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.

                           

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.

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.

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

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.

LAcitytour | three

After Disney Concert Hall we headed towards the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Pretty long name huh? That´s why I´m just gonna shorten it into ´COLA´ and pray for forgiveness for making up such an unholy nickname... MOVING ON NOW!

Most of us will think about a large, old, monumental building with high towers and beautiful ornaments when talking about a cathedral, and well that was something I was trying to find. Thank God (badam tsss) we had the map because even though we were literally standing next to the COLA´s back wall we didn´t recognize it. Seriously we were so close that we were actually able to touch the COLA. We  almost started to cross some bridge so we could find what we were looking for but then after having a few doubts we took the first turning to left and walked downwards the street.

And that was when we saw the cathedral! It just looked completely different that I had imagined. it was really modern... no towers were seen but it still impressed me. We had a small conversation if we should go in or not but eventually we found ourselves inside sitting on one bench and listening to cantor who was playing the organs... It made me feel a kinda good person for a while. Me Oona and Iida also dipped our fingers into the Holy Water and made the cross signs. The water burned none of us so I gotta say that there ain´t  no sinners in my squad!

After the visit in COLA we had a picnic in the church´s park which was located next to the COLA´s parking hall... guess Our Lady was a kinda car-geek. There were all kind´s animal statues in the park... a statue of a lion, snake, fish, zebra or smthng and so on. We sat on a bench and started to unpack our lunch... Then one particular statue, a fine piece of art, got our full attention. It was right in front of us and I guess it was supposed to be a beehive with bees walking on it. To us it looked like a huge pile of crap with flies all around of it. Holy shit indeed!! Otherwise the picnic was nice... eating our sandwiches and wondering who left the pile of shite in front of us. I guess you can say that this  is one of those ´Once In a Lifetime´ -experiences.

-Take Me to Church - Hozier

LAcitytour | two

random homes in LA

After getting out of the parking hall and finding our way to Iida we decided to follow the map and find these sights marked on it.

We were´t really sure about where we should head and cause we didn´t want to follow the others we turned to wrong direction a couple of times. Iida´s faith for mine and Oona´s map reading skills began to falter and at one point she announced that she´ll leave us and go follow the others. Luckily the traffic lights were red so Oona had time to think where we had to go and Iida happily followed us.

The first thing on our list was the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was a hot day and we had to walk uphill so once we saw the building we really wanted to go inside where it was a lot fresher. Of course we would have went inside anyway! I mean it must have been really finely designed from the inside by the astounding architecture of the exterior. Well what we saw inside was a kinda cramped hall with an empty front desk. Maybe the biggest disappointment of the LA city tour cause I waited to see a bit more...

Okay I remembered that the uphill climb was bigger

And this is what we saw :)

Finally there!!! 

PS. If u travel with EF once you´ll
always recognize the pink color
wherever you go!
Spotted this in Barcelona

LAcitytour | one

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula, The Big Orange, La-La Land, Shaky Town, The City of Angles

All these names for only one city. The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels - LA!

Anyways let´s get on with this... Today was the day for LA City Tour. At first we were driven near Stables Center. Some American women´s soccer team had won some big championship and people were celebrating there. I didn´t really get why we went there cause we didn´t go inside the center. We just chilled outside and watched people lame-partying. All free cokes were already given away which was disappointing. 

The next stop was a hotel. When we got off the buss the leaders gave us maps printed from GoogleMaps (imagine the quality)  and we were told to walk from the place A to place B. There were certain sights on the way that were were supposed to visit and check out like Walt Disney Concert Hall and catholic cathedral: Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. We could have walked with the leaders but you know it´s more fun to walk with ur friends. Oona and Iida were my sightseeing buddies. In the beginning of that walk we were like a huge group of tourists.... which we technically were (?????). Anyway me and Oona didn´t want to walk in a huge herd of EF students so we tried our best to lag... to fall behind. There was this old man in a wheelchair who desperately tried to get in the buss and we stopped to help him.Well actually it was Oona who helped to push the wheelchair into the buss. Unbelievable that everybody, including the leaders, just walked past him and didn´t help. But we still weren´t enough left behind.

That´s why when we saw a quite long escalator going up to somewhere I decided that I want to try it. Oona came with me but Iida stayed on the pavement and looked us like "Are you fucking serious now?!". When we came to the other end of that escalator we realized that we would have to walk down (I know horrible right?) So that´s why we went to a random elevator and tried to get down with it... Instead of getting back to Iida we found ourselves from a parking hall. And up we went again deciding to walk back ´cause Parking Halls are scary and we didn´t want to get lost.  

