West Coast adventures

I'm terrible at keeping updated at all on blogs... so here's what I've been up to for the past week (copy and pasted from a facebook note I made). To be fair, I suppose that if you lead an interesting life, there's no time to post things into a blog... is that justification?
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Various people have asked that I keep them posted about my west coast adventures so here we are:
I woke up on Thursday, Feb 25th at around 9am after going to bed late the night before (sleep dep night 1), finished packing and said goodbye to everyone. Greg drove me down to the Metrolink station in Alan's car and I got on the train at 11:30am towards Union station in Los Angeles. I was a little sad to be leaving my college-home in Claremont and all of the loved ones that are still there, but it was high time for me to get my adventure underway. After about 2.5 hours of trains, subways and buses, I was dropped off a few blocks from UCLA campus. (total travel time = 2.5hrs) A woman on the bus was kind enough to show me how to get to the campus and emphasized that UCLA is a enormous campus. After a bit of walking (not as fun, with so much luggage) and a call or two, I met up with my Scripps friend Kate who showed me where to put my luggage in her fiance Ryan's laboratory. It was such a relief to put my bags down (this will be a theme). She pointed me in the direction of a cafe and I had a delicious bread bowl with vegetable soup, which I ate hungrily. (Turns out that half a pancake for breakfast does not satisfy you for 6 hours, silly me.) Then I met up with my home friend Amanda and we walked around UCLA for quite a few hours talking about Lanai. Both of us marveled over the fact that two Lanai girls had made it all the way out to the west coast and were now getting together in one of the biggest cities in the US... so far from our roots. Something that Amanda said stuck with me: "Sometimes I think about it and I can't believe the situation I'm in, I can't believe I'm here" (my paraphrase) and I've been thinking about that ever since. When I think back to the fact that I spent the first 17 years of my life on a small island in the middle of the pacific and managed to find the courage and motivation to move off, and furthermore that now I have the gall to plan a train trip up the west coast via public transportation despite the fact that we don't even have public buses on Lanai and the roar of trains and subways still makes me want to flinch back in fear.... well, I've come a long way. Anyhow, Amanda and I had a nice long chat and then I dropped her off at her bus stop and went back to Ryan's laboratory. Kate was going to take a while to finish so we took my luggage and hung out at her lab until she finished and then we all went to dinner at a delicious thai food place.
As we walked back to Kate and Ryan's apartment, I was surprised when Ryan asked what parts of LA I wanted to see tonight. Since both Kate and Ryan worked the next morning, I had been expecting to retire early and it was already going on 10pm. Instead, when we got back to the apartment, we dropped off my luggage (whew), had a brief playful encounter with Aiko, the more sociable kitty, and then headed off into the LA night. We stopped at a Japanese market and I was shocked to see all of the grocery items common in Japanese stores. It was like being back in Hokkaido all over again. What a bizarre feeling. I bought some treats for the train ride and then we got back in the car and drove all over LA. I was a little overwhelmed by the sights and after a while had to close my eyes in order to calm my brain down a bit. It had been an exciting day and my mind was still reeling from it all. We drove back to the apartment and watched a few youtube videos of various acapella groups before going to bed at a little before 2am. My bed was a huge inflatable queen size air mattress that came up to above my knees and was very comfy. We all woke up at around 8:30am and went for breakfast at a coffee shop.(sleep dep #2) I bid goodbye to Kate and Ryan and went for a short run around UCLA campus before returning to their apartment, packing hurriedly and walking with my ungainly luggage to the bus stop. I retraced my route to Union station and got there early to wait for my bus/train commute to Oakland. (total travel time= 3.5hrs) I got on the bus and had an uneventful Amtrak ride to Bakersfield, CA where I switched over to the Amtrak train going to Oakland. The train ride up to Oakland was fine, and I studied a bunch for the GRE test and even took part of a practice GRE on my computer. I even ate a surprisingly delicious bean and cheese burrito. No sleeping for this weary traveler though. I'm not good at sleeping on trains.
