Universal Studios Mega Disco !!!!

At the end of the day all the EF students gathered in front of a theatre where the disco and dinner was held. The security check was kinda strict again ´cos we weren´t allowed  to take any bags inside and so on and that´s really good but also annoying at the same time. Good ´cos, you know, there are all kinds of people out there, who might be up to no good, and you never know what´s going to happen. But if you are just an ordinary person who forgets something in your bag and you want to get it ´cos you need it.... Damn that´s gonna be hard.

When we got inside first things we saw were the tables full of food. We ate dinner and after the dinner we had desserts. I´m a slow eater so basically everyone else were already dancing on the floor while I was stuffing food in my face. Oh God I´m crying if I even start to think about all those delicious cupcakes I couldn´t eat ´cos I was so full. 

The disco itself was awesome even though the DJ was playing a bit random songs from times to times... Like songs that were familiar only to Spaniards etc. ...  Still it was great fun!!
AND OMG!!!!!!!!! I´LL NEVER FORGET THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED IN THERE!!! Antti (my leader) a.k.a THE PARTY ANIMAL showed us his  A M A Z  I N G  dance moves AND Pierre joined him on the dance floor and that was just  F A B U L O U S, I tell ya !!!!!!!!!!! 

#NeverForget
#EFMoment

Universal Studs ... *STUDIOS | dos

TALKING ´BOUT SPECIAL EFFECTS! A few times the train drove into a kind of a cave where had they had built sort of interactive sets of different situations like a catastrophe in a metro station. Imagine a metro station which is empty ´cos there has been an accident. Suddenly on a left side platform a petrol truck (God knows how it got inside) catches fire and on the other side water flushing to the other platform from corridors. That is scary as hell even though you know perfectly well that it´s not real.

Universal Stud

Several times during the ride we were told to be quiet ´cos there was a filming going on somewhere and obviously they don´t want a group of tourists screaming random things in the background of a movie... But I kind of think that the silence thing might also have been fake so that the ride would be even more exciting, 

Unfortunately Hogwards wasnt open.

After the ride everyone left and walked to wherever they wanted to go. I stayed with (if I remember right) Sini, Siiri, Bertille, Elisa and Lou and some other French girls. They had all  kinds of rides there like The Simpsons ride and Jurassic Park ride. If I´m honest I gotta say that I liked Disneyland more cause in Universal the rides were mostly interactive 3D/4D experiences and not like real roller-coasters.

                           

Universal Studs ... *STUDIOS | uno

Okay I guess I´ve told you guys about almost every organised trip we´ve had and this one is gonna be the last of ´em all. Universal Studios a.k.a Universal Studs (as I accidentally wrote at first but didn´t want to correct it ´cos it gave me a good laugh!)

Once again we dragged our asses to the beloved yellow buses and off we went. After ages spent in a traffic-jam we finally saw the gates of the promised land! The long wait was rewarded almost immediately as we headed to Universal Studios studio tour! It was truly exciting and amazing to get a peek inside the scenery and set of different movies.

For instance I got to see the Town Hall from the movie "Back to the Future" and some streets from London and a rural town from Latin America. They also showed how some special effects work there. For example while passing that little town it just started to rain suddenly and thunder and volumes of water were billowing towards us splashing everywhere.

The Day When a Fan Abused Me :(

This most unpleasant yet expected event took place on a dark and rainy day in my bedroom. The heading may give you a completely wrong kind of picture what actually happened so please don´t start imagining any funny business going on in my bedroom.

The thing is that I woke up and tried to get out of the upper bed but didn´t quite succeed. You see, the ceiling fan hit my head... Or well maybe I hit it with my head but anyways I won´t recommend to star your morning like that.

The odd thing was that it was actually raining. It was a very  dry season and it hadn´t rained at all during our stay there. Rain was really refreshing after all and we just stayed inside and listened to the rain and played Xbox and listened to Spotify.

Eating Out With My Wintershoes

Ludo was enjoying the hot tub with other boys. Then he looked at me and Jossu and winked his eye and asked if I wanna come to swim. I laughed and said the truth that I hate water so I wouldn´t come. Jossu had a sunburn so she couldn´t swim either + she had no swimming suit with her.... Tho I guess the French wouldn´t have minded... 

Instead of staying by the pool we asked if Tim could drop us to a nearby shopping mall. It wasn´t that big but it was something. We decided to go and fins a place to eat. It was really warm day and for some stupid reason I had decide to wear my Converse shoes which I bought from Camarillo. Unfortunately after a while of walking and searching for the place where to eat my feet were sweating like pigs and the shoes also abraded a lot. We walked around the shopping area maybe twice and found nothing. Eventually we found ourselves in a pizzeria and yeah the pizza was good but there were maybe slightly too much cheese in them.

