Halfway there!
Translated with ChatGPTWe're halfway through the journey now. In fact, a little over halfway. It's exactly four weeks until our plane lands back home. I'm really looking forward to it! I try not to focus on it too much because, some days, the homesickness is right there at the top of my throat. We still have plenty of experiences ahead of us! But in the coming week, we'll be sharing those experiences with Belinda (my sister) and her family. So, we'll be a group of six in the car full of luggage. I love it! We've rented a house instead of hotel rooms, so we'll have more time together. And we'll do whatever we feel like as we drive down towards and around the LA area. It's going to be fantastic.
Another thing about being halfway through, as I wrote on Facebook and Instagram, is that I've now been away from home for as long as I'm going to be away. So, I know I can handle being away for four weeks. After all, I've already done it. It's reassuring to think about, I think. But that's all in the future. I'm not thinking too far ahead, so let's take a little look back instead.
After our arrival here in SF on Tuesday (the one with Secret Service and all), I woke up feeling grumpy, tired, and full of sour complaints. Nothing was right, and my mind was thinking about everything at once. I would start a sentence but couldn't finish it before moving on to the next one. Fortunately for me, Morten is very patient. So he tuned out the whining and got us out of the hotel and started with tourist activities. It's now Wednesday, and we have a concert in the evening, but first, we headed out to Alcatraz. That meant taking a ferry and dealing with crowds. I was grumpy, but I managed to fake being happy. If you do it long enough, you actually start feeling it. So it turned out to be a fantastic experience. We took a cable car back. These are trams pulled by grabbing a cable that runs beneath the tracks. Incredibly fascinating and an exciting experience.
Now it's time for the concert. I set myself this challenge before we left Norway. We bought tickets for a Cian Ducrot concert here in SF. The challenge was that it was a concert in a venue I'd never been to, in a city I'd never been, and Morten was my only safety net. I was anxious! But we had figured out that it was a small place, so I decided to try it without the help of Valium. And I aced it! There were a couple of moments when I felt nauseating panic over the rowdy folks who began to shout and talk loudly. However, there were an equal number of moments when I forgot that there were others around me and just listened to the music. So, when we decided it was okay to leave a bit before it was over, as people were getting loud and we felt done, it didn't feel like a defeat. I had conquered something I never thought I could. I stood on the floor with a bunch of strangers for several hours. So, when the time came for us to be picked up, people were being noisy, and we felt finished, it was perfectly fine to leave. I triumphed over the anxiety!
A brief explanation of some of the photos. Morten is standing far away because I'm in a corner, and his body physically keeps people from getting too close to me, especially when people start to get a little tipsy and lose their respect for my personal space. In the photo of our feet, you see me with the wall on my left , the soundboard behind me, and Morten on my right. Yes, Morten has really cool shoes!
So, Thursday was a "relax in nature and the hotel room" day. I deserved it after the concert, but also because I wanted such a day, and fortunately, Morten did too.
The next challenge here in SF was one we added while we were in Salt Lake. A baseball game! We got my brother, Glenn, to help us with that. We are lucky to have someone to ask for every occasion. He has given us lots of travel tips, and we haven't been let down yet. We've also received tips from Mom, Aunt Bente, neighbors, and friends. Everything is noted in a document filled with text boxes. So it's total chaos but filled with care and fun experiences. This allows us to experience various things that many different people think we might enjoy. In that way, we have a piece of you at home with us on the journey. Like when we walked around Fishermen's Wharf and saw sea lions down at the Pier area during the day before the game.
Back to this baseball game. A bonus we didn't know about until after we had bought tickets for an SF Giants game, was that they have orange jerseys!! It's my favorite color! 🧡 My brother's recommendation didn't disappoint this time either! The baseball game was confusing and fun at the same time. We got to see, smell, hear, and even taste the whole experience! We followed Glenn's advice and had an experience we will never forget! It was incredible to see how 35,000 (based on Morten's estimates from total capacity) people flowed into this massive structure called Oracle Park. Inside was even better!! People walked calmly, smiled, apologized, greeted, and talked to everyone as if they were their new friends. And this was a game between the LA Dodgers and SF Giants. But you know what! There was no side belonging to either team! Everyone sat everywhere! And as I understood it, there is no fixed home dugout. So it was just 35,000 people gathering to watch a game. And the players where even nice to each other. They even walked around talking to each other in between.
The whole experience was cozy, calm, and joyful for me. Yes, I took a Valium the night before because I wanted to have the best experience possible. But I would have enjoyed this even without it! So awesome!! A fantastic way to feel the enormous progress I've made so far. Very promising to be halfway through our journey. I'm so happy and incredibly grateful for these moments of achievement. I hope you challenge yourself from time to time. It's worth it! 🧡
By the way, we got off to a great start on Saturday when the fire alarm went off in the hotel. Fortunately, it was a false alarm, but it gave us a little scare. Luckily, I had already considered this as a potential crisis and had a plan in my head. Plus, I still had some Valium in my system. So, I remained calm and handled it well! I put on some clothes, grabbed my backpack with my wallet and laptop, threw two water bottles in it. Then I checked the door peephole and let Morten open the door 😇 I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat too 😅 Now, it's auntie time for a week 🤩🤩