What I love the most about New York is how different the look and feel of the city can be depending on where you are. I am so fortunate to have friends and family who are able to show me the city beyond the touristy spots. My last day in the city before flying out to Vancouver I spent the entire day out in the city taking it all in for the last time (with some shopping here and there of course). I felt a little proud of myself for finding places tucked away in neighborhoods where people who actually lived in the city outnumbered tourists.

And once again I found myself in New York. My family flew over from Sweden to spend Christmas and New Years in the city, and my cousin visited for the first time so I took the role of a tour guide and showed him around. After numerous trips to the US and living 5 months in California I thought I'd seen everything but then we stumbled upon Economy Candy in LES where they had candy stacked up to the ceiling. This country is truly amazing.

Sometimes plans change last minute. What do you do when that happens? You buy a plane ticket to the Bay area, which is what I did! My plans for Thanksgiving weekend were cancelled and I suddenly had a whole week to my disposal over Thanksgiving (one of the many perks when studying at CSUF). Even though I had the entire week off I did bring school assignments with me. It didn't feel like "work" though. It's different doing the things you normally do day in and day out in a completely new environment. I guess refreshing is the word I'm looking for here. Besides studying I ate a lot, spent 5 days in San Francisco, spent 5 days in San Francisco eating a lot, visited museums and tried to take good photos of the butterflies at the California Academy of Science.

I don't think I put into words how much I love Disneyland. I've always been a big fan of Disney. The first Disney movie I can remember that I watched was Aristocats, and me and anything Donald Duck were inseparable throughout my early school years. Disney had started to lose its spark a bit but when I visited Disneyland the previous year it all came back to me and so I went and bought an annual pass my first week in SoCal even though I was only staying for 5 months. Yup, it's still valid until August 2015! THE highlight was when I watched World of color - Winter dreams and Heather Headley's rendition of my all-time favorite Disney song "I see the light" came out of nowhere and pulled on all my heart strings. Goose bumps!

A lot of my pictures from my week-long stay in NorCal in August are from this day. I forgot to bring out my camera a lot the days but that's only natural when you the last time you saw your friends after a long time. Our day in San Francisco was spent around China Town for lunch and then Sutro Baths and Twin Peaks before dinner. The meals were the main attractions, the rest was just things along the way.

Before El Matador Beach and before Berlin even happened I spent a day in Stockholm. I was there to get my Visa for my semester abroad in California. After getting that done and dusted I went straight to Kungsträdgården. Every year the cherry trees bloom and I've always wanted to see it in person but I never really had a reason to be in Stockholm previous years, but this time I actually scheduled the interview for my visa application to coincide with the cherry blossom. I was very determined!

This was the day I got to experience true LA traffic since arriving in August. Although we got stuck in traffic both on our way there and on our way back it was worth every minute cramped in the backseat of a Honda Civic! We stopped by The last bookstore and Urth Café after my friends gave me a little tour of downtown LA (Skid Row included). Hipster points: 5/10 (I ordered a green tea instead of a latte).