When we got back home the French boys were inside playing GTA. Me and Jossu were so tired after walking under the burning sun that swimming sounded like a dream now, We jumped to the refreshing water and enjoyed it not feeling like pigs anymore. You should have seen Pierre´s friends´ faces when they looked at us swimming there when while ago we had assured that we wouldn´t be swimming in any occasions. They joined us and we had fun playing in the pool. After that we went to the living room and watched a movie.

Pierre´s Poolparty

My roommate Pierre wanted to have a pool-party at our backyard. He invited all the French guys (I guess) and I was supposed to invite Finnish girls. For some reason Finnish squad wasn´t too keen on coming to this party... I wonder why.

It was weekend so I woke up late and when I finally go out of the bed I got to find out that all the guests had already arrived. I dragged myself to kitchen in my pajamas and brewed some coffee while truing to realize what is happening. Saying good morning to people was awkward cos my voice was so harsh after sleep.

I wanted to have a friend with me too ´cos I don´t understand French and it´s kinda hard to join a group if you can´t speak the language. Fortunately Jossu had nothing to do so she came to hang out with me. Me and Jossu sat down by the pool and watched while the French guys played basketball or something in the pool. I took a video while they tried a cool trick where they passed the ball to one another and the last one would jump from the waterfall-cliff and shoot the hoop.

Who needs money anyway... rip

So today was the "try not to buy anything... I'm just trying it on... sold" -day. In other words we went to Camarillo Outlets. We were given these maps about the outlet area but I didn´t realize that it was so  H U G E !

When the buses arrived tot the parking are we were told to stay inside and wait for instructions. Basically the "instructions" were just about a spending competition between the bus groups (red yellow green etc). Me and Sini and Siiri went to the very other end of the shopping are ´cos all the others started shopping near the buses. Our plan worked really well because we saw almost nobody we knew during the whole shopping afternoon. Our first target was Converse store. I found a really amazing pair of Converses but the didn´t have my size... That´s why ended up buying a pair of winter converses with kind of thumbtacks in the sides. They are really useful here during the early winter.

Next  we checked out some "brand stores" like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. It´s not about bragging when I mention these names. They had just unbelievable cheap stuff there! Sales up to -70% if I remember correctly! I was in heaven.

Mum had sent me a message that I have to buy something for my sister too ´cos she was waiting for souvenirs. I bought her really nice clothes in my opinion and they were all well know brands BUT she didn´t like almost anything ´cos she only wears black :)))))))))))) . Never gonna buy u anything no more. <3

In the end of the day me and Oona and Iida went to buy froyo and  IT WAS SO GOOOD!!!!!!!!

A-levels

So I´m going to do my A-levels on English next autumn (2016) and if you ask me the best way to learn the language is through living in a country where the language is spoken. Think about it! Even just listening to English for 3 weeks improves your skills for listening comprehension test. I decided to set me 3 goals for Brighton.

1. Practice small-talk and pronunciation of hard words
    - Finland doesn´t do small-talk. Actually we do not speak to strangers... It´s a kind of taboo to do so. Have you ever heard anybody saying "oh that cute Finnish accent"? Me neither! I wanna get as far from Finnish accent as possible!


2. Learn different kinds of idioms and new phrases 
     - So when I´m doing my English essay during the finals I can amaze the teachers with all kinds of cool phrases (for example: Break a leg)

3. Learn about the culture and learn to write words correctly.
    - Sometimes it´s really useful in multiple choice -exercises to know about culture. It has saved me a few times when I haven´t heard the answer from the tape but I´ve known the answer because it was culture-related.

#TB Brighton Moments

So here are some throwback Brighton moments that I can never forget. Enjoy!

1. Accidentally stealing the window seat on a plain. The seat was meant to be Ville´s but apparently I didn´t have a clue how to read my boarding pass so I just sat there... Awkward enough? No! I even told Ville how lucky I was to get the window seat! Way to go Jaakko!

2. Meeting my roommate Hugo. I misunderstood what my hostdad said to me so I thought Hugo was also from Finland. That´s why I greeted him in Finnish with cheery "Moikka! Mä oon Jaakko" and after that he tells me he is from Sweden....

3. Desperately trying to find Anna who I had talked to on Kik and My EF... Found her in the end of the 2nd day even though she was sitting almost next to me in the airplane and we even looked at each other for several seconds there.

