Ellen In Amerika!"MY EMIGRATION TO AMERICA AND MY ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE IN CALIFORNIA SINCE SEPTEMBER 2008"

Last Friday, when I drove home from school, I had to wait for the red light at an intersection near our house. I happened to look up and saw above my head a hawk chasing a pigeon. The pigeon was screaming! Lots of people were looking up in the sky too. It was for me the first time that I saw a hawk so close by. For Americans it is pretty common to see those big birds in town. But for a Dutch one, it is a rarity and I was pretty impressed.

Saturday morning, I made some crepes, we call them pannekoeken. The thick pancakes we are eating here, are still too “heavy” for me. It was a surprise to me they turned out to taste pretty good with syrup and powder sugar! Because of the warm weather, we ate outside.

Today, Dan and I went for a hike into the Mountains behind Ojai. Normally a pretty good plan, but not when it is 109 F  (43C) degrees! As soon as we stepped out of the car we thought, oops, this might not be a good day to hike. As pig heads as we are, we walked up the trail, but after 30 minutes we had to turn back, it was as if we were baked. We still had walked for about an hour, and in this kind of heat we probably burned of more than 300 calories, so there is always something positive in a negative situation The other positive thing was, we drove into Ojai town and got ourselves the best ice cream ever. Man, that tasted so good. We sat in the shade, and I called Coby through Skype on my cell phone. It was pretty amazing to talk with my Dutch friend, who is at the other side of the world (not entirely but still…:-) ) and making her jealous that we were up in the mountains, in this beautiful little town,  and having an ice cream! After this talk, Dan and I walked through downtown Ojai and then we went home again.

Here at the coast, it was about 82F (27,7C) degrees, which was a much better temperature. Dan grilled burgers and we had a nice dinner outside again. Because of our bird feeder, we always have so many birds in our back yard, that it almost feels as if we have some pets: doves, cute sparrows, mockingbirds, crows  and we even saw tonight some hummingbirds. It is nice to live here