What life has treated me with in the past four months?
Los Angeles
Early March an AIESEC conference happened to take place in LA - why not go there? :) Didn't get to see much of the conference, but got to explore a bit of the Orange County.
Disneyland - a place to definitely check of my "To See" list. Had lots of fun riding various roller coasters, enjoying the crowd, looking for ways of cutting the loooooong lines :) Nice, but definitely meant for children. Shoot - I'm not yet as grownup myself. LoL :) Anyways, I can firmly say now - "Been there, did it, time to go elsewhere, no need to return". 
Hollywood - Walk of Fame and other famous places to go proved to be a big tourist attraction. Interesting people around, you can definitely sense a strong "wannabe a star" atmosphere all around.
Beverly Hills - neat and sweet. Rodeo drive and surrounding little streets reminded me so much of Europe and the old towns I missed so much!.. A little copy in LA is not that real and rich in history though... There's no place like home, indeed.Overall Las Vegas is humongous, somewhat fake, traffic is seriously bad; however, the feel of California is there, on every single corner..
Discovering Indian culture again and again
Living in the Bay Area is really rewarding in having the possibility to discover various cultures mixed in one place. Indian culture is one of those I'm quite often exposed to.
HOLI - the festival of colours. A crazy day spent with some crazy AIESECers and a bunch of Indian people! :) Look how pretty and colourful you can get in a few hours:
Indian Cultural Show - nice dances, colourful clothes, rich cultural heritage - Indian is indeed a diverse as no other.
Work hard party harder
Work has been pretty intense in the last months - long hours approaching our busy season, surviving through it, moving on and catching up on numerous projects left behind. Tuff at times, but seriously rewarding in the end. In the evaluation period now, getting some nice feedback and looking into some nice future development later.
Work has not only been professionally challenging, but also fun :) Starting from kick of events at vineries, continuing with wild end of busy season parties and continuously spiced up with outings with the closest circle of colleagues - accountants can be hella fun! ;)))
Basketball
Something making me feel like home :) Our team (Golden States Warriors) finally made it to the NBA playoffs and gave us here some good times spent watching the games and enjoying Sarunas Jasikevicius (rarely on the field, but still :P). I got to go and see one of the games right before the playoffs myself at the Oracle Arena in Oakland - tons of fun, was something a Lithuanian has to do at least once in the life - go watch a real basketball game, an NBA game! ;)
Broken bones
Yep, May was an exciting month in my medical experiences here in the US. In addition to the wisdom tooth removal I happened to visit the Emergency Room one late Friday night and leave it with big ol' cast on :) Excitement about the Warriors wining against the Utah Jazz ended in Monika falling on her elbow and having a bone fracture for some good 4 to 6 weeks. Experience not as nice and desired, especially in a foreign country. Can't blame anyone else but me though, I'm not a ten year old boy anymore, lol ;))
Here's how I look now with my little splint on. Thanks god the big ol' cast is of already!
Get Golden - camping in the Yosemite National Park area
Get Golden is an annual camping trip Sun Microsystems trainees organize in May. A number of AIESECers, trainees and their friends gather together from all over U.S. and abroad to have fun in the beautiful nature in the Yosemite surrounding area. I got to bring a few of my co-workers with me, too ;) 
This year we had 50 plus people camping together - fun ;)One day spent at the Bass lake going crazy on a ski boat, enjoying the refreshing swims in the water, simply playing games at the campsite, fire, songs and dances around it, marsh mellows deluxe :)
The second day in the amazing Yosemite mountains - breathtaking… Even though it's my second time there I couldn't stop staring at everything with my mought wide open…;)
Now looking forward to my trip to Hong Kong!
posted by Monika @ 12:27 AM
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