Saturday Night Fever

These are my parents:


and no...not in 1972...last weekend.

SO PROUD.

Fashion Inspiration

History really does repeat itself...

Check out Molly Ringwald's outfit from The Breakfast Club, circa 1985:


The shades of her taupey pink loose shirt, and her brown textured knee length skirt, and the knee high boots that can be seen on Nordstrom's website today...the waist belt...I want it all.

Not to mention that she brings her lunch to detention and it is this adorable little bento box full of sushi. So avant garde for 1985 :)

Only in SF

Dogs in bars? Only in San Francisco.


This particular dog's name was Kramer, and he was wearing a shirt that said 'I love boobies"

I think I'm in love :)

Roommate's bday!!

Well happy (now belated) bday to my lovely roommate and best friend Audrey Rose Bertini Moilanen! Not much celebrating, but there was a little vegan blondie action involved!

The lovely kitchen table:


the birthday present!


dry ingredients:



wet ingredients:


the finished product!


about 2 seconds later:


the mess:


but it was worth it :)

iPhone photos

Unfortunately iPhone photos are not the best...but because I am irresponsible I do not have a real camera, they have to do for now. I love this photo because there are so many little hidden oases in SF and they're always fun to find.

It's a nice juxtaposition between nature (though certainly manicured) and architecture.
And alas...it is just an iphoto photograph...

Shades of the Weekend

Shades of the weekend, c/o SF MOMA





I always forget how much I like modern art, be it weird/freaky modern art or just in the form of paintings and photographs. MOMA is a great place, and is only $9 for students! There was a lovely rooftop garden as well...it was a great day in the city.

Fooooooooood

This weekend some lovely ladies came to visit (even though this is an extremely awkward photo):


We ate some delicious (but not very pretty food):
huevos rancheros


Tofu loaf! (homemade and delicious...though it appears otherwise. Why is it that loafs are so...well not pretty?)


But also some pretty food!


And listened to some free music in the park



was pretty wonderful :)

Fall Colors

If you know me, you know I like neutrals. Taupe, grey, black, army-ish green, cream, anything in this genre just speaks to me.

That being said, if I could I would throw out everything in my wardrobe and replace it in shades of taupe? I would do it. In a heartbeat.

Starting with these two items:


From J.Crew

I NEED THESE.

Technology (and procrastination)

I downloaded the most fun app on my iphone today! Its called shake it photo and it can make even the most mundane things like doing homework whilst at work look artsy and fun :)

Back on the blog!

So I had to get over my heartbreak of leaving the most beautiful city in the world...Cape Town...and come to terms with being in another incredible city...San Francisco...and now that I've settled here again, for my last year of school, I'm back on the blog!

Now that my incredible adventures are over, this blog will be more dedicated to food, fashion, travel, and my musings on such. Hopefully there will be more adventures, comparable to those in the last year.

Starting fresh...labor day weekend! I had a last minute (and I mean last minute - I'm not usually into such spontaneity) trip down south and home. We drove down friday night, spent some much needed time catching up on trashy tv shows, namely the real housewives of DC, the rachel zoe project, and entourage, spent time reading on the beach,

spent time eating delectable food, and just relaxing. This is how we do labor day in the Johnson household...crudite and sangria to start!


Today we headed back up to the bay, left super early so we made it here by noon (I slept the whole way, surprise surprise) and still had a gorgeous beyond gorgeous day in SF to do some fun stuff. So I called up my homie Lauren and we hopped on our bikes and road through Golden Gate park to the ocean, and it was an incredibly day to be out on a bike, and they close down the roads in the park for bikers, roller skaters/bladers, skateboarding you name it, and it was just wonderful to be outside enjoying it all. We saw waterfalls, and bison, and windmills? Who knew all of these things were in GG park?

I also experimented in some cooking today...a vegetarian ragou (sp?) that turned out great! See pic:


Anyways, it was a great weekend, and refreshed me enough to get back on that school grind. Hopefully this week is better than last!

Goodbyes

Life in CT is weird now. Saying goodbye to Callie was rough, but we still had so much to look forward to. Now…the 16th of June is here and I have been sitting in sweatpants for 3 days doing nothing but saying goodbye to people…and watching new people move in. It is not fun, in any sense of the word. I had to say goodbye to Taryn and Amanda on the 14th…and it was emotionally draining. I helped them both move out that day, and just balled when they officially left…and now they’re home and it doesn’t feel right in the house. That same day 5 of the boys left for a trip and they wont be back until the 19th…the day I leave…but I’ll see them for a few hours. The house just feels so empty now. The 15th, Jess S left me, and of course I cried again. The 16th Anthony is leaving, and the 17th Jacob is leaving, and I leave on the 19th.

