perjantai 31. heinäkuuta 2015

Meeting my Hostfamily ft. Lida

Our bus drove to Thousand Oaks teen center and I saw hosfamilies waiting there with different kinds of signs! Some of them even had balloons with them! It looked so unreal!


When we came out of the bus I was sonervous.. What if I couldn´t recognise my family? Would it be better to just hide behind the bus? What should I do now? Iida was nervous too because she had just a day ago got an information that she would be staying a few days with somebody called ´Gary´ cause her own family was on vacation somewhere. 

THERE! I saw my hostfamily! Well actually I saw only Tim and Josh cause Kim was somewhere in Europe and Lily was in Australia. The nervousness (?) inside me was getting bigger all the time while Tim and Josh were walking closer. I didn´t see my hostbro anywhere and my head was full of thoughts like "Am I the 1st one? Well porpably not with my luck... Maybe he didn´t want to see me... or maybe he changed family away from me ASSDHFHJGKHÖL help me! Try not to embrace yourself now!" We shook hands (yes I didn´t just nod) and they told me that Pierre hasn´t arrived yet cause their flight was delayed or something. They also told that 2 girls were gonna stay with us for a while too: Lida and Marie. Well Marie was from France so we had to wait only for Lida. We had no idea where she´s from. People started to leave from the parking area but Lida was not showing up! Damn you Lida! I was chatting with my Tim and Josh and Iida who hadn´t still found Gary...

And then I realized! Lida was Iida! her name was only misspelled and Gary was actually Grey! The last name of my HF! Then we just went into car and drove to the house! Guess we were so tired from the trip that we weren´t up to chatting but that wasn´t a problem. When we were shown where our rooms were they asked if we were hungry. I was a bit and so we ate some pasta. We were told earlier that we are gonna go to a restaurant when the French arrive. Josh asked if we want to walk or go by car to a nearby park. I said that we can walk cause umm it should be near as it is a nearby park. I didn´t realize how hot it is and how big the distances actually are in the US. So when we finally arrived to the park I was ready to just lay down somewhere!




At the park we met Drew who is Josh´s friend and we just walked around the park. After a while Tim called and said that he and the French (Pierre and Marie) are coming to park and that we are leaving to a restaurant after that! We walked to parking area and waited for Tim´s car! When he came we went to shake hands with the French from the car window. Suddenly somebody decided that we should travel to restaurant with 2 cars so we chose to go to Drew´s car. It felt a bit awkward to just go to say hi to Pierre and Marie and almost immediately after turn our backs and walk away... well never mind! The restaurant was called ´Junky yard´ and it was decorated the way the name tells! It was kinda cool and looked very American. Only bad thing was that the portions were so huge that I couldn´t possible eat so much after the flight... I still feel so sad for those Oreo icecream things and all other food! Almost crying!

The last thing we did was shopping in a supermarket! We were told to get something for lunch in school. I also had o choose breakfast cerials which was super hard cause there were so many options! The shelf itself was like 10km long! Well not really but you got what I meant there...


 The end of the 1st day!

No Control by One Direction

After 11hours and During Them


Apparently the most comfortable position in the plain is when you cross your legs on that little table of yours. Yes I was sitting next to Oona. Iida, Oona and me were sitting in the middle of the plane so we had no window seat to fight for.
We were sitting on the 19th row. I wasn´t that hungry anymore cause I had eaten in Stockholm and watched Ben/Tom & Jerry cartoons on my way to Stockholm. Now was the time to take my laptop from my hand luggage and start surfing on the net. Cause OFC there would be Wi-Fi on board on that long flights! Well that was what I assumed but the truth turned out to be shocking... No Wi-Fi... I had to put my laptop back to my small suitcase which was easier to say than done.

The flight was so long and tiring! We had these screens in front of us where we could find music and movies and games etc. but you just can´t keep busy with that thing for 11hours. Luckily Oona and Iida found the ultimate ´Jumppahuone´ (stretching room) from the back of the plane while I was kind of sleeping. We visited there 2 or 3 times and it was pretty fun place! it was warmer there than where we sat which was really pleasant. To be honest that room was the place where flight attendants "hang out" but they didn´t mind us stretching there... or then they were too confused to say anything....

Before landing we had to fill out a form of things that I´m bringing with me to USA and the amount of money I have etc. After landing we got to custom thing or something like that where they took our fingerprints and checked our papers and asked questions like "What is your reason to come to USA?"  and "Where are you going to stay?". It was quite scary if you ask me. We got our bags really quickly and got out of the airport! Then we met this EF guy in a pink shirt and he told that he has a bus ready so we could just go as soon as everybody is ready. I was happy to get out of the super crowded airport and excited to see new places! NOPE AGAIN! We ain´t gonna go nowhere bitchees! The EF guy wasn´t there for us but for some Spanish people ::))) Well Spaniards came and they left and we stayed outside the doors for maybe 30 minutes... well at least it felt like that. Finally Carol and Jane from EF came to save us!