I got to Oakland at 10:15pm (total travel time=11.5hrs) and was picked up by Shy. We drove back to the Co-op where he lives, which is a cool two story house shared by 6 or so environmentally conscious free-gans. We stayed up and talked until about 1:30am because I had trouble falling asleep after an entire day spent in the train. I woke up the next day at around 10:00am and helped Shy clean windows after breakfast. It felt good to give something back to the person who was housing me, and in the future I will have to remember to help out with little chores where possible when staying with friends. Then, Shy left to go to an Ultimate tournament and I headed off to Berkeley. I visited with Vivian there for a large bulk of the day and we took a long walk around Berkeley's campus. I had called another friend, Autumn, to see if I could stay with her overnight and she agreed but then had trouble reaching her for a large part of the day, so I spent a lot of energy worrying about whether I would be able to find a place to sleep for the night. Fortunately, at around 8pm, I finally got in contact with her and at around 10:15pm she picked me up and drove me to the house she shares with 3 other Claremont alums. I slept deeply and contentedly from around midnight to 7:15 (sleep dep #3), when Autumn needed to go to a tournament. I ate the best breakfast I've had this entire trip (Yogurt with Granola, Orange Juice and Good Earth tea!! I approve!) before bidding Autumn and her boyfriend goodbye and hopping on the Bart to take me back to Oakland. I got back to the Co-op without any incidences (yay for being able to navigate and follow directions) and packed up my frisbee stuff to accompany Shy to a tournament. Upon arriving at the fields, I met up with Abby, Molly, Caitlin, and Busty all former players on the Claremont Ultimate team the Greenshirts. It was fun to watch people playing, but unfortunately I did not get to play at all that day. Cheering people on is the next best thing I suppose. Well, that and doing a few sprints to get the blood flowing through my body.
We left the tournament after Shy's team won the championships and headed home to the Co-op. I ate dinner and packed quietly while Shy attended a house meeting with his housemates. Then we headed out to the Oakland train station and I hopped onto a train bound for Eugene. I was exhausted, but as mentioned before, I have a hard time falling asleep on trains. Thus, I spent from 11:30pm to 6:30am tossing and turning, waking up every hour to change position (sleep dep #4). When I awoke, I was astounded at the view outside of the train window. We were in the mountains and the ground was covered in snow. Snow. What a strange thing to see for this Hawaii girl. I was hypnotized by the snow for a little while, and then fell asleep at some point for an hour or so. When I woke up, I finished the GRE prep test only to find that I could not find out my scores because I was not connected to the internet (booo...) and so entertained myself with some Mystery Science Theater 3000. Finally, at 12:45 I arrived in Eugene, OR. (total travel time= 24.5 hrs) I took a bus to the University of Oregon campus. (the fourth college campus that I've been on in the past week: claremont, UCLA, UCBerkeley, UofO) I must say that I like what I've seen of Eugene much more than I liked LA or Berkeley: the city is pretty clean and I haven't seen any homeless people around. I met up with Wheels briefly to put my awkward and difficult to lug around luggage into her office. She had to run off to class and meetings, but I got to hang out with Nick Darkside for a few hours. We talked for a while and then went to his house to grab a disc and throw for a bit. I was really sleep deprived and getting worse by the hour. So when Wheels got out of class, she and I ran for the bus to her house while Darkside biked home. I napped for 40 minutes and then we all went to Indian food for dinner. It was so delicious. After dinner we drove Darkside home and played cards there for a while, which was fun. We left and went to Wheel's house where I enjoyed a warm shower and a deep, uninterrupted sleep on a big pillow mattress with a down comforter. I am such a fan of sleep.
Now today is today and I feel updated enough for my purposes. For the first time since last week Thursday, I've gotten to settle a bit into my living situation and I have a fair bit of mobility and internet access. Life is going well: I went for a run this morning, got enough sleep, and just had a healthy, delicious vegetarian lunch with tofu, veggies and rice. Thank you to all of the friends who have been willing to house, entertain, visit, and feed me up to this point. Without you, I'd be homeless and lonely.
Portland, here I come!