4. Getting to know to my teacher. He´s name was (well I think still is) Asim and while I was thinking about the name I tried to pronounce it aloud and said loudly and clearly "ASS-IM". I guess he hated me after that.

5. Getting a total score of -50 points on quiz for pressing the buttons too many times which annoyed the teacher.

6. Playing football on EF Arena! As I hate foorball but I was kinda forced to play I kicked the ball into a rosebush. For some reason I didn´t have to play anymore...

7. Partying by the pool! I was joking that maybe Im going to fall into a pool during the pool party in Lewis. After the pool party my clothes, money and phone had visited the pool. Damn those wild Italians!

8. Trying to help somebody with their phone at the beach but instead breaking it completely. Poor woman but for my defence Im not an IT wizard.

9. Escaping from the EF Megadisco. I was too tired and wanted to leave but we couldn´t. So we told that our last bus was leaving and we had to get to it. Our leader wanted to make sure that we are really going to the bus but we escaped from him.

10. The last day. This Swedish guy bit my shoulder at the airport "so I would always remember him". Im surely never be able to forget him though and it´s not only due to that bite.

++ Eating cake in Royal Pavillion park with my mates <3

Brighton Accommodation

Nowadays I haven´t even thought about going to live on a campus kind of thing. So I´ve contacted my former host family and asked if it would be possible to live with them during my 3-week-stay. I also contacted my local EF office in Helsinki and I have a strong feeling thatthings are gonna work out just perfectly! 

I´m a bit scared though cos going back there won´t be same as in 2014. Even though it´s the same city and possibly the same host family the other people there will be different and I´ll be 2 years older than last time I visited the place. The influence that others, like teachers, leaders and EF students, have on the trip is huge! 

If I get to stay with my last host family I´ll probably stay there alone cause they weren´t supposed to take  any students this year. That will also be really different from my last experiences.

Brighton Calling !!!!

Hey yall! 

Today I ain´t gonna write about California. Today I´m gonna tell about stuff that the future is gonna bring. So I had already decided that I´m not gonna book another language trip  but eventually I ended up booking a 3-week-course to Hastings with my sis. Unfortunately the coolest part of it got cancelled, a trip to Paris.

Cos we really wanted to get to Paris, we had only two options left; Brighton and Oxford. I thought about Oxford but then with my sis we decided that Brighton it is. As you might know I was in Brighton in summer 2014 and it was truly amazing! Now I´m really happy to show the hometown of Adele to my little sister.  

Back2School

Since I skipped that one school day I had no idea what the others had done in school that day. I´m deeply saddened to inform you that my mates took advantage of my state of ignorance as they convinced me what they had planned for the FarWell party.

So I was told that the Finnish crew had decided to connect the "traditional" side of Finland with something a bit courageous and naughty. According to that plan I was supposed to play Santa Claus and the others would be elves and we would dance and sing a Finnish Christmas song called "Tonttujen Jouluyö" (english lyrics: here). But the girls would be like "dirty" elves and the song would be sang in a really sexual-sounding way especially the "Tip  Tap" part.  And of course the dance wouldn´t be completely innocent either.

I don´t know why but I gullibly bought all that. For my defense I´ll say that I had my doubts about that but Siiri and Sini were just too convicing.


RIP

FarmLife | 2

Now was the time for practicing. We rode to a field and first mission was to just basically ride in a circle. I wasn´t able to do that. I just couldn´t make the horse to go around the cones. The next thing was a "Around the world" thingy where you had to move around on horses back. For my great surprise that was something I was able to do!! Now we were ready to go to ride to the hills.

The experience was amazing actually! It was like from a tale: riding under the sun on the Californian hills. I saw a deer family under a tree trying to hide from the sun. I really really enjoyed riding and thinking about my friends being in school. After the day I wasn´t scared of horses anymore!

When we got back to the ranch we had to wash the horses and take care of them etc. When everything was done we got our stuff and drove to a 7eleven and bought some slush! It was so good after being outside for so long. Pierre was sleeping on our way back to home. He always sleeps in the car. I can´t understand how he does that.

I´m just glorious.

RanchLife

So while everybody else was getting ready for school I got to sleep a little longer and after me Kim Lily and Pierre headed towards the ranch. On our way there Kim told that they used to have 2 own horses but had to give them away and that they do horse therapy for example for physically or mentally challenged people and I think that´s just great!

