California Dreaming: A South African’s Journey in Orange County

I’m in California.
I can’t even say that with like a straight face.
I’m in Orange County. Oh my word.
I have so much to update you guys on. So,
so, so much.
So yeah,
I’m in California.
Who knew? Orange County? Um,
I don’t know what life is right now.
This is like, this is crazy cool.
Hold on. Look at this.
Can you guys see that? There’s like an air balloon down there.
And apparently, apparently it’s free to ride on the air balloon.
So I’m gonna go take a walk.
Just me casually. 7:00am guys.
I don’t know what I’m doing here.
Um, no,
I know what I’m doing here.
I just, it doesn’t feel real yet.
I feel very, um,
like I, this is not my life.
And so by the way, I’m not living here.
I have a lot to update you guys on. Um,
but while I’m here in America,
I am low key.
Hate saying that. I decided to rekindle my relationship with my dad.
Uh, cause a lot of my original followers will know
we were no contact for a very long time,
but he’s been living in California since about 2020.
So, um,
I thought I would come visit him.
I bought a ticket. I’m here and I’m here for three weeks just to,
he’s gonna show me around and we’re gonna,
you know, hang out.
This feels so weird. So I’m just walking towards like the office part,
but there’s Like this is a whole
like there’s a art gallery down that way. Uh,
there’s like a theme park thing there.
They’ve got a farmers market starting just now.
There’s like soccer fields and stuff down this way
and where my dad was back
there is like the volleyball courts and whatnot.
I’m walking towards the the office
like visit the centre
so I can see if I can sign up for the hot air balloon.
Apparently it’s free
so we’re gonna go do that cause I think that would be a lot of fun.
Yeah, life feels weird right now.
This is this is wild. This is crazy and I’m gonna keep you guys updated.
This is wow, just I’m just a little girl from South Africa.
She were gonna be here for a couple of hours.
So one of the first things I should do is
find out where the bathrooms are.
I’m aware there’s like a zip line thing down that way.
Cool. Okay.
I think they’re still closed.
Maybe at least I found the bathrooms. Okay,
so we’ve got the balloon rides
today is Sunday 9:00am to three PM and then 7 to 10
my sign up in person registration begins 30 minutes. Okay,
so I gotta come back at Hoppers 8 weather permitting.
Okay, cool.
The farmers market isn’t set up yet
but it’s fine. I’ll check it out now.
Now it’s still very early.
I mean it’s 7:00am my dad started playing volleyball.
Now it’s 7 but I’m just gonna walk around and explore.
He’s gonna be busy until like 10:00am he said
so I’ll come back at half past eight sign up for the hot air balloon.
Wow.
I wanna find somewhere quiet where I can like just sit
there’s a lot of people here.
What is this? What am I standing on?
Okay, so let’s chat and catch up while I
I just wanna put my hat on and I wanna eat something
and my dad gave me a a liquid I v
that sounds so weird like it doesn’t sound weird.
I’m not used to saying my dad in a sentence that is gonna sound crazy
if like he sees this or if like my step family sees this
they’re gonna be like what the heck?
I just I don’t I grew up with a single mom
so I don’t wanna cry on like a random Sunday morning.
We’re not gonna we’re here for a good time.
We’re not here to like reminisce on the past and like ruin lives.
We’re not here for that. We’re just
I wanna say getting to know each other cause that sounds bad
but getting to know each other as adults.
Does that sound better? You know what I mean?
Everything I’m saying now I’m like
I gotta keep in mind that he might start watching my TikToks
out of nowhere.
I know he doesn’t yet but he might start he gave me this Hat honestly,
if I was like raised with a dad,
I’d probably be such a daddy’s girl.
I’m a daddy’s girl to my grandfather,
that’s for sure. Anyways,
this place is insane. Like actually insane.
It’s so different to Nebraska.
So different. And I know this is such a weird,
this is just like a sit down video of me chatting,
but I’ve got so much I’m gonna show you guys
and I need to be able to like Segway into that.
You know, I can’t just like show you me in California and you’re like,
what the heck? Why are you there?
You know? So
for my OG followers
who saw me make that video about being no contact with my parents,
the situation is changing slightly.
I was no contact for like a few years,
uh with both my parents. I’m still no contact with my mom at the moment.
Um,
I’m gonna eat while I’m here.
He gave me a chocolate coconut bar.
He gave us some like breakfast bars and stuff,
some stuff. Ooh,
I’m gonna try one of these,
a Kellogg’s Nutri Grain bar.
I’m gonna try one of those while I’m here
while I’m waiting. Um,
I just did about half that liquid IV sachet in here
cause yesterday I put a full one in on accident and it was so strong.
This feels so surreal. Like just I’m in California right now.
I can’t say it enough times.
It just doesn’t sound real.
No matter how many times I say it,
it doesn’t sound real. Um,
I’m in Orange County, California.
I am an hours drive away, not even from Los Angeles.
Like if I wanted to go see the Hollywood sign,
I could take the most expensive Uber right out there if I wanted to. Um,
I could also ask my dad to take me there.
He did offer. It’s just like he’s got work and stuff.
Like it’s not like he’s on holiday,
you know, he’s got work.
Um, so he’s just like living his life. Um,
but also obviously showing me around.
And yesterday on my first day here,
he took me to like an African shop that’s here.
It’s called African Hut
or now it’s called like origins of the world or something. Um,
but it’s African Hut. Like if you look it on Google Maps,
it’s still African Hut. Um,
and they’ve got all like South African things,
which made me feel very at home.
Um, and he obviously like filled up his trolley.
