About Me

Marianne Condrup

Marianne
Condrup

June 28, 2008

One thing I like about Monterey is how it feels close to a lot of other cool places. At least compared to Norway, which is pretty much not close to anything, unless you count Sweden. This makes travelling a little bit around when you have some time off easier to do. I already told you about our little trip to Lake Tahoe when school started again. A trip to San Francisco and/or Santa Cruz can be done in a day, and Los Angeles and other known South-Cali cities are just a few hours of driving away. And the drive is worth the trip itself, if you take Highway 1 along the coast that is.

Anyways, that is what we did when spring break came along. I had some friends coming over from Norway and we decided to do the "Scandinavian Triangle" Los Angeles - Las Vegas – San Francisco; the road trip all Scandos take when they go to the US west coast. It was nothing less than a blast, the whole break.

While the guys went to Tahoe to snowboard some American mountains (Yes, I know Norway is famous for its mountains, but as we all know; everything is bigger in America...), us girls got in our non-environmentally-friendly rental car and drove down to LA. My favorite Frenchman let us borrow his apartment in Santa Monica, and there we were, three Norwegian tourists ready for some serious Hollywood-style partying. I think I will leave it at that, some stories are just not to be told at a serious grad school's webpage.

After a few days we left the city of Angels longing for more as we headed to the glowing city in the desert; Vegas, baby.

If you go to Vegas by car, make sure to arrive after dark. Driving several hours through nothing but desert and suddenly seeing an ocean of light in the middle of it is seriously something. With all the blinking lights in different colors the whole city looks like one big slot machine. And that's what it feels like too. There are lights, music and motion everywhere! And the best motion of all: the Bellagio Fountains. Amazing! I'm sure we could have stayed and watched them for a whole day, easily. But, we had to party up Vegas too, couldn't just leave the city hanging...so we tore ourselves away from the dancing water and headed towards the nightclub at Caesar's Palace (where I actually met another MIIS-student. Surprise, surprise: a fellow Scandinavian). Luckily/sadly all the gambling we did was one single dollar at a slot-machine. I guess we have got to go back and fix that sometime...

The triangle was still not closed; we had one more line to draw. So off to San Francisco we went. Now this is where the serious sightseeing was going on. My good friend, Chris, arranged for a vegetable-oil-driven hippie bus (to make up for the rental gas-monster) to take us around town to all the tourist-places, so we put some flowers in our hair and met up with thirty of our classmates at MIIS and partied it up once again, Frisco-style.

Another place that feels close to Monterey for a Norwegian is Mexico, more about that later.

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June 15, 2008

This is what camping in Big Sur in February actually can look like:

After a night of hanging out around the campfire we had a good night's sleep in our tents, and woke up to a shining sun in the sky. We hiked down to a really nice beach and had it all to ourselves for most of the day. Sun was shining all day, and the water actually looked warm. No dominating feeling of having to hurry back to the library that day.

So sometimes we have gorgeous days like this during winter, but the exact opposite, winter storms, can be just as fun, I assure you. In late February a storm hit Monterey. We didn't notice it too much on land, it was just a little windy and every now and then it was raining. But in the water however, there was some crazy stuff going on. Huuuge waves, the biggest ones I've ever seen. Just watching them was almost kind of scary. But then, all of a sudden, we spot some guys out there; the local no-fear-what-so-ever surfers. They were towing in to the huge waves and were actually surfing them. It was amazing to watch. The waves were so big we could hardly see the surfers, I'm not sure you can even see them on the picture.

We drove further down to Ghost Tree at Pebble Beach where the waves usually are even bigger than up here in Monterey and Pacific Grove. And yes, we definitely found even bigger waves there. Some people were talking about waves as big as 50 feet at Ghost Tree that day. Not that I'm an expert on wave-size measuring, but I will not argue with the 50-feet approximation. It was absolutely awesome to see. This was the only storm I witnessed during this semester, it has been pretty nice weather ever since.

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January 27, 2008

And 2nd semester starts with…no, not diving back into the books…a trip to Lake Tahoe.

As if I hadn't gotten enough snow over winter break in Norway, we started the semester by going to Tahoe to get some snowboarding done before the snow melted up there. We drove up after class one Thursday evening, so that we could have the whole next day on the slopes. It was really cool; one whole foot of fresh snow was waiting for us to carve through it. And that was in the prepped slopes, there was a whole lot more outside the slopes. We had a lot of fun, but even Vikings get tired sometimes so after a good day of skiing, it was time to head home.

We all got out of our big boots, into our warm, comfy socks and started the four and a half-hours drive back to Monterey. But after a good 20 minutes of driving, we smell something burning… What is this? Did we pass some kind of fire or what? Oh no, this is definitely not a fire, it smells like burnt rubber or something. And that's when our driver says "Oh, God" and starts twirling his hair while he pulls over.

So here we are, on the highway "in the middle of nowhere" with nothing but mountains on all sides. It's starting to get dark and of course it starts to snow. Do we have service on our phones? Well, what do you think?