It was really hot day! We parked next to a horse shit carriage so once I stepped outta the car it smelled like home during the fertilization of the fields (: (: . We grabbed our snacks with, took them to a little hut and went to say hello to this woman who, I believe, is one of the managers of that place. Then I heard shocking news. I was actually gonna go trying riding a horse.  I mean I was a bit scared of horses and I´ve never ridden a horse before. When I was little I rode a donkey in my daycare place.

The horse manager woman (gonna call her Anne now) was gonna teach me and Pierre to ride and she was telling us what to do and how to be with horses and so on. I was really relieved that I wasn´t alone learning how to ride a horse. Oh how wrong I was again! After Anne had gone to walk another horse to the place Pierre laughed and told mHow do u start this??", "How do u stop this?!" and  "Now listen to me horse. I won´t tolerate any horseplay." 

e that he has ridden a horse over 10 years back in France. But it is a secret so I couldn´t tell anybody. HOW IS UR SECRET NOW BRO?? JK love ya. So I was all alone trying to learn how to ride. I was  really recognizable cos I was the one going like "



PS. Riding a horse as a hobby is actually so cool! if I find out that you´ve bullied Pierre for riding a horse I´ll send u some mämmi in a wrapper!

Skipping School is PROHIBITED!

me.

"See you all tomorrow" says the teacher. And that means you will go to school ´cos what is the point of skipping school while it´s the very reason why you´ve traveled all the way to your destination. On this post I  wanna talk about the importance of education and school to you guys. So: get your lazy asses to school kids and do not skip the extremely long school days!

That´s what you should actually do but you already might guess that I did quite the opposite. A day before this longest school day on the whole course, we had a conversation with Kim (my hostmum) at parking area. She told us that Lily and her will go to a ranch that day and asked if we really wanted to get rotted in school. What we were supposed to do I obviously had to put an end to that with Kim so we kinda ignored opinions of everybody in back seat (Pierre). Okay seriously I just went kinda like "Oh what did you say Pierre?? You want to come to ranch? Nono for school?? Yess that´s what Im talking about!!". 

at school was to study and plan a performance for the Far-well party. Pierre actually wanted to go to school and hang out with his mates.

At the ranch 

And so it was decided.  Nono for school and yaass for ranch. Kim handed the absence reports to Antti and everybody was happy.

Evening Of da Beach Day

After we got back from the beach we were almost immediately driven to a scout gathering. Me and Pierre were playing this game where I was trying to guess the titles of those songs he played from his phone. I suck at that kind of games!!! I seriously know nothing which is why, after saying "I don´t know" like million times, I´ll pretend that I know the next song. Rip Jaakko.

I guess we seemed bored or somebody just wanted to save me from the music game but anyway Lily was told to show us how to put up a tent so next couple of minutes she tried to teach us that. Eventually the tent was ready but the next thing was to kinda undo everything and put it back in this bag.

The scouts were still doing some scout stuff so me and Pierre went play to the playground (: . It was actually quite fun fooling around there. I even got this video where Pierre is hanging from this kinda handle and asking if I´m taking video. "Me??? Taking video??? Noooo!!" 

BEACH DAY | B

Finally we got to the walk around the beach! We walked to the very end of the beach and passed some true EF-beefcake-adonis-leaders lying under the sun!

The houses near the beach were A M A Z I N G ! Like from movies! The whole beach being your backyard. Next thing that happened was Oona kinda sinking in the sand. In the end me and Iida a.k.a Lida were laughing around her cause she was knee-deep in the sand. The next very reasonable thing to do  was of course to put your head in water... I mean that´s something we all would do if we got stuck in waterfront right? Well I can say that Oona´s head was not long in the water cause some couple near us shouted "OMG Look!!! 2 sharks in the water!!!!!" We saw the sharks so yeah they were real and we quickly pulled Oona outta the sand. This really belongs to the group "Once in a lifetime experiences". 

CRABS! So many crabs running around the outcrop! Iida wanted to be a part of crab-family and danced a crab dance to those little animals but sadly she wasn´t accepted to live with them under rocks...

After a few minutes me and Oona went to find a pizza place cause why not! Iida was supposed to come with us but she disappeared... probably to dance with crabs. We were feeling lazy and didn´t wear any shoes which was a mistake cause the pavement was like a grill. We walked ages through streets and across a railway and all the time behind a farting man and his son. Getting really into that lunch mood :)))))! We finally arrived to the pizzeria only to notice that it was closed that day. Tears. We walked back to a supermarket we saw on our way to pizzeria and got some cherry coke and something else. Okay Oona bought drinks for me and her cause I was broke.

