keskiviikko 30. heinäkuuta 2008

In Spartanburg

At the moment my location is the campus of school for deaf and blind in the city of Spartanburg. I love this place. We have 3 big “apartments” here that have an own living room, kitchen and three 2-bed bedrooms. This must be quite new, since everything is nice and shiny.




In the morning I woke up and caught some breakfast – probably the best breakfast in America so far: strawberries, cheerios and biscuits. We gathered to the place where we had picnic and were soon on our way to Spartanburg. We finished watching the movie “The Man of Honor” and went to buffet to eat some lunch. It was a buffet and I wasn’t even hungry! The next pit stop was rock climbing, which was in CHURCH (?). Americans really take things to extreme. We were there for a couple of hours, so everyone were let to try as many times they wanted. I tried only once, and it was an anguish, since my nails are so long that I can’t really use my hands. Somehow I made myself to the top. I cant describe how hot it was in the room, it was like being in sauna.


Being very tired, we lodged ourselves to campus, took a shower, and left for – SURPRISE – RESTAURANT! The serving was ENORMOUS. I can tell their ideology: invest to the amount of food, not the food itself! I couldn’t eat a half. Being even more tired (but full), we laughed at how sorry we are for the food we couldn’t eat. I mean, our plates looked like no one had even touched them. After that we got a HUGE cake of ice cream and everyone got an own spoon and ate as much as one could. Even a group of 15 people couldn’t complete the cake. After cake and laughs we returned to the campus. The others left for Wal-Mart, but me, Miguel, Zolo (??) and Pauline stayed. Zi-Zo-whatever plays WOW (or something like that) in computer. He is from Mongolia and is a great spot of color to our European group. Day was fun!


Giulio had the time of his life

tiistai 29. heinäkuuta 2008

In Tega Cay

At last I got an access to computer!

Saturday 27.7



At morning we left for Columbia with Donát, Charlotte and Dave. At Columbia I met the rest 9 campers, which included 4 boys and 7 girls (including me and Donát). What a great group!! We got to know each others and ate some hot dogs. Then we packed ourselves to two mini vans. In the other car there was me, Dutch Pauline, Belgian Shania, Spanish Miguel and Donát and Giulio who I already knew. Our first destination was Columbia College. We lodged ourselves to our cells – everyone got an own room, which had a plastic covered hospital bed and I really felt I was in jail. Well, it’s not as bad as it sounds like, we thought it was just funny. After all, we hadn’t practically paid a cent, so how can we expect a luxurious accommodation? We did get a hard blanket, so it’s not that bad. The worst thing was that it was so cold in the room, I’d have liked to open the windows so that the humid, warm air would have warmed up my room. After we had settled down, we returned to mini vans and left for Newsberry to watch Elvis Presley. Well, actually we saw Rick Wade imitating Elvis, which was horrible. I really can’t describe it, he looked like drunken, old, fat gypsy. He was all sweaty, and some crazy ones fancied his sweaty towels. Gross, huh? All I got was a headache. After meeting Elvis we returned to college and ate cake as an evening meal, and went to bed.



My 3-day's suite in Columbia!
Sunnuntai 27.7


I found my passion in Riverbank's.

In the morning it took a while to realize I’m in college campus instead in jail. Last night I woke up many times since the bed and the blanket were so hard. Also the pillow is plastic covered. After I had recovered from the shock this awakening caused, I left for McDonalds for breakfast. For real. It didn’t look like a breakfast, but that’s how it’s called. After the “breakfast” we left for Riverbanks Zoo. Nothing special, but we had fun. Me and Shania got a possibility to feed lorikeets, which was awesome. I truly love parrots! One of the lorikeets bit my finger. The heat was so bad, like usually in South Carolina. I almost miss the climate in Finland! After the zoo was picnic time – PIZZA!! Then it was time to explore the history of South Carolina in national museum. Museum is always a museum and I’m not very keen on history, but this was something more. The 3 hours in the museum were kind of interesting. Most of the time we spent in the science section by testing all kinds of gadgets. Mostly this means that we just messed around, like usually. After the museum we left for BBQ to some Lions person. We had some great time, swimming and trying to learn each other’s languages. Donát turned out an expert in pronouncing Finnish. Typical BBQ: hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs and some other BBQ stuff. We were so tired but no one really wanted to go to sleep, so we played a silly Italian card game called Merda, “shit”. The thing that Giulio, with his unique English, tries to explain the rules makes the game even more interesting. Lots of laugh, but at last I was just too tired to stay awake. It was going to be an early awakening next morning, so I fell a sleep in my stony bed.