I have decided I am not going to cry the day I leave, haha, but I am saying goodbye to Dan, Jess H, Ari, Sam, Shawn and Stephen so I may be screwed. It hurts and is weird…and I think I am finally ready to come home.
My family

World Cup/My 21st Birthday

June 11, 2010, a day that I will never ever in my life forget. The world cup is finally here!! As is my 21st birthday…well at least the eve, but I’ve claimed the 11th and the 12th as my birthdays this year :)


First of all on the 11th, all of the roomies and I got DECKED out in our SA gear…we gotta rep Bafana Bafana (the name of the SA soccer team)! I mean, if you can’t tell in the pics, we got pretty dressed up, and I’ve never worn this much American stuff for any sporting event, haha. So most of the roommates wanted to make it to the fan park for the game, but the girls and I were just chilling and hanging out. We had a dance party in the kitchen at around 11am that may or may not have involved wine and lots of pictures, and then we headed to the fan park to see if there was any chance in hell that we would make it into the fan park for the game at 4pm. This is us waiting for a mini bus:

When we got to town we realized there was not a chance. But we were not bothered. We were so dressed that people wanted to take pictures with us, and town was crazy…so many people around all wearing their yellow and green in support of bafana and all blowing their vuvuzelas (those horns you hear on tv while watching the games). I bought a vuvuzela and had a great time with it. We walked around town, joined a few spontaneous parades:



and just had a great time in the street with the crowd. Around 2pm we decided to get lunch on Long street at Royale, and had a great balcony view of all the craziness going on in the street below us. I had a delish veggie burger and a shooter shaker of shots to split, and then tried to find someplace to watch the game. Unfortunately, we waited just a bit too long and all of the bars on Long street were so packed. But we managed to find someplace to be, some coffee shop that was also packed.

We squeezed ourselves in and made a few friends watching the game, and just enjoyed the general atmosphere of happiness and craziness on Long street…the coffee shop flowed out into the street with people watching the game from the street through the windows, and Bafana tied with Mexico! So it was a good game. I am no soccer officionado but tying is just so un-American…I guess just for the group stages then we get some real wins and losses. Anyway, the game was great and we made friends with a guy named Johannes Berg…hahaha, in South Africa we met a German named Johannes Berg, probably a highlight of the day. So we walked with our new friends about half way to Greenpoint stadium because we were attending the France v. Uruguay game! Somehow we lost them, and ran into all of our other roommates?? I don’t know how this keeps happening when we are in Namibia and in Cape Town…its not like they are small places, haha. Anyways, we had a fun walk to the stadium with them and then all split up because we were all sitting with one or two other people, and me with Amanda! So Amanda and I went in, and found our seats and being in Greenpoint was indescribable…its such a beautiful stadium.




The funny part was that they didn’t even check our Ids when we went in…security was not so tight, but whatever. And the food situation was not good, there was no veggie food and it just took forever and a day to get food so we missed the national anthems and the players walk out and such…and I ended up having beer for dinner, haha.

The game itself was rather boring…not a big deal, I was going more for the experience than to watch soccer anyways, and I was wearing all my SA colors and gear…not really rooting for either team. After the game all of us met up at the McDonalds right outside the stadium and headed back to Long street to celebrate my 21st birthday at midnight! It got a little bit stressful with everyone asking me what I wanted to do when I was just happy being with everyone and all I really wanted to do was eat, but it was about 1130 and not many places were open. So we just headed to the Che Bar on Long street and began the celebration with people buying me lots of drinks.


Fortunately for me, Jess S also bought me a veggie burger so I had something in my stomach to handle my 21st birthday. From the Che Bar we moved onto Jo’burg, one of my favorite dancing places in the city but of course it was just packed as hell, you could barely dance, and I got my wallet stolen there. Which was not fun, but then we made it to another bar, and finally ended the night at the Dubliner. Somehow my roommate Ari and I lost everyone else, and just ended up by ourselves and then found out everyone had gone home, so ended up home. And very happy with a very very successful 21st birthday. It was one of my favorite days in Cape Town, and one of the most fun birthdays ever. I’m so glad most of my good friends here were still around to celebrate it with me.

Day 2 of my birthday consisted of being very very very hungover (see evidence of a hot mess here):

but getting the best birthday montage of pictures from my family. That totally made my day. We then went to the biscuit mill, but I didn’t enjoy it very much because of the state I was in, haha. Then we all layed around all day and watched soccer on tv until the USA v. England match that night. Taryn, Amanda and I were the last ones there and the bar in Obz, The Scrumpy Jack was just packed with lots of people we know and it was really fun to be there.


