Santa Cruz - Carmel by Sea, San Jose

Last week we had a midterm in real estate management. This ment that we didn't had class on thursday and hereby our weekend started on wednesday evening. Midterm wasn't that difficult. Calculations were pretty easy but I had some difficulties with the vocabulary. A funny thing was that you actually have to buy a blank test sheet by yourself. Even thought six sheets cost only USD 1,70, it still feels a bit weird compared to the system we have in our university in Finland. Well, U.S. is the home of capitalism so these guys know pretty good how to make money on pretty much everything :)

Monday was the game day! We rented a minivan which actually was a 2011 GMC Yukon with a V8. I think that car is one of the coolest rides I've ever driven and I don't even want to think what the price for that one would be in Finland... So, we continued to San Jose to see Sharks vs. Ducks. The game was pretty neat, atmosphere was awesome and the HP Pavilion sold out. Ducks won 2-3, Selänne 2+0, Koivu 0+2, Lydman 0+1. It was a good day to be a Finn.

On thursday we decided to visit Santa Cruz, because we had heard a lot of good about it. On thursday morning we went to Enterprise to get a car. A 2011 Dodge Avenger, which we got a 10 percent discount because the previous customer had tried to cover his/her smoking with pretty cheap perfume... Cars here in the U.S. are not comparable to cars we have in Finland. For instance a basic VW Passat has usually a 3.0 V6 engine here. Most of the cars are pick-ups. And those things are big. If you put a BMW X5 next to Ford F350 it basically looks like a Toyota Yaris.

We took the legendary Highway 1 which goes next to the Pacific Ocean all the way Los Angeles. Santa Cruz is approximately one and a half our south from Hayward. The views on the Highway 1 are something you cannot believe before you see them with your own eyes...

Santa Cruz was a bit of a disappointment, though it is a very nice looking place. It seemed to be a tourist attraction and because the schools were already started, there was not that much of people. We booked a hotel room from Super 8 and continued our trip to Carmel by Sea. A funny detail in our hotel was the coffee. This small single-portion coffee had all the text in english such as "brewed for the...", but the only text to express what the bag contains was written in finnish "KAHVI".

Carmel is a small town approximately 45 minutes from Santa Cruz to south. As a little nice-to-know-information, Clint Eastwood is the former Major of the town. The legendary Pebble Beach golf course is also right next to it, on the north side. The town was pretty small, upscale apartments, nice cars, luxury shops. If you go by, I suggest that you quickly visit the place.

On friday morning we continued our trip to San Jose. Since we were in Silicon Valley, we just had to type "Google" and "Microsoft" to our navigator. I think we didn't even found the real headquarters, because the whole area was so big.

We got a midterm in organizational behavior this wednesday. Lots of reading, but fortunately the whole subject is in my opinion pretty interesting.

Welcome to the Rock!

I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of one of the most famous prison in the world - Alctraz. Prison is located to an island, approximately one mile from San Francisco. Last Friday we decided to visit Alctraz, also known as the Rock.

Tickets we bought from alcatrazcruises.com were pretty cheap (USD 26,00) and the weather was great. Actually I think it was one of the hottest days so far.

We have a midterm on Real-Estate Management following Tuesday, so I will keep this text short. We've already booked hockey tickets for tomorrows Sharks vs. Ducks. I'm pretty excited to see my first Live NHL-game!

Pinecrest, Calaveras County

Whoa! What a weekend. First of all thanks to our buddy Jer! Without his help this trip wouldn't have been possible. (I have to warn you guys. This writing is going have a lot of misspells because it's my first one in english :D. I've changed my writing language in english due to popular request.)

If you want to find the right mood while reading this, you should listen Kid Rock's All Summer Long.

So where should I start... Our purpose was to explore the nature of California. First we were thinking of visiting the National Park of Yosemite. When we took a closer look, we found out that it is under reconstruction at the moment. One of our friends here suggested that we could go to Pinecrest, which is located approximately 160 miles from Hayward to east.

Our team concisted of eight finns, one aussie and one american and the trip started Saturday morning at 7:00 hours. Before we arrived to our destination, we stopped at Nation's Giant to have some breakfast. And it was good. Fried eggs, bacon, french toast and hashbrowns (perunasuikaleita). After three hours we finally arrived at our motel - Gold's Inn Angels Camp. Typical American motel, similar to the motels you can easily recognize from the movies. Price for one night was something USD 25 for each.

After this we started our journey to Pinecrest. We were supposed to hike approximately 12 miles. And the views - they were something you cannot definitely see back home. Waterfalls, mountains, rapids, almost everything you could possibly imagine.