That day I also learned that American people shake hands a lot! Carol came to talk to me and guess I was tired due to long flight so I didn´t notice when she offered her hand for handshake. So I just kinda nodded and said hi to her and she just turned the failed handshake into a wave. Awkwardness level 20 000! :)

to be continued...

Cheerleader - Omi


 

Here We Go part 2 + a little setback

So we are still in Helsinki-Vantaa. We all gathered around the leaders to hear the latest instructions for the trip. After that we checked ourselves in and took our suitcases to baggage drop. They asked if we are travelling with ESTA and I got so confused cause I wasn´t used that they ask other questions than "How many bags" or "can I have your passport please" at this point. So I guess I just looked at the officer weirdly and asked like "travelling with who?" until I realized what she meant...

Three rats travelling
Everything went great with everybody and we were immediately ready to continue to security check! ... ... ... Hahaha just fooled you! Apparently Oona´s ESTA wasn´t accepted tho she got all the information to her email... I was actually freaking out from inside cause I thought that the only person I recognized wouldn´t be able to travel. Well fortunately we had arrived to the airport so early that Oona and Antti had time to sort things out and get a new ESTA for her.

Finally we were ready to say goodbyes to parents, sisters, cousins, grandparents etc. and we headed to security check. Now you´re probably expecting me to tell something super awkward that happened to me there... No no no! What do you think that I am people?! A person who´s destiny is to do awkward things every 10th minute? Nope! I can say that nothing happened and we were ready to go and find our gate. I was confused again cause I expected us to go left to terminal 1 towards passport checking but instead we went right and walked ages towards gate 17 . I had totally forgotten that we are first gonna fly to Stockholm Arlanda. Well the way to gate 17 was so long that for a while I had a feeling we are gonna walk to Stockholm.

Pride lights or smthng.. cool anyways

The flight to Stockholm went well and it was so short! I was sitting on the same row with two voles called Oona and Iida! We had about 3 hours in Arlanda and we decided to eat during that time. Sini had won a new GoPro from some EF competition and she was desperately trying to learn how to use it and she didn´t want to read instructions cause hey! Who needs them anyways? Well I guess she has a lot of beautiful photos of us trying to figure out how to use it ft. our double chins :)) We bought food from the airport cause... well... you gotta eat. I bought a delicious looking Caesar salad and I was really eager to get to eat it. But i still can´t possibly describe the amount of my disappointment. You see there wasn´t any dressing with that stupid box of salad! Day ruined for 3 minutes!

C
alifornia dreaming - Sia or The Mamas & The Papas

Here We Go part 1

DIS IS DA DAYY BITCHEES!

07/02/2015 , about 4am, I was arriving to Helsinki-Vantaa airport. The thing is that I was leaving for California and I still couldn´t believe it as I walked through the doors to terminal number 2. My flight was about to leave at 7am and I was getting a bit nervous... Not because of the flight but because of the people I was gonna meet for the first time.

Just wanted to boast a bit
with showing you my
 amazingly stylish suitcase!
The first person I recognized was a man in a pink shirt. We got to know to each other last summer in Brighton. The name of the man is Antti and he was talking to another person of EF staff by Self Check-In automates. I went to say hi to him and he said hi back to me and after that awkward silence descended upon us. Well awkwardness level just raised when I mumbled something like "I better be going..." and continued to walk towards Check-In desks of Norwegian Air (cause that was the place where we were supposed to meet).

Awkward enough yet? Nope! As I got near our meeting place some girl recognized me. She was sitting on a bench with her relatives and shouted like "Heyy Jaakko!!" and I smiled to her and greeted her back of course... tho I had no freaking idea who she was... I just knew she was with EF and I was begging that my mum wasn´t gonna ask her name. She didn´t and I´m still grateful of that! When you see someone´s profile picture you just gotta imagine how tall or short they are and everything else that is not shown on the picture and still you might not recognize them when you see them face to face. This just happened to me. But no worries, cause when I looked behind me I saw somebody familiar. This girl from Snapchat! She was always snapping these "double/triple chin" pics with me but that ain´t the (only) thing why i recognized her. She was the only girl from our group with this cool Messy Bun/Undercut hairstyle combination. Her sister (who turned out to be a real ´tyylilyyli´) was walking by her! I was happy that they came cause I got out of that awkward situation.

read the next post for more

- Maailman Toisella Puolen by Haloo Helsinki