SWAT- squirrel
Maanantai 28.7





Being very tired, we tucked ourselves into minivan and fell asleep as soon as we got there. We ate American-style breakfast at Hardy´s, which means FAST FOOD! After that it was time to go to national park. That was probably one of the prettiest places I’ve ever visited in my entire life. We choose pairs and and went to canoes. It was time for 3 miles canoe trail! It was fun, but after 2 miles our shoulders were in pain. But it was totally worth it, the nature was like in story books. Silence was intimidating. The worst thing was that the place was full of natts. I mean an insect that bites. Even the place is famous for it’s snakes, we saw only one nonpoisonous one. No wonder, I bet that 7 crashing canoes must be quite scary for wild animals. I and Pauline were so faint on our way back, we got stuck on branch and had no power to free ourselves. We sang songs and listened to music, and finally reached the base, where the others were already looking for us. In the national park we ate some hamburger for lunch. After the lunch we headed for some Lions club and ate some delicious ice cream. Then it was time to explore the local peach farm. It was so cold there (inside, where they packed the peaches, I mean) and I didn’t like the smell. We ate some home-made peach ice cream, very tasty. We met Pauline’s host sister and some friends of her. Guess what was before the peach farm? What is the most common pastime in America? What else than FOOOOD! The dinner was in Shealy’s BBQ- place, which was a buffet. I was already all full and felt so sorry for the Lions Club that had paid a lot to feed us, but I managed to eat only one steak. After the steak it was time to make some plans for afternoon, no one really desired to go to sleep. So we decided to go to cinema, we all agreed that Wanted is the movie we want to go watch. The movie started at half past 10, so we were quite tired after having woke up 6 o clock. I still managed to keep my eyes open and focus on the movie ‘til the end of the movie. It was really confusing, and a bit scary. First a man doesn’t know what he is, until he is told that his father is dead and his mission is to kill people. Then everything is a betrayal and he kills his dad since he doesn’t know that he was his dad. Finally everyone got cheated and the man kills a group of serial killers plus his ex girlfriend. The result is, I guess, that the man is a serial killer and is able to work in slow motion and steer bullets. Half of the group fell asleep during the movie.

29.7



In the morning we got a chance to sleep longer, and the breakfast was Southern style grits instead McDonalds. That’s not my favorite, but definitely beats McDonalds. After the grits we left for Carowinds, on our way we watched a movie about a black diver, which was good. In Carowinds we choose first to go to the hardest ride, where you lie on your back and you are upside down 70% of the ride. I enjoyed it, and it wasn’t half as bad as it looked like. The worst thing was that you couldn’t see where you were going since you lied on your back. It took some half an hour to get to the ride, since the queue was extremely long. After this we took 2 other rides, that were ok but I didn’t consider them scary at all. Me, Miguel and Henriikka and Freya went to Viking boat which twirled all around and to Free Fall. After that many of us had headache and Miguel had migraine. It was unbelievably hot day, probably closer to 40 degrees and no clouds at all. Water Park felt so good on my sweaty skin. I think I’m just too old for water slides, since I didn’t feel any adrenaline in my veins. I loved the landscapes up in the water slide, you could see clearly the capital of North Carolina, Charlotte. We were so tired after being in Carowinds for 6 hours and left for Tega Cay for picnic. The food was just excellent, I ate REAL food for the first time for a long time instead fast food. We went boating to the Lake Tega Cay. Me and Beatrice got a fancy accommodation by the lake, and here I am! In the morning it’s time to head for the upstate area of the state, the city of Spartanburg.







perjantai 25. heinäkuuta 2008

Dusty Hills

While writing the last note we got a blackout, I’m glad this blogger saves the notes automatically, so I didn’t lost anything! It was quite scary. I walked upstairs in candlelight, the bolts flashed outside continuously and lit the room. I went straight to bed since the candlelight didn’t light up much, it just created creepy shadows. It was so hot since the air conditioner didn’t work due to the blackout. Just when I sacked out the electricity returned and air conditioner switched on.

