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

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!!!!!!!!

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 -.-

LACitytour | four

After our interesting trip to COLA we headed towards a market place which was marked on our map. Okay I´m not completely sure if we actually did everything in this very order but anyways that´s not the point.

It was actually pretty hard to find the market place but then we realized to follow the guide signs  and found the place. Now imagine the stereotypical Asian marketplace where you will most likely be robbed. It looked just like that!

The Grand Central market was located indoors and it was basically a huge room with a lot of people selling food and other things under big colorful neon-lighted signs. People were crowded on small aisles pushing each other out of their way while trying to make sure that their recently-bought blackberries (nope not the phones) won´t get squeezed.

Talking about blackberries! Me, Oona and Iida bought some of them from some old man/woman (can´t remember). At first we were thinking  that how hygienic the berries would be and would we be sick the entire trip after eating those berries... But you know, these are one of those YOLO moments so we ate the berries which tasted delicious and didn´t get sick at all.. At least I didn´t.

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 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

Rest of the day 2

PIZZA!
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....
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.......

Did u know that u can check your health
in a supermarket!? Like how handy is that!
Luckily I. perhaps a doctor to be, was there
to help Pierre to set everything perfectly
for him so he would get just the right results :))
#PregnancyTest

Yess you got it right! We had this another kind of break and EF had ordered pizza for everyone! Not bad when you think it´s the 1st day of school... not bad at all! We also had a chance to buy US sim cards if we hadn´t already got them from our home countries. Well I had done that which led to a fact that I  didn´t have to concentrate to anything else except fighting for my pizza slice! 

Then I remembered that the previous day I had had problems with activating the sim card online so I went to ask for help from a member of EF Staff. I was advised to call to service numbers of that phone operator. Well I hadn´t even thought about that and a bit nervously I made a call. It turned to be a bit awkward ´cause the connection wasn´t that good so almost the every other word I said to phone was ´what?´. "Your sim card has unfortunately been expired" SAY WHAAT!?

And that´s how my day got ruined again for 5 minutes.

Well I talked to Antti and I decided that I had to buy a sim card from there. Me and Sini walked to the tables where these 2 guys sold sim cards. They  had 4 kinds of cards with them all with different features like unlimited calls to somewhere and unlimited internet etc. I bought one with 5GB of internet and something else in it and of course I hadn´t realized to take any cash with me. Fortunately that wasn´t a problem cause I was able to pay with a card too. Well that was what I thought. They took my card and wrote the things they needed down and gave everything back. They were really really nice and they were amazed by the leather back cover of my phone. I was told that I should get a message when my card was activated within 2 hours. Well it didn´t happen and when I got to the bus stop I asked my hostdad if we could go to phone shop on the other side of the road. In the shop they told me that the card was still empty and it wasn´t activated and that they wouldn´t be able to do anything. The only thing was to find those guys who sold the cards. So when we got home I called EF and heard that other students had had this same problem. Apparently foreign cards weren´t accepted in this company but my hostdad saved me and gave the number of his card so my sim card would work! I even remembered to pay him back! A really big thanks to Tim!

A sleeping beauty beast

On our way we visited the supermarket. I was told that normally my hostfamily goes to the supermarket only once in a week so this was exceptional. So then this happened: I guess I was tired and I wasn´t really thinking. Pierre was kind of leaning above the shopping cart and I almost randomly slapped his ass. I have no idea why... maybe cause I sometimes do it to one of my friend but anyways my brain luckily stopped me. My hand was in the middle of that slap move and then I was like "Wait what are you doing Jaakko!? Don´t you make yourself look like an idiot!". So I desperately tried to hide that slap move as a stretching kind of a thing. I really hope that nobody noticed me doing that cause I might have looked like a runaway from some nearby asylum. 

There were these people, next to the cashiers, who  packed your shopping for you. There was this girl who was quite OK looking and she was packing groceries of some woman´s. Then Pierre asked like "Do u have girls like that in Finland?" meaning if we had people who pack the things for us. But what I thought he meant was like do we have girls who look like that in Finland. I almost started to waffle something like "Well certainly not in my town (no offence) also Finnish girls are not often that dark and blah blah.." But thank God he refined his question and said "Do they pack your shopping". I immediately shut my mouth and formed a new answer in my head.