Went with Anna to the meeting with the steering committee in Portland today, where we (she) were supposed to present our process so far within the Travel Oregon Philanthropy Project. All credit to Anna, who did the talking, while I took notes and tried to absorb all the information and input from the others. I got some positive feedback on my research which really boosted my confidence. It's kind of terrifying, sitting in a room with 15 highly professional and native English speaking representatives from different tourism providers and travel organizations, while trying to justify your own quiet presence. But nonetheless, having the opportunity to be able to participate in the development of this project and getting the chance to help out with research and email and phone contact with potential awardees is a huge inspiration ... read more

Second class at Flow Yoga Center today. This one was more traditional but focused mainly on balance and stretching, which I had some problems with. Since I'm very tall, my limbs and the center of my body ends up very high above the floor, e.g. when you bend down on one leg to sit in the air with the other one wrapped around the first one, it takes me forever to even get down there and I end up loosing my balance several times on the way. But it was really fun, and I try to hide my lack of balance and endure as much as I can. I wanted to tell you also a bit about what I'm actually doing at my internship at Sustainable Travel International. I know that both my friends and family ... read more

So I finally got to experience an American Halloween. As some of you might know I'm a big fan of horror movies, and celebrating Halloween gives you the chance to develop this interest further, e.g. in ways of interpreting characters on a psychical level. So Liselotte and I got invited to a Halloween party last night by Logan, whom we met on Friday night at the meeting that STI had with the computer science students from Portland University, for the Capstone project. Anyhow, the party was great. It was my first college party as well, which was a really interesting experience. And it's not just that you're enjoying yourself meeting new people and going out doing fun stuff, it's also a great learning experience to interact with people in ways to learn a new culture and ... read more

A couple of pictures from my third weekend in Oregon, when we drove out to the coast again - this time to Cannon Beach and Astoria. Trivia: Astoria is known for being filming location for The Goonies, where as Cannon Beach has the country's largest haystack rocks and is also shown in The Goonies as well as Twilight (the beach where they go surfing).... read more

10 things I like about the U.S: - Bonus cards on Safeway, Walmart and Roseaurs which means special deals on groceries that are already a third of the price in Sweden. (How is this even possible?) - That your stupidity (e.g. not knowing that you're not allowed to pump your own gas in the state of Oregon or not knowing that Half n half DOES NOT mean half coffee, half milk but a diary product to PUT IN the coffee) is excused by you pleadingly and sweetly telling people that you're from Sweden and have only been in the US for a week. - The beds at the Sheraton. No words can describe them. - Powell's Books in Portland. Not only do they have close to every book ever written, but I got 7 books for ... read more