Disneyland III

This post is gonna tell you how the wonderful day in Disneyland ended not so wonderfully.

It started to get dark and we were already a bit tired and some of the rides were already closing because it was late. We were advised to get these pineapple soft-ice creams and when we finally found the place where they sell this so-called amazing ice cream, it was obvious that a few other people had also found it.  The queue was  huge!  Eventually after ages of waiting this delicacy it was our (us = me, Sini, Siiri and Amanda) turn to order. I guess all of us ordered that soft ice in a way that it´s floating in pineapple juice cause it looked cool. Now was the time to taste it! I have a perfect word to describe the experience: DISAPPOINTMENT. I like pineapple nut that was seriously too pineapple-ish. I guess people praise that painapple ice cream only because it´s horribly high price.


And that´s enough talking about ice creams! Moving on to lunch (I´m not telling this in a chronological order so u just gotta suffer... sorry not sorry.)! As people tend to do we got hungry as the time passed. We had to find something to eat and quite quickly we found this food bar (?) near Indiana Jones ride. Me and Sini chose to take chicken skewers! I was excited cause the smell was good and I really needed to eat. I made my order and they quickly gave me my coke and the skewer. It´s a shame that I hadn´t yet bought eyeglasses because now was the time when I really would have needed them. That freaking "skewer" was only about 6 inches long! Yess I have heard about economic depression and cuts but how am I supposed the get full from that... I mean there was more coke (which sadly wasn´t cherry a.k.a kerry coke) than actual food. Well we only laughed about this whole thing and in fact they tasted great.

Now it was really dark. You´ve probably heard that parades in Disneyland are amazing. Well I don´t know about the parades during the day but the parade I saw in the evening was amazing! All the bright lights and just wow! The famous firework show was about to start and the Disneyland crew was guiding people to walk closer to the center of the park so after the fireworks they would be able to get everyone out. Of course we didn´t want to follow their orders so we went to a shop and walked where we wanted through shops. I bought a Mickey Mouse necklace for my sis from one of the shops. I hate buying souvenirs.

AND NOW IT WAS TIME FOR THE FIREWORK SHOW!!!!!! Each one of the visitors were gathered around the central something in front of this castle. We waited and waited. And waited. The we heard this announcement: "Due to technical problems the firework spectacle is cancelled." Our reaction was that it must be a joke.. Like of course and soon it would start. But no... It really was cancelled. I was pissed off. And that led to a situation where I ended up angrily and very slowly eating a chocolate muffin and drinking kerry outside the school buss on a parking area. Now you are wondering why the hell I didn´t go inside the bus. Well, my loves, I was there at first until I was told to go outside or stop eating cause it was prohibited in our buss. All other drivers allowed it but not ours. So I was like "OK then. You won´t go anywhere until I´ve eaten this muffin and drank all my coke. Just to remind you I ate only that tiny skewer and painapple ice cream.

All in all the trip was amazing though and you should definitely go there!

DISNEYLAND II -rides

So now I´m gonna tell something about the other rides I rode! And I gotta add here that if you are thinking whether you should pay for this trip or not just pay! I don´t know how much this trip is gonna cost after this year but at least my trip was worth it (only with a little exception but I´m gonna talk about it later)

Mickey Mouse -roller coaster! Okay it´s not really called a Mickey Mouse roller-coaster but its located near a huge Ferris wheel with Mickey´s head. It  was one of the first rides we did and I really loved it! It went quite fast and had this kind of frill where you go upside down for a while. We had to wait quite long in the queue and it wasn´t fun. It was really hot day and some crazy/scary girl wearing a cap with Mickey Mouse ears was looking at me all the time (Not talking about Sini here). Oh and now I think I remembered the name of that ride!! I think it was called Paradise Pier.

After that we went to a shop and Sini and Amanda bought the same kinds of hats which that scary queue-girl had. Sini demanded that next we should ride this chain-carousel kind of thing (ketjukaruselli?????) It didn´t go really fast and was probably meant for small(er) kids than us but we gave up to Sini and queued for that carousel. But little did we know how fierce it actually was! You see after a while going around Sini´s new fabulous Mickey -cap was caught by a gust! It flew near the fake lake and we had to climb over fences to get it back! That´s what you get for forcing your friends to kids ride Sini!! Naaah not really it was ok and we got a good reason to laugh at Sini :)

We rode a Starwars ride, which was similar to the ´Linnunrata´ ride in Linnanmäki, and Buzz Lightyear ride where you were supposed to shoot targets with toy lazer guns. There was obviously something wrong with my gun as I got the least points! One of those really cool rides was Indiana Jones -ride! The queue went through a jungle camp and a entered an ancient temple. The decor of that place was fantastic! The ride itself was a bit scary tho... I mean I wasn´t like scared but well it´s hard to explain. The most scariest thing was when the car suddenly stopped and the place looked like dead end. And suddenly you notice this huge round rock rolling towards you! It was so cool!!!!