Even though the thought of alcohol made me cringe, somehow I managed to drink again (you don’t really have a choice on your 21st birthday, cuz everyone buys you drinks). After the game we all came back to our house and had a crazy dance party in the kitchen and then all just passed out and never made it out. It was a great great birthday celebration.


Day 3 of my birthday consisted of lots of laying around again recovering, haha. That night we went out to Beluga, which is a great sushi place in town that has half price sushi on Sunday’s so we all went there to eat. We had delish sushi, ONE cocktail (bleh)


and just enjoyed each other’s company. My 3 day birthday celebration was absolutely incredible and I am so appreciative of all the birthday comments and all my friends from home, school, and SA that made it the best day ever. Oh and my incredible parents :) here's a lil taste of the gift they made me:

I LOVE YOU GUYS.

Namibia!!

This was one of the best trips I’ve done in a long time, though also one of the most uncharacteristic for me and one of the cheapest and most amazing. So the day of the 5th, we left in our little rental car filled with five girls, Amanda, Taryn, me, Jess H and Jess S. We had made tons of Cds and were ready to go. We made it all the way to a town called Springbok in the very north of SA at around 830 pm and decided to camp there. The campground was a weird place but it was really just functional. Jess S and I had made delish eats for the trip so our camping food was not bad at all. Then we were all beat, so we decided to sleep. We set up our tent like champs and settled in. Not too long after did we notice that the ground was the hardest ground ever, it was absolutely frigid and it was probably one of the worst nights of sleep that I have ever had in my life, haha. That was pretty much the consensus for all of us except Jess S because she took a sleeping pill. At 7 in the morning we were all ready to be up and out of there as fast as possible so as to defrost and sleep in the car.


We ate breakfast in the car and made the short trek to the border of Namibia and South Africa and had to go through customs and get our passport stamped and blah blah blah, but it was all gravy and then we headed on. This day we just kind of wanted to drive as far as possible. So, we then made it to Fish River Canyon which is the second largest canyon to the Grand Canyon. In Namibia too, all of the roads that lead to the interesting things are dirt roads, so you have to be very careful. And we are driving on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the car…haha. Once we got to the canyon we all had to change because it was so warm and lovely. It’s a desert so we were all sufficiently hot which feels so good after freezing in Cape Town. We stopped at a lookout point and were the only people in the nearest vicinity but that was just how we wanted it. We at some pb&j’s and enjoyed the view and then decided to head as far as possible to Sossusvlei and the dunes!



Once we got off the dirt road again I was supposed to drive (first time on the wrong side and wrong side of car and in Namibia – AWESOME), and it was great. Haven’t driven for 5 months and it was different but very fun.

So we drove all afternoon, stopped for dinner on the side of the road at a picnic bench and then kept driving until we reached Maltahohe. It was about 930 at night, and the town was completely shut down. There was one main road and absolutely no one in sight. There was a campground but the gates were shut so we were at a total loss for what to do. We finally found a sign for the Maltahohe hotel, and went there to inquire. Btw, Maltahohe is pronounced Malta-huuuuuhhheee. Namibia was a German territory and the pronunciations for words were just really funny, we had fun saying it.

So at the Maltahohe hotel, we asked if there were any campgrounds and the guy told us we could camp in his backyard, so we were like okay. He showed us where to park and where to camp and it was like a concrete square with rocks all over it and stuff and we all looked at it and went…absolutely not. I asked about the hotel prices and he said R170 per person for night, which was not in our budget, so I then asked about the cheapest room possible, and he said he could put us up in beds for R70 with no bedding and no hot water, and that was more our speed. So we jumped in the car, followed another man across the street and even though this was a “if my mother could see me now” kind of moment, it was actually the most legit place we stayed. There were 5 beds in a room, it was like a hostel with a big bathroom and the water actually got really hot, so it was great. And the best night of sleep any of us had.


The next day we woke up all refreshed and headed out to Sossusvlei. Maltahohe was the last paved road we would see for a while. All the way to Sossusvlei was unpaved and gravelly which is hard to drive on. A couple of hours and unimaginable views later we reached the Sesriem campground and the dunes at Sossusvlei! Right as we pulled up to the campground we ran into all of the boys in our house who had gone to Namibia as well. It was funny to see them there, but they were on their way out, but they gave us some good advice. One piece of advice being that you should change your watches because Namibia is an hour earlier than SA. Hahaha, none of us had any idea, they had been told by someone visiting the dunes as well. They also told us not to go now now, because we got there at about 10am and it would be too hot. So they left, and then we relaxed. We got into our bathing suits, and layed out on towels and read our books, it was actually lovely. This campground was also so much nicer than the first one, it was absolutely wonderful. We had some trouble setting up our tent and these two men just came over and set everything up for us right then and there. We ate lunch there and then around 3 decided to head to the dunes.