So we're in the car, with no possibility of contacting "the outside world", trying to come up with something smart to do. And then all of a sudden a white and black car pulls over in front of us. Yes! I have never been so happy to see the Highway Patrol! Honestly…

Well, who hasn't always wanted to spend a night in Colfax anyways…

Luckily, two "lifesaving" locals could install a new clutch the next day so we could get back on the road, just in time for Fisher Fiesta; a networking event for the business school. The Fiesta was a big success this year. After a talk given by journalist Carmine Gallo, it was time to head down to the fisherman's wharf for a dinner with almost all the students in the business school I think. There couldn't have been a lot of people missing out, because the place was packed. Good food, good people and good times at the restaurant before we all hit the nightlife of Monterey and took it all out. I remember there were a lot of pictures being taken with the Fisher School Camera, but I've only seen a few of them posted... I wonder why…

So the semester has been fun so far, I'll let you guys in on the juicy details on the 2nd semester courses later, when I have got a little more background to say something about them…

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January 5, 2008

Wow, back in Monterey after a five week long winter break. That's a loong vacation. This time I had a flight straight to Monterey so I didn't have to repeat my seat-reserving screw-up from last year. It was also very nice to have a 5 minute drive instead of a 2 hour drive to get home after that long trip. And the best part; to actually have an apartment to go home to!

I spent the whole winter break at home in Norway, in both Oslo, where I lived with my friends, and Porsgrunn, my hometown where my parents live. It was an amazing five weeks!

It all started with my three best friends meeting me at the airport with Norwegian flags and both my mom and dad live on the phone, waiting for the excitement to cool off and the tears to dry so they could say hi and welcome me to Norway. It has never been better to come home! (…may have something to do with the fact that I've never been away from home for this long before, but still…)

The second night home, we had our annual Christmas Party at our place in Oslo. All of my closest friends were there and it felt so good to see them all again. The party was as crazy as always, the food as good as always and the people as great as always, it felt like I hadn't been away for more than a week.

After Christmas in my hometown, New Year's in Poland, a couple of weekends in the Norwegian mountains and some time back in everyday life in Oslo, it was time to go back to Monterey and start another semester of my master's degree. This time, I had a very ambivalent attitude towards leaving. Of course, it was very hard to leave everyone again, but I was also very excited to go back to Monterey and see all my classmates and friends again. I didn't realize it was possible to make such good friends in so little time.

Well, another 20-hour trip and I was back on American soil. And the first familiar face I saw, was a face I had missed a lot over the break. He came and picked me up at the airport, the car already packed for a camping trip he was taking me on right away to Big Sur; an amazing camping/hiking area an hour south of Monterey. We had dinner and took a nap (since I could hardly keep my eyes open because of the time difference…) before it was time to drive even further south, to the hot springs at the Esalen Institute. This is a place you absolutely have to go to when you come to Monterey. It is an alternative Spa center with natural hot springs that are open to "the public" every night between 1 am and 3 am. The tubs are located outside on a cliff overlooking the rocky beach underneath so you can lay in the warm water in the hot tub and either look up at the clear sky filled with stars, or down at the waves smashing against the rocks. I'm telling you, it was two very relaxed and comfortable hours.

Two days later, it was time to go back to school. Seeing everyone again was even better than I expected, I actually had missed them a lot over the break.

Now, I'm looking forward to starting a new batch of courses and getting a step closer to my final degree, I'll let you guys know how it turns out…

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December 15, 2007

Ok, so here we go; I'm at the San Francisco International Airport with my whole life packed up in two suitcases trying to locate the platform for the Monterey Airbus. I'm running back and forth looking, hoping to catch the 8pm departure. Finally, I find it and I sit down to wait for the bus. Here it comes, sweet, my 20-hour trip is finally coming to an end. What?! It's full? Oh, of course you should reserve a seat, of course everyone but me thought of that and they now have a seat with their name on it heading to Monterey. Well, another three hours were just added to my trip, but at least I'm here. I'm in the United States, I'm (almost) in Monterey and I am ready to start my two years of Good Ol' American adventures.

So after a good night's sleep in my Munras Avenue hotel room (a street I'm sure you will become familiar with too), I'm heading downtown to check out the school and the city and start the house hunt. A hunt that turned out to be more difficult than expected. Before I actually moved in to the apartment I live in now, I had pit stops at two hotels, a hostel, a host family and another apartment. But that's a whole other story. Anyway, my first week basically consisted of filling out different forms for the school (there's a whole bunch of them), looking for housing, getting to know my way around town and waiting for everyone else to arrive the following week so the fun could start. And I was right, the fun started that week.

It's called orientation week. What it really is though is another opportunity for so-called grown up people to build sandcastles, throw frisbees (and completely destroy the previous school record…good job Kick Ants :), party and just have a week of competitions and fun with your team- and classmates. The rumours are that the orientation week is way more fun in the business school than in the other schools at MIIS, and I'm pretty sure those rumours are true. You know businesspeople; it's all about "networking."

So, that was a quick summary of my two first weeks in Monterey. Now here's an even quicker summary of the rest of my life, so you guys can get to know me a little bit and make up your mind about whether this chick's life is worth to spend your time reading about:

I am 23 years old and come from the land of the ice and the snow, a cold, cold place way up north. A land of glaciers, mountains and valleys with fjords deeper than you can imagine. This place is so far north that, sometimes, the sun doesn't rise at all during wintertime. And did I mention it was cold? Believe it or not; I freaking love the place! It has it all; skiing and snowboarding during winter time, going to the beach, on a boat trip, going swimming or even surfing during summertime, and hiking in mountains covered in orange-, yellow- and red-colored trees during fall. And the best thing about the whole country of course: it has MY friends and family, which puts it at the top of my list regardless of the nature, the seasons and whatever else it has to offer.

Ok, I'm running out of space here, guess you don't get to know a lot more about my history. But if you're interested in my future, continue checking this blog and I'll tell you all about the crazy lives we're living in Monterey…

Ciao for now…

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