Posts Tagged ‘OC’

Believe it or not, every now and then (probably more often) I actually forget that I live in LA. It sounds crazy, because this is a huge, famous and amazing city, but while living here you kind of forget where you are. You work, eat, meet or hang out – the same way you would do in every other city. And that’s what makes you forget to really cherish the city and the opportunity to live here.

I have these moments, when it really hits me that I am in LA now. On Friday we went to a concert. And when the singer greated the crowd with the words “Hello, Los Angeles”, I felt like “hell yeah, I freaking live in Los Angeles”. I don’t know why it feels so normal to me to live here. Maybe because I never really wanted to live in LA. Maybe, because LA has treated us so good. Or maybe just, because I just feel home.

I know that this city is not for everyone. And that living here can be hard, expensive and frustrating. But right now: I love living in LA. And I begin to like the idea of staying here rather than moving to the OC. It’s strange to say this of a city I sometimes don’t even pay enough attention to. But maybe it is exactly because of that! I feel home in LA. I love LA. And I definitely need to be more thankful for that!

In the last couple of weeks we coincidently showed our vacation pictures to several of our friends that hadn’t seen them, yet. And seeing those pictures of us in Florida and California suddenly made me realize how much I already miss my future home country. When I see these pictures I remember the way Flo and I felt when being there – and I guess it is not only the country that I miss, but more the way how happy, comfortable and careless I felt when being there. And that makes me think a lot!

Will I feel the same way when I actually live in the US? Or will I look at pictures from Germany and be homesick for everything I had in my old live then? Right now I think about the US a lot. About how it will feel to pick my parents up at LAX for the first time. About what I will want to show my parents and friends when they come to visit. About how our lives will be like in California. And about how our relationship will develop with all these hard and exciting days ahead of us.

Everyone tells us how brave we are to actually do this. I don’t think that we are brave! I don’t feel like I am doing a brave thing. I think we are only doing what we have to do! We have to take this chance. We have to try out our luck, try living our dreams and try to find somewhere to call home.

Right now my parents-in-law are doing a little round trip from Los Angeles to San Diego. I am so jealous. But not only, because they are in the area that I miss so much right now. But because I would so love to be there with them and show them everything that makes my heart beat like crazy.

I hope that they will develop a even bigger love for Orange County than they already have throughout their vacation, because I want them and everyone else I love to visit us as often as possible and see and understand why we wanted to make our dreams come true!

The train I take to work every morning passes by Frankfurt airport, which is an international airport where many long distance flights depart. This morning I had a group of teenagers in the train with me. They were going on a four-week-long educational trip to California, were very excited about it and couldn’t stop talking. I normally can’t stand it when people entertain the whole train with their talk in the morning, but this one was to good to be overheard or to be annyoing.

Those kids were so damn cute with their big dreams and naive thoughts about the time ahead of them. The girl that stood next to me was going to stay at a family in Chino for the four weeks. I guess this girl knew Chino from the TV series The OC, where the main character Ryan is a Chino resident. So I guess she thought Chino has some kind of Hollywood glamour and is next to the coast! That girl actually thought that she would land in a TV series world, where girls wear bikinis to school and where it is always 38° Celcius, sunny and everyone is doing great!

The cutest statement I overheard from her, was: “It will be so hot in Los Angeles right now. About 38° Celcius I read on the internet. When we will do our trip to Las Vegas for the weekend we will be freezing!” Freezing in the desert would be knew to me! Freezing in Las Vegas also would! But it got even cuter!

The girl totally freaked out about the customs check at the airport. She told all the other girls that you MUST tell the customs that you brought food to the US with you, because otherwise they will open your suitcase. She than got totally freaked out, because she seemed to have a bag of gummibears in gift wrap and guess what another girl told her: “You can’t do that! You will be in big trouble, because the X-Rays at the airport can’t scan through gift wrap and they will think that you carry a bomb or something dangerous with you!”

Luckily our arrival to Frankfurt airport interrupted their talk! I still wonder, if the girl unpacked her suitcase before the flight to rip off the gift wrap and what customs told her when she announced that she brought food with her from Germany! But even if I have to laugh a lot about their naivity, a part of me wishes to be that age again, to go to the US without a care and only with great expectations and to know that no matter how the trip will turn out to be I will go back into mommy’s arms after four weeks anyways!