Make my trip to the USA happen!

the magic 8 ball suggests that I should have a beer at every microbrewery in seattle. Interesting. Clearly it is in my destiny to get to the US soon! ;)

Does anyone know what the difference is beween feature writing and writing creative non-fiction? I`m trying to find journliams courses in the US this summer, it`s not easy to find courses that teaches what I`m interrested in at the time when I want to go. But I`ve found several courses in creative non-fiction, and I`m not sure exactly what it is!

From the descriptions, it sounds like what we would call feature writing in Norway, writing for instance portraits of people or writing stories with more focus on the style of writing and the different perspectives of people involved for instance than the news story that focuses on reporting the news. But at amazon (my brilliant source of wisdom on absolutely everything) they have books both on feature writing and creative nonfiction, so it doesn`t seem to be the same thing.

I really want to go to California, but I haven`t been able to make up my mind about exactly where. I`ve been doing more reasearch, and it looks like all the University of California campuses have “Open university” during summer, where everyone can enroll, but not all of them have courses in journalism. So far, it seems that there might be coures in Santa Barbara, Long Beach or Irvine. I`m also checking out Berkeley, since they have great journalism studies in general, but for some reason it seems they don`t have journalism classes during summer session.

Have any of you been to any of those cities? I don`t really know much about any of them. Long Beach does sound nice, but then again I`m thinking that that would be the most popular choice for all the 19 year old students who wants to go there to party and surf while studying, so maybe that wouln`t be the best place to meet other students over 30. Or maybe I`m just imagining that because the place is called long beach. Not sure. ;)

by the topics one can actually find books about on amazon! I was daydreaming about going to California (instead of working ofcourse). If I go on a 4-8 week summer course, I don`t think it would be a good idea to bring the dogs, to put them through the flight and all the stress for a few weeks. But if I do ever decide to go for a bit of a longer period, like studying there one semester for instance, I`d have to bring them. And I`ve no idea how that would work, where I could stay with dogs, what the laws are for keeping dogs in California, where I could bring them etc. But it turns out I need not worry. There`s not one, but actually quite a selection of books about travelling and living with dogs in California! Plus, similar books for any other place in the US. Wow. ;)

why I want this so much all of a sudden. But I really do! I think it has something to do with the fact that the USA is ofcourse a country that influences Europe and the rest of the world in so many areas (for better or worse), I see a lot of american movies, listen to music by american artists, watch american tv-shows and so on, and yet I`ve never been there. I strongly disagree with a lot of american foreign politics, but I`m not going to let that stop me from going.
And then there`s that positive “can do”-attitude that seems typical of a lot of americans I`ve met or talked to, that fascinates me.
And ofcourse, all the great americans I`ve met here on 43T makes me want to go! And it`s a huge and diverse country. Yes. Lots of reasons to go there! :)