BLUE ICE CREAM FINALLY! I mean a holiday ain´t no holiday without blue ice cream! And that is what I bought. The shop clerk refused to understand what I mean´t when I said "2 balls of blue ice cream" so I gave her no tip. We walked happily back to beach again after the farting man eating blue ice cream and drinking kerry. While we were entering the beach area we talked in Finnish about how weird and disgusting that fating man was. Then suddenly some guy stops as and asks what language we are speaking and says that it sounds really beautiful. It was hard not laugh I mean the subject that we talked about couldn´t be described with a word "beautiful".

We also invented some code names to French people like "Aurinkokuningas - apparently Mandarin king in English, Pärre/Pertsa and Jartsa.

BEACH DAY | A

"let's go to the beach each let's go get away" 

Today we headed towards Carpinteria beach! The weather was perfect! Everybody´s mood was perfect! Bus drivers were happy! Seemed like an amazing day-to-be! And I can tell you now that nothing bad or catastrophical (?) happened it really was a perfect day!

When we arrived to our destination sun was shining delightfully and I´ll stop trying to act like Dostoyevsky with these adjectives.... Anyway those who had booked a surfing lesson started right away and those who hadn´t done that just spread around the beach to sunbath or something.

I was carrying a huge red cooler-box with me which had mine and Pierre´s lunch inside. For some reason I was carrying the box all the time during the school day and after it... Pierre where was your sense of responsibility of our lunch ???? Oh now I remember! It was when the lunch suddenly disappeared somewhere... But I´ve almost forgotten that!

I wanted to go wander around the beach but people didn´t want to get their lazy asses up from that hot sand so I waited for ages for Oona to arrive from photo-shooting of one certain ´Tyylilyyli´ and after that and the surfing lesson

Eating Wrong

Okay so in the afternoon we went to eat out in a Mexican restaurant! The daughter of my HF, Lily, had came back from Australia and we celebrated her homecoming.

I was pleased as Punch when I heard that we were about to go to a restaurant ´cause I had been hungry the whole day. Okay I´m sorry! Nobody says ´pleased as Punch´ I just found it and had to use it!!! Anyways I was happy.

The only problem was that it was my first time in a Mexican restaurant (don´t judge me now!) and I had no idea what o order... I desperately tried to google the names of the foods so I could see how they look like and at the same time I really ried to hide that I had o idea what Im doing.. It didn´t work so I let Josh, my host brother, to order for me.

The problem number dos! Once I got the delicious looking meal in front of me I didn´t know how to eat it. I know I know! I´m hopeless! The result was a mess that I tried so hard to control! And the the portions were so huge that it is hard to eat everything no matter how hungry you are!

In the evening we tested the swimming pool! it is smply awesome with the waterfall and hot tub and lights with different colors.

Swedes everywhere -.-

Chill Day | kaksi

I was right.
The walk was not short. But getting inside the air-conditioned Teen Center was surely great! But there wasn´t much to do inside... I mean there were computer games and games like billiard and a basketball court... But I didn´t really feel like doing sports that day (hah! Like I´d ever feel like that! Bullshit!). So as creative Finns we made an escape plan! Though the success wasn´t nearly as good as in Brighton. The fact is that we were hungry and A) I didn´t want to eat some healthy cornbars and B) I had no coins left to buy them (no I wasn´t broke yet... Got only paper-money left).

Our plan was this:
1. Ask Antti if we can go for a walk to the park and get the permission to do that
2. escape through the bushes to nearest Starbucks a.k.a "Tähtidollari" in our code language
3. get back quickly and nobody would notice anything

Fly Fan in Swedish:  FUCKING ESCAPE !

I don´t even know how we thought we actually could just quickly drop by a Starbucks and get back without anybody suspecting anything! I mean this was no Europe! You don´t just quickly drop by something without a car.

Anyways we got out the Teen C Carol (the US leader) just arrived to the parking area while we were walking out the place where we were supposed to be playing games and being social. She was shocked and we had a little chat but we got to park and sat there and watched ducks swimming in a pond. After we decided to stay in a park even though I was complaining my hunger all the time.. Sorry about that. 

dream car <3

enter without any1 suspecting but then....

Our hostparents came to pic us up from teen-center and already a lot of  people had been picked up. I was chatting wit Sini inside who wasn´t sure whether her hostmum had come or not. I was already wondering when my hostmum is gonna come and then somebody came to say to me I guess Pierre or Sini or some member of staff like "Your host mum has been sitting outside the building in the car about 20 minutes :)!"