It started to get late and eventually because of that dark. That´s why we decided to visit the Haunted Mansion.The queue was really long and we weren´t able to get fastpasses there so we just had to wait. Finally we got inside and waited there about 5 minutes. Then we got to another room where we waited for at least the same 5 minutes. Then we were told that due some technical problems the haunted mansion was closed and we had to  leave... You can imagine that we weren´t really happy. The only thing we got to see inside the house wasn´t even scary! It was this gay couple dancing in one corner... Awwwws. Most likely the scariest thing there was me. You see I noticed a  big chandelier hanging from ceiling and started singing "IIIIII wanna swiiing from the chandelieeer, from the chandelieeer!" Oh God I guess everyone who reads this is getting a really weird image of me.

-Chandelier - Sia

DISNEYLAND I

One of the extra curricular activities was a trip to Disneyland and California Adventure park.I was really hoping that we would go there with coaches but instead of that we found ourselves sitting in those yellow school buses... Don´t get me wrong now! They are really awesome but if you have sat there every morning for now about 1.5 weeks you slowly start to realize that those buses are not the leaders of travel facilities!

Anyway those who had paid for that trip (´bout $200) were soon sitting in the bus on the way to our destination. We were really excited to see the place and especially the famous firework show!! I was absolutely jazzed up when I saw these "Disneyland 60 years" adverts while driving through the gates... Wait nobody says like that.... let´s just strike through that: jazzed up. Anyway you got the point I think! The 60th birthday of Disneyland, California.

We were told to go always to right when we we walking from the parking area to cars that drove us inside the park. Me, Sini, Siiri and Amanda were a group. Or well there weren´t actually any formal groups... We just moved together. The only thing we had to remember was the "Buddy Buddy rule". Which means that you can´t move alone and if you see somebody walking alone you have to take them with you. And when I say ´somebody´ I mean someone familiar of course.

We chose to go first in the California Adventure park -area because it seemed like all the others chose Disneyland -area first. I don´t  really remember anymore which rides were at Disneyland´s side and which of them were at Cali Advntr. side of the park but anyway all the rides we rode were AMAZING tho I didn´t go to SixFlags Magic Mountain so I can´t compare it to Disneyland. We were able to get fast passes over the queues when we showed the code in our tickets to this machine. It was really great but you could use them only after certain amount of time had passed after the last time you used the fast pass. For example if I used it with one ride I was able to get another fast pass again lets say after 20 minutes.

There were several cool rides I really enjoyed! You just can´t experience things like them in Linnanmäki amusement park, Helsinki. One of my absolute favorites was a "Californian landscape ride". it was a huge 4D experience. You were lifted up a few meters while sitting in your seat in rows of 5. Basically the idea of that ride was that you felt like flying  over California. First you were above the clouds and and then suddenly you can see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was so amazing! There were also added some scents in that experience. For example when flying over a forest the smell of fresh wood and rain  was spread all around. It was so cool!

The 4th of July -part 1

The 4th of July!

I assume that you all know the meaning of this date! Exactly! It´s my mom´s birthday! Happy 30th birthday Mama!! <3

There´s also another celebration on this day that you may have heard of. It´s maybe slightly more known world-widely but almost as big as the previously mentioned celebration, at least to me! It´s the independence day of the United States of America! This day was one of those reasons why I chose this course. And I must say (even tho boasting stinks) that I chose really well!

We spent this day wit our host-families and did whatever they usually do on independence days.The main thing we were supposed to do this day was going to a park and help doing stuff with the boy scouts, watch firework and just chill and stroll around the market thing.

Before that we were pitching (?) a baseball ball on the home street for a while! It was really fun cause you can see people doing that in American movies and eventually break something with the ball. I was feeling like an American kid even though I didn´t break anything with that ball. I only heard stories about some incidents from the past when it comes to pitching and neighbors shouting. 

Later on, after we got bored with throwing the ball, Josh got an idea that we should go to "Baseball cages". It´s a place where you are able to practice your baseball hits. they shoot balls towards you from these machines and you just gotta try to hit it and do it as well as you can. It was really fun except that my hands started to hurt after a while but it was really nothing. I just gotta find something negative too to be a real Finn. Pierre got really good hits!!!! #JustSaying


-Party in the U.S.A -Miley Cyrus 

PS. Sorry that I write these in different parts but so much happened every day that if I wrote everything on the same post it would be at least 20miles long!