Pre-Halloween

I'm not very good at this "keeping up" thing; you know, to write about things right after they actually happen. So with me being in a place, where so many exciting things happens all the time, be prepared for a looong blog!

Thursday Oct. 21 - Boeing

The school told us, that the reason they chose Seattle, Washington, out of all cities and states in the US, was partly because a lot of big companies originated here. So of course we were going to visit one of these companies; Boeing.

We went to the Boeing Plant in Everett, about 30 minutes north from Edmonds. When we got the the "Future of Flight", we started in the gift shop, looking at all kinds of planes, jackets and aviators. It was all pretty cool, and pretty expensive. When our tour was about to start, we were told that we couldn't bring anything, and by that I mean ANYTHING! I guess they're scared that we're going to copy their ideas and start making our own plane-factory. During our tour we got to stand on patios above the workers. It was pretty amazing watching them working on the planes like tiny ants.

The Boeing plant is huge! With some 100.000 working there. They have their own little community in there, with restaurants, doctors, and such. Ironically, the only thing they don't have is their own airport. I bet they hold a hell of a christmas-party...

Friday Oct. 22 - Old Fashioned Harvest Hoedown

Kokulan from my class, had arranged this night. We were all invited to his host-aunt's church for this Harvest Hoedown; a fall-fest to celebrate putting down the hoe after harvesting. Pretty much all of my classmates went, and we had a lot of fun! We were meeting up at the school, from were we were all taken to the church. Here they served an American BBQ, consisting of baked beans, BBQ chicken, cornbread, coleslaw, and chips. I'll have to admit I've tried better... During dinner this western/country band played. They weren't super good, but they fitted in perfectly! After dinner it was time for square dancing. We all paired up; boy, girl, boy girl, and started "dancing". It was hysterical! Just looking around, watching the other people dance, having just as hard a time as me. We were all laughing and enjoying it, even though we had no idea if what we were doing was right.

After the Hoedown, we were all driven home and dropped of right on our doorstep. Pretty good service!

Saturday Oct. 23 - Pumpkin patch, corn-maze & the haunted forest

Because it was Halloween in a week, Jill thought it would be fun to go to a pumpkin patch. So Jill, Chihiro, Jill's friend Dawn and her daughter Olivia, Pernille and I went to Remlinger Farms, about an hour's drive from Edmonds. I thought it was just going to be a farm, selling crops, but it was a huge area with small roller-coasters, a train, and a lot of fun stuff to do. Even though the place was intended kids, I had a lot of fun! Right next to the farm, there was a big corn-maze, and a field with a lot of pumpkins. We went through the corn-maze pretty fast, partly because it was starting to rain, and then it was pumpkin time. It was fun walking around, finding the biggest, prettiest, best pumpkin.

Me with my pumpkin

We drove back home to start carving our pumpkins. I've tried that before, but something new was sorting all the seeds out of the gue, drying them on, and the bake them in the oven with salt, pepper, garlic, and oil. I like them!

After carving pumpkins, we drove down to Seattle, to go to a haunted forest on an island. The surroundings were PERFECT for a haunted forest, it was even raining a little, but the people doing it, just didn't take advantage of it. It was supposed to be like walking through a ghost story, but, yeah.... no.

After the "haunted" forest we wanted to go to another haunted house, but there was a 2 hour line, so we just went to the Old Spaghetti Factory and ate.

It was a great day! in spite of the not-so-haunted forest...

Thursday Oct. 28 - Biology museum

Last Thursday we went to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture with our biology teacher. We're actually going to quite a few museum, and I really like it! That is something I think we should do at Herning Gymnasium, too. It is fun to get out and learn stuff in a different way, than just sitting by a desk.

At the museum we went on some sort of a scavenger hunt, answering questions about the stuff we saw at the museum, mostly about fossils.

Friday Oct. 29 - Halloween dance

The school had arranged a Halloween dance for all the students. So of course we were all going; we wouldn't miss out on anything. After school, Emilie, Janne, Nicolai, Alexander and Maja came to my house, so we could all get ready together. Nicolai and Alexander were going to dress up as glam-rockers, so they needed guidance in how to put on pairs of pantyhose and make-up. It was really funny watching them getting ready.

We missed our bus, but when we finally arrived at the school, after waiting in the cold for half an hour, we went and got our tickets. Right when we got in to the dance, the fire-alarm started. It was the most horrible sound ever, and we all had to be "evacuated". We had to wait outside the building for a while. We killed time by dancing the boogie-woogie and watching the cool American fire-truck the came to the place, even though we all knew it was just the smoke machine that started the "fire".

When we got back in, it quickly got so hot and gross in the big room, that it was absolutely unbearable. Therefore, a lot of us had to walk back and forward between the dance and the room outside all night. The dance was alright, but I really can't wait to get back to Herning Gymnasium's parties - those are fun!!

Saturday Oct. 30 - Seattle

After the Halloween dance, Emilie and Janne spend the night at my place. We were meeting some of the others at the transit center, so we could all go to Seattle together. 20 of us were going on a boat trip around the lakes of Seattle. Even though it was raining, it was a really nice and beautiful. It was fun to see Seattle from the water-side.

In the afternoon we walked around for a bit. Seattle is a really pretty city, even when it rains. Some of us ended up at a coffee shop right by the Pike Place Market. It was super cozy sitting there, drinking coffee and getting warm. We had all decided to go to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. It was a really cool place, and they played great music. The food was great too, but when we were supposed to pay, most of our credit cards didn't work, and we had to borrow money from each other. It was kind of hectic, but we sorted it out.

It took quite some time, though, and we only had about 15 minutes to get to the Pacific Science Center, where 10 of us were going to the Michael Jackson Laser show. We hurried (pretty sure we all broke a sweat), but we made it. We also got to see the Space Needle by night.

The laser show was really cool. We went into the dome and lay down on the floor. Then the show started. Loud Michael Jackson music jumped out of the speakers, and lasers made all kinds of figures and patterns on the ceiling. It was awesome! The best thing was probably when a laser skeleton did the thriller dance...

We made it home with a little help from the bus-driver. The bus going from Seattle to Lynnwood was delayed, which meant that we wouldn't be able to catch the last buses home. But the driver called the transit center and made them hold the buses - thank God!

Sunday Oct. 31 - Halloween

This year Halloween was on a Sunday, which meant you couldn't really go do much and stay out all night. Therefore + we'd all had a very busy weekend, Jill, Chihiro and I decided to just stay in, eat pizza and ice-cream and watch scary movies. Jill's friend, Laura, came over and she brought 3 kinds of ice-cream, so there was enough for everyone. We watched 3 scary movies; "The Blair Witch Project", "One Missed Call", and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (p.s. now I know why you don't mess with Texas...).

It was a great night! I think we had 7 kids come trick or treating, and it was fun to see them in their cute little costumes.