambles. And while the kitchen has been remodeled, they moved the kitchen into the garage. Its a full kitchen too, there is a refrigerator, oven, stove, sink, even a dishwasher (my apartment doesn't even have that) so the only catch is that its in the garage. Luckily I'm at school for most of it but when I return for holidays this all means sleeping on the floor :-( They were hoping the remodel would be done by Thanksgiving but following Murphy's Law, it wasn't. So we cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 13 people in the garage. My mom wanted to eat in the new house though so we moved the dining room table out of storage and that was the only piece of furniture in our new house. It all worked out fine, and after all the most important part of Thanksgiving is being with family. And all the food still tasted the same, and as long as there is cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie then I'm fine. So now lets just hope that its ready by Christmas :-)
Friday, November 16, 2007
Bowling!
Wednesday was one of my best friends' birthdays so we decided to go bowling. I think we picked the shadiest place in town, but hey it was fun, and mingling with the locals always equals an entertaining time. We heard some very interesting stories. And considering that I haven't gone bowling since I was about 10 years old (and still used the bumpers) I knew this was going to be difficult. So bowling is like golf right, where you try to get the lowest score? Well I like playing by those rules, cause then I win! Well a couple of games later, I finally broke 50 points, which to me was quite the accomplishment. I managed to get a few spares, but no strikes :-( I think next time I will request bumpers. After bowling we came back to USC and played catch phrase, which if you have never played it you're totally missing out. Its probably the best game ever. And lets just say I was much more successful at that then I was at bowling ;-)
Friday, November 16, 2007
THE WEEKENDER... a national holiday?
Let me first explain to you how amazing/ important the weekender truly is: my friend literally thought that we had the Monday after the weekender off from school, not because it was Veterans Day, but rather because it was the weekender and obviously it should be a national holiday. So what is the weekender you might ask? The Weekender is when all (well most all) of the USC students drive/ fly/ hitchhike/ whatever it may be up to San Francisco for whatever away football game we have that year, either Stanford or Berkeley. It is soo amazing because USC literally takes over the city. There is cardinal and gold everywhere and you cant walk anywhere without running into someone you know. Its like walking around USC's campus, but you're in San Francisco instead. I've gone on the weekender every year and I plan to even when I graduate because it is so much fun.
I drove up with some of my friends on Friday and we stayed at my house in Sacramento to see my family (and dog) and to get a nice home cooked meal. On Saturday we packed up our things and left for San Fran. Apparently everyone else in Nor Cal had that same idea because the traffic was awful (LA is not the only CA city with bad traffic). It was fun though because we passed a lot of USC fans, and we all instantly connected on the road with our Cardinal and Gold and victory signs, on the way to beat the bears!
Once in San Fran, it was time to find a sports bar to watch the game. Oh right, we didnt actually go to the game. Most people dont actually go, its more of the expereince rather than the game. And in hindsight I'm stoked I didnt go to the game because it was raining the entire time, I would have been miserable. So instead we find a nice warm and dry (well it wasn't raining inside) sports bar. Like I mentioned before, USC took over this place. Cal fans were booed out of their own city. I saw so many people I knew and it was a blast. The added perk was that we won the game :-) Only 2 more wins and we're on our way to the Rose Bowl!
The day just continued to get better when we went out in the city Saturday night. I continued to run into a ton of my friends, it was an unplanned reunion in San Francisco. I even saw some of my friends who graduated in May or last year, so it proves that you're never too old for the weekender. All in all it was an amazing weekend and the rain couldn't even damper my spirits. If I'm ever queen of the world, I will make sure that the weekender is a national holiday :-)
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Pancakes the size of a small country
Yes that is correct. I have often been known to exaggerate, but not when it comes to the size of these pancakes. This morning I went to breakfast at The Griddle Cafe on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, and I kid you not, these pancakes are HUGE, and they give you three of them! Not only are they huge, but they come in every flavor imaginable. The pancake I got (and shared with my boyfriend) was called "The Golden Ticket." It had bananas, carmel, walnuts, streusel, and whipped cream. I think I might gain an allergy to sugar after that meal, but it was amazing. And I think between the two of us we ate about 1/4 of our plate. It could have fed my entire table of 8 people. I will now be eating pancake leftovers for weeks. Some of the other flavors were: cheesecake, oreo, pumpkin, kahlua and baileys, apple, boysenberry, and the list goes on and on. I feel like a restaurant critic right now, so maybe if engineering doesn't work out for me I will become a restaurant critic. So on that note I give it a two thumbs up, 5 stars, and all those good reviews! Yummy!!!
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Heart attack dogs
Homecoming is one of my favorite days of the year. You wake up in the morning to sounds of people tailgating and the smell of BBQ at 9am. The entire campus is cardinal and gold, more so than just any regular football game. My boyfriend, my parents, and his parents all came down to visit for the homecoming festivities. We started off with a BBQ at my apartment and then proceeded to the tailgates on campus. It is seriously a site to see. There are sooo many people! All of McCarthy quad is covered with fraternity and sorority gazebos and Trousdale is lined with alumni, students, and fans. We met up with friends and hung out in the quad for awhile, taking it all in. Then we made the trek over to the Coliseum, making sure to kick the flagpole on the way. Now that I'm a senior, I think I've finally mastered the art of football games. I know exactly what time to leave so that we can avoid the massive line into the Stadium, but we still get good seats. We expertly got there right on time, bypassed the line, and got seats on the 40 yard line. However, then we had exactly 72 minutes to kill until gametime. If you're with the right people though, the time flies and then its gametime!! The game started off a little shaky, but then it looked like USC football again. The game ended victoriously with 10 sacs and a beautiful 24-3 win over the Beavers. On the walk home, I decided that since I only have one more home game as an undergraduate, it was finally my time to try a heart attack dog (or a ghetto dog as many people call them). In case you are unfamiliar with the term, heart attack dogs are the hot dogs wrapped in bacon and smothered in grilled onions that you can buy for $4 after the game from the local street vendors lining the walk home. As you can see, they are appropriately named "heart attack dogs." I'm not gonna lie, it was surprisingly good. I think it took 5 years off my life, but they're probably the last 5 years so its ok.
Happy
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