Beach time in north cal

I got to spend the day out at half moon bay on Thursday. It is famous for mavericks, a surfing location where waves regularly hit 8m high and 24m wide. In the winter there is a competition held where surfers get notice of huge waves and have like 24 to get there butts down to the surf. The prize for the competition is US$10,000 (if my sources are correct) 

I didn't catch any narley waves that day but took a nice walk down the coast.

Then my friend took me to an authentic Mexican burrito place. And it was definatly an American sized meal! but don't worry, I finished it.

Happy American Christmas

But happy Boxing Day to the rest of you. Santa found me and he knows me well. Lollies (candy) and warm clothes.

I had a great day and I hope you all did as well. Aunty Sue has keep me full with home made cinnamon rolls, turkey with canberry and Christmas pudding. Now it's time for Christmas movies, after the cricket is finished of course!

Portland

We started out the morning with the Saturday Market. As you probably know Portland is famous for microbrews. So that cuts out alot of the fun being 19 when the drinking age is 21. However there still heaps of cool little craft stalls. The market spans about 3-4 blocks.

And plenty of tie die stalls.

This is Voodoo Doughnuts again. 

Take your pick.

Stumptown Coffee. Full of hipsters. Famous because Portland used to be covered in trees.

And Finally Powell's Books. You all know how much I love books, but this was pretty interesting. Multiple floors 10+ rooms of new and used books.

Portland facts

This is not one of my photos, but its a typical Portland downtown street. Its pretty tricky to navigate downtown, theres heaps of one way and no turn streets.



Also not one of my photos (come on Kathryn). But Portland is known and the city of bridges, and this is by a bridge. Decorated especially for Xmas.



I found some Kumara in the supermarket. But not really...

Fun fact: It is illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon. Why? no one knows....

Road trip

First off voodoo doughnuts. A Portland must see. Waiting in line for 1/2 an hour fr these bad boys. Don't worry, I didn't get through these all in a day. My favourite has to be this guy.

Today was road trip day. It took about 10 hours from Portland to SF. There was a ice warning and it suggested we would need chains for the tires.

Nice try Oregon but you ain't seen nothing. Some of the drive reminded me a bit of New Zealand.

Here's is the big mountain (Shasta)  on the Cali/ Oregon border. 

Photos of actual Portland are coming, they're on my camera. So I'll do that when I get on the computer.

Lesson number 1

Americans like to board planes very early. And it is a privilege to get on the plane first. I heard it was so you can secure a spot in the overhead locker. But honestly who wants to sit on the plane a second longer than you need to.

Made to it Portland, pics to come. It kind of reminded me of fairbanks because there was a bit of ice on the ground, but then there was also this green stuff too. Grass you say? What IS that?

There are plenty of 'must see' s in Portland, however most of them include the microbreweries. No luck there buddy.

Sorry Guys

I've had a few complaints from loyal readers about the lack of activity on here, so sorry about that too. It has been finals week and so everything was due and there was studying to be done. Nothing like NCEA though. The longest exam was 2 hours and I got a double sided A4 sheet for notes.

They put up these cool projectors around the place to 'brighten' up the day.

The first one says "you got this" and the quadratic formula on the side of the maths building. The other says "happy holidays" because saying Merry Christmas is politically inncorrect. These were taken at 10am, about one hour before sunrise, and 4 hours before sunset.

You sometimes forget what the sun actually is, and when it's already dark at 4pm you get really tired and it seems much later than it is. The upside is you get used to the cold so when it's negative 10 all you need is a sweatshirt.

I'm off to warmer and sunnier places tonight. I'm flying down to Portland to see my cousin for a few days before we drive down to San Fransico to spend Xmas with my aunt and uncle.

It will be a gradual temperature rise so hopefully I can adjust.

Day 3 recap

The third and final day of the 65th annual Husky Invitational. Atmosphere at the pool tends to die a little bit on the last day of the meet. But not in the nanook corner. With 3/3 pbs in the 200 back and Victoria as the first seed for the finals, breaking the college record in the heats. Another first seed for the 100 free finals and a 3 second pb from the one and only swimmer in the 200 fly. 

The mile brought more good news, with the 6 swimmers all swimming best times. The mile is swum after all the other heat swims are done. So it's like a separate session on its own in between heats and finals. It's good that way, no annoying sprinters in the warm up pool. I've never swum the mile before so I guess any time was a pb. Based on my entered converted time from opens in march it was almost 22 seconds faster. The other cool thing about it was that I split the 1000 faster than I had previously. When I swum it back in November I went 10.40. This time I swum it in 10.32 which means I got two B cuts from one race. Now that's efficient!

It's easy to compare these times to converted ones, but it's really apples with oranges.

This is BEFORE the warm up got brutal. 1000 swimmers in 2 25y pools makes for some close friends.

Day 2 recap

Another good day at the office. More pbs and b cuts. Bente swam the A cut time twice (heats and finals) so she's guaranteed a spot at nationals in March. With B cuts you can't be sure if your going or not, they invite the top 20 or so depending on the event.

In metres the big thing is to break 1 minute 100 free. Yesterday we had people break some other significant barriers. McKinley broke 5 minutes in 400 IM and Genevieve broke 1 minute 100 fly. That goes along with Gabi breaks 5 for the 500 on Friday.

I swum a pb in the 200 free heats, converted pb as well. Seeded 12th for the final but maybe sitting at the pool for about 10+ hours didn't do me a lot of good. I pulled a 'new Zealand' and swum slower in the finals. Is it in our blood? 

No excuses for the mile today. Last race of the meet. So " drive it like you stole it" " Ugly it up"

Fun fact. It's colder here than in fairbanks at the moment. As the counting crows say- you always take the weather with you.... Unfortunately.

Day 1 recap

Good start to the morning for the nanooks. 6/6 pbs in the 500 free heat swims. I did was one of those and it's even a converted pb too. Plenty of other great swims too.

There were 3 records broken today. Gabi in the 500 free, first nanook under 5 minutes. Margot in the 200 IM and the 400 medley relay. 

I got a second swim for the 500 but couldn't pull through with another pb. Tomorrow's another day and another race. 200 free. 

Arrived in Seattle. Checked into the hotel, flash as. The beds are much comfier than dorm room ones. We had warm up at the pool this morning. This is what it looked like. Wait until tomrrow, it will be a bit different. A few more people maybe.

The meet has gone up on meet mobile now. Just search husky. Otherwise swimphone.com and search husky as well.

Have you seen the snow?

The last two were taken at 3pm aka sunset.

Husky Time

Travel gear assigned and Itinerary out. We fly out Wednesday morning (after a warm up swim here at the usual 5.30am).

There is plenty of room to move on the psych sheets but top 30 for my top 3 (500, 200 and 1650). Ill be doing one of these each day and maybe some relays, as well as a 50 free. With over 1000 athletes and nearly 5000 entries its going to be a long few days. The good news is the morning heat sessions only last 4-5 hours because the pool is split so there are two heats swimming all the time. There are still 31 heats of womens 200 free though....



There are heaps kids from the surrounding states and about 10 other university teams. Most people are after fast times to qualify for nationals/ state champs. Its not really about making finals but swimming fast with a good rest and some proper racing togs. I will try and find a results feed or something for once we start racing, sorry no meet mobile....

Black Friday

The day after Thanksgiving is American Boxing day. People get trampled in the midnight sales.









Got the idea?

Anyway Thanksgiving was great, Turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I watched an american Classic "I Love Lucy" and then had leftovers the next day. Two days of school there we're off to Washington!