There is a long (paved) road from the campground to the dunes which was great. And I don’t even know how to describe this part. As you are driving along this road the landscape is just so rapidly changing from desert and flat and rocky to red and sandy and perfectly peaked dunes start appearing in the distance. It takes about 30 minutes to get to dune 45 which is one of the two dunes you are allowed to climb. Our mouths were just open in awe the entire time. Once we got to dune 45 we ditched our shoes, and were the only people there and just had to go stick our feet in the red perfect sand. We ran part way up the dune, and then got really tired….they are hard to climb. And decided to walk. Because we were the first people there that day the peak of the dune was still perfect and much harder to walk up than if there had been footprints already there. But we made it to the top and just sat and enjoyed the view of all the dunes. Actually we did not make it all the way to the top, but we were tired, so we chilled. Then we had the grand idea to run down the dune, which was so amazing.





One of the funniest things was that Jess H (the one who got hit by a train) was actually really scared of falling off of the dune, which was fairly impossible but who am I to judge. So half of the time she crawled or just went really slowly, haha and wanted nothing to do with running down the dune. So after we all did it we tried to convince her to do it, and told her it was fine and when it was her turn she ran so slowly down the dune, and we all just sat at the bottom and laughed at her until she eventually made it down to us. After that we walked up the dune again to watch the sunset, which wasn’t the most epic sunset in the world, but it was still amazing to be sitting atop a sand dune in Namibia and be watching the sunset. We eventually made our way back to the campsite, and took our food that we made inside to the nice tables they had in there, and who do we run into but our roommate Shawn and his friend Jugal and Samir? Haha, oh and I forgot to mention that we also ran into our roommate Zoe and her friends on the dune as well. So many Americans in Namibia that week, haha. So we ate with them, and then hit the hay for another freezing night on cold ground…but it was okay because we were getting up at 5 in the morning to see the sunrise, so we didn’t sleep too much.

We woke up at 5, and left at 520 to make it out to the dune around 545, and climbed to the VERY top of the dune this time, which was so completely worth it and watched the sun rise over the distant dunes. This time all of Zoe and her friends were there and Sean and his friends and us, so we were surrounded by a bunch of friends and just played around on the dunes for a couple of hours. I tackled Taryn and we did somersaults in the sand that looked like cayenne pepper when it was on your skin. I hope I described it adequately because the dunes were insane. That day we were leaving and trying to get back to the Orange River on the Namibia and SA border to spend some time in the warm weather, and so we packed up and headed out.




I instantly fell asleep, and about 2 hours later of travel on this horrible dirt road, our tire just shreds. I wake up and we are all like, oh no. We get out of the car and see our completely shredded tire and not 45 seconds later the first car we have seen all morning on this terrible dirt road drives by, we flag them down and they stop. It is this beefy Afrikaans guy with a grey handle bar mustache, a short military grey haircut, a cigarette and his little Namibian sidekick get out of the car. They look at us and say, “flat tire?” and we are like…uhhh yes….and they just start unloading our trunk, pull out the spare, put the new tire on, dispose of the old one for us, and 5 minutes later after profuse thank you’s we are wobbling down this terrible dirt road again on a donut tire. It was really out of a movie, and it was hilarious, but we were extremely lucky. Unluckily we were about an hour outside of Maltahohe which turned into 4 hours on that road with that tire. By the time we finally reached Maltahohe we were so thankful to be on a paved road, and we went to the gas station and they pointed us to a bottle store (liquor store) that sold tires. We go there and they have tires…just not the one we need. They point us to another convenience store, but they only sell tires for small vehicles like buckeys. So she points us to another place down the road. Mind you, this entire time we are being completely stared at by the whole town of Maltahohe which seems to be congregating on the street, and this third place is not open when we get there. We are sitting in the car like “what the hell are we supposed to do now?” when the guy from the original bottle store rides his bike down the street to find us and tell us that he found a tire. We apparently have good luck. So we make it back up there, wait a few minutes longer and then are all set to leave Maltahohe probably forever.

After that huge setback we decided that we just wanted to make it back to Cape Town. So we made a plan to just drive drive drive til we made it. And that is what we did. We all took shifts and drove through the night in order to make it back to Cape Town around 5 in the morning. We also thought that all of our roommates who were doing the same trip were suppose to be back on the 9th like we were, but we all had the calling to come back to Cape Town so everyone was home when we got there. Overall, it was a great fabulous trip, and I am so glad that I got to get out of SA at least once, and best of all to see some amazing dunes. Namibia is an absolutely incredible place.