I didn’t buy a lot of stuff
cause I’m here to experience what it’s like here, right?
I’m not here to,
to be my same self.
I’m here to try and grow and like immerse myself in the,
the culture this side
and see what life is like on the other side of the pond.
And life is crazy on the side of the pond, guys.
Life is insane.
I also didn’t know my dad had A pool and a jacuzzi in his complex
so that’s gonna be fun.
I might have some pool days and like jacuzzi evenings
he said like him and his friends go sit in the um
the Jacuzzi in the evenings
I met some of his neighbours his friends last night
Laura and John shout out to you too
cause I know I think John’s gonna be in one of these videos for sure
okay, so let’s do some like
little comparisons between Nebraska and California
or like even like South Africa and California
South Africa uh,
see the thing with liquid I v is it’s kinda salty too
so you kinda it kinda tastes like a Margarita without the tequila
cause it’s like salty lemon anyways,
California is definitely a lot different to Nebraska
and obviously South Africa
so I mean coming from South Africa
Nebraska was like a huge change
and now coming from Nebraska
here is a huge change in the whole of the world
it’s not like where we were or they don’t even have a Walmart here
the Walmart closed down
it wasn’t busy enough apparently so now they have a Costco
there’s squirrels here and they’re like dropping things off the trees
cute. Also
my dad feeds the squirrels
like he has a little like
dog bowl at home with water and food for the squirrels
like you go buy squirrel food at the the pet store
we went yesterday to Petco and bought squirrel food and put it
In and I was like
oh do you like open up the the peanuts and stuff for them too?
Cause you get like the shelled peanuts and he just like was like no
and I was like okay well
you giving them a food bowl
always food and water is not very far off from you
opening up the peanuts for them
and I was like this and he was thinking I was being ridiculous.
I was like did you name the squirrel?
And he was like yeah, my half brother Jake he named the squirrel
I was like that’s like your pet
that’s your pet at this point anyways,
um, there’s a lot of squirrels here.
It’s true California has a ton of palm trees
there are palm trees everywhere.
It’s very green here very lush.
It’s amazing. Um
everything is so expensive here everything like a coffee is like
I got a coffee this morning $6 crazy town.
It’s not even an airport.
It’s just compared to Nebraska it’s quite expensive.
Um that wasn’t it. That was a that was a gas station coffee by the way
gas station coffee supposed to be like two 3 dollars
that was a gas station coffee
and it wasn’t like a drive through frappe or something
it was literally a gas station coffee.
Oh now I’m attracting ads. Great.
Everything’s really expensive compared to Nebraska for sure.
Um a lot of the shops are different.
I’ve seen a lot of shops That I didn’t even think to try and go to.
Um, there’s a Denny’s,
like a Denny’s diner we drove past this morning.
I tried Panda Express for the first time yesterday.
There’s a Ralph’s here that my dad goes to pretty often.
He said there’s a Trader Joe’s.
His neighbor
Laura said she’ll take me to Trader Joe’s on Monday cause she’s going.
And I was like,
I’m scared because Trader Joe’s is known for being like expensive.
It’s really good. By the way,
this Kellogg’s bar thing, it’s got like a blueberry filling,
soft baked breakfast bun.
Um,
it’s crazy different here.
It’s obviously a more dense like city.
You know what’s funny is my dad used to live in Durbanville.
Like that’s how we got to know Durbanville was
cause he was there years ago.
This was not like before Covid.
And here where he lives now very much reminds me of Durbanville.
Like it is cyclist galore.
My dad’s one of them. He’s a cyclist now.
Um,
it’s like wine, Napa Valley,
like wine cyclist,
very lush, very green.
It, it gives dermable, um,
vibes. And I told my dad that and he was like,
what dermable vibes? And I was like,
literally like you’re in a copy of dermable.
But this is like a fancier dermable for sure.
Much fancier here.
If anyone has any questions,
obviously I’ll try and answer the ones that I can.
There are so many things falling out this tree.
It has to be the squirrels
crazy. I’m trying to think what else.
Yeah,
we’re gonna just explore for the next three weeks while we’re here.
Um, life is wild at the moment.
That’s all I have to say is life is super wild at the moment.
Super like I would never have thought that I would come here,
especially like when I had originally made that video
talking about how I was no contact with my dad
and my mom
there was in her mind that car is mine.
There is not a chance in the world
I would have come to stay with my dad,
especially alone. Like I’m here alone with my dad.
Crazy. I was very nervous about it naturally.
By the way,
we don’t have to go into the nitty gritty unless anyone like
really is curious, but obviously I was super nervous.
Um, I could tell he was a bit nervous too.
I think I feel like things were slightly awkward for a second,
but I mean, it was fine afterwards.
At the end of the day, like he’s not a stranger stranger,
thank goodness. But
we just went super, super close.
It’ll take a second to get comfy with each other.
Um,
and it’s not like we sat down and had a big conversation
or anything like that. Um,
we spoke on the phone a little bit obviously before this,
like leading up to this. Like this didn’t just happen.
I didn’t just Like buy ticket and surprise him.
Um, we obviously spoke of it like leading up to it
and I feel like the air is cleared a little bit with everyone,
but there’s definitely like conversations to be had.
Um, but we’re in a,
we’re in a good spot right now,
I would say in a good,
we’re in a good position to like move forward.
I would say.
Yeah, let’s go explore some more.
I’m also gonna take you guys around with me today
and we’ll explore a bit more.
And yeah, this is crazy.
This is,
I don’t know what life is right now. Absolutely insane.