After the hike we continued our trip to Sonora, where we were supposed to see a movie. We chose to see the movie called Moneyball, including Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. The movie was based on true story of a Baseball team Oakland Athletic's General Manager (Pitt) who starts to assemble and coach his team with mathematical models with help of his new assistant (Hill). The movie was great and I think we all can recommend it to others, though I'm not sure if it's in theaters back in Finland. Later we got some chicken wings in Applebee's. 24 chicken wings with Classic Buffalo sauce and two glasses of Budweiser - total USD 16,00. And boy it was delicious.

We were all pretty tired so we decided to go straight back to our motel. The greatest thing in the motel so far was that there were blankets. We've used duvet covers so far and to be honest, the nights have been freezing. (Now I have tho thank Vinnie and his aunt. Because of them, the Finns now have blankets and we don't have to suffer from the cold nights of California anymore :D).

On Sunday we headed to Calaveras - home of the Giant Sequoias. The thing is, you cannot even imagine the size of those trees before you see them with your own eyes. Just see for yourself!

 (Because we're in the homeland of the NRA(!), we had to took the picture above :D)

To sum up: the trip was great. On monday October 17th we're going to the Shark Tank in San Jose to see the derby Sharks versus Ducks. And in the near future we're looking forward to see also Santa Cruz and Carmel. And for sure... do some studying as well ;)

Milpitas Mall, arkea etc...

Tiistaille ei ollut suurempaa ohjelmaa, joten päätimme lähteä käymään Milpitasin kauppakeskuksessa lähellä San Josea. Kuskina toimi opiskelijakaverimme Jeremiah. Keskuksessa on n. 190 liikettä ja suurin osa kaupoista on eri brändien outletteja. Mukaan tarttui RBK:n tekninen paita, Niken lenkkarit ja kaksi A&F:n hupparia. Koko lystille tuli hintaa noin 130 dollaria, mikä on noin kolmannes Suomen vastaavasta. Valinnanvaraa oli jälleen kerran aivan tajuttomasti ja helposti olisi voinut pidempäänkin viettää aikaa kyseisessä kompleksissa. Safkaa napattiin vielä MickeyDee'stä/Mackersista eli McDonaldsista ja homma kruunattiin Frozen Yoghurtilla. Ihan vaan mainitakseni, on sitten niin tajuttoman hyvää smoothieta. Saisi olla tarjolla kotonakin.

Paluumatkalla Jeremiah yllätti meikäläiset aika hyvin. Pyydettiin musiikkia, kaveri sanoi ettei ole muuta kuin CD:tä. Parin Rob Zombien jälkeen aloimme vähän tarkemmin kuunnella... "What a f*ck this is finnish!!!" Meidän Kaliforniassa oleva kaverimme tosiaan kuuntelee vapaaehtoisesti Turmion Kätilöitä. (Huomautuksena toinen kämppiksemme Song, joka Thaimaassa tykkää katsoa Hongan Veikkausliiga matseja?!)

Koulukin on päässyt vauhtiin. Monen vaikeuden jälkeen kursseiksi valikoitui seuraavaa:

International Business Law
Organizational Behavior
Fundamentals of Real Estate Management

Kaikki kurssit vaikuttavat asiallisilta ja varsinkin Dr. Asha Raon pitämä organisaatiokäyttäytyminen on vaativa. Todella intensiivistä, mutta samalla ainakin omasta mielestäni mielenkiintoista. Käsitellään todella paljon erilaisia ihmistyyppejä, ongelmatilanteita ja muuta organisaatioon liittyvää asiaa. Ryhmätöitä on paljon ja onneksi oma ryhmä koostuu pitkälti amerikkalaisista.

Pieni close call sattui viime viikolla. Otimme kurssin International Finance, jonka ajattelimme täydentävän hyvin opintosuunnitelmaamme. Professori jauhoi tuntikaupalla aivan perusasiaa ja kertoi mm. "Globalization is when you do your business outside your home country". Tässä vaiheessa oli pakko vetää käsijarrusta ja muuttaa opintosuunnitelmaa. Onneksi kiinteistösijoittaminen vaikuttaa yhden tunnin jälkeen vähän vaativammalta ja antoisammalta. Ei viitsi maksaa käytännössä USD 1 000 siitä, että kuulee samoja asioita mitä on jo käsitelty pääsykokeissa.

Viikonloppuna on tarkoitus lähteä länteen Sonoraan, josta Jeremiah on kotoisin. Tarkoituksena olisi patikoida paikallisessa luonnonpuistossa. Yosemite jää ilmeisesti väliin, koska sen luontopolkuja peruskorjataan tällä hetkellä. Paikan pitäisi kuitenkin olla lähes yhtä hieno. Muutenkin fiilis on aika hyvä. Meidän kaveriporukkaan on sopivasti löytynyt ihmisiä Australiasta, Yhdysvalloista ja Kanadasta.