Yesterday morning I woke up for a golf day. Steve came to pick my up at 10 o clock. I had just some tennis shoes of Charlotte, I didn’t have even sneakers with me. I put a Gamecocks cap on my head, of which Steve didn’t like, since he belonged to Clemson. Gamecocks is a football team of the University of South Carolina, and Tigers, the team of Clemson University, is the worst enemy of Gamecocks. The round at Dusty Hills was horrible. I’ve never played so bad in my entire life. I wasn’t even nervous like normally when playing with someone I don’t know. Luckily Steve didn’t care, he wasn’t a very good player either. Still, he succeeded in hitting the ball straight to hole by 20meters chip, and some amazing putts. At least he was much better than me. I blame too big tennis shoes, weird clubs, bad-luck-cap, hot and humid weather and nats (those irritating insects). Also the bunkers were full of water (it rained so bad last night). The rest of the day I rested at home



At Friday morning I laid outside listening music, like I usually do before it gets so hot you can’t really stay outside. After that we headed for Florence, which has become familiar to me. It’s the ugliest city I’ve seen so far. I don’t count the most squalid city I’ve ever seen, “Latta”, as an actual city. It is pronounced “Lada”, which doesn’t make it any more glamorous. The city of “Lada” with it’s population of 2000 is the most pathetic city I’ve seen so far. It is located in a short distance to north, close to the border of North Carolina. Anyway, we were on our way to Swamp Fox Cinema to watch Hancock. Not bad, actually. There was only 10 people watching the movie with me, they all were black. I felt quite alone there… After the movie I filled myself up in Red Lobster and returned to home. I draw an ugly drawing of a parrot, since Charlotte thought I’m good at drawing and wanted a memory.

Now I have to rush to pack my stuff, I’ll leave at 11 for Columbia where I’ll meet the becoming YE campers. All I know is that I'll spend the first days at Columbia College.

And greetings for my mum who turned out a secret follower of my blog.

keskiviikko 23. heinäkuuta 2008

Countrylife


For the forenoon I lounged and ate candies. OMG! I’m afraid to use the scales right now. It’s so HOT and HUMID that you’re soaking wet after 15 minutes of sitting outside. Anyway, at 5 I left for Wise’s ranch. Mr. Wise presented his farm for me and Donát (the Wise is Donát’s host family). They had some stunning mustangs and other horses, and one mule. That place was something between a museum and a dump: the father of Mr. Wise (or something) had built up those buildings and barns, so it is some 100 years old. There was WAY too much stuff there, Americans are such hamsters. I would took half of those objects to antique store. There was one 60 years old tractor, still running! They hadn’t used it for 15 years. Okay, I believe those things do have some sentimental value since they belong to their family, but still, the place would look so much nicer without all that stuff. They had some pigs and about 20 dogs that were running free on their huge property. Mr. Wise said: "you can see all these forests and fields.. they are aaaaall mine!" Then it started to thunder. We left for Florence to watch Redwolves’ baseball game. We stayed positive and thought the thunder would end before the ball game. It didn’t, the game was canceled. So we headed for eating. I took a chicken wrap, my favorite. So tasty, yam. We conversed maybe 2 hours about different countries and languages. I discovered that Hungarian and Finnish are very close to each others! We found some similar words and the pronunciation is almost the same in both languages. Americans can’t understand the way we spell R. I’ve never thought Americans aren’t able to spell it the way we do? Both newspapers have come out, Marion Country News Journal and Marion Stars & Mullins Enterprise. The last one was much better.


Blakely ja hevonen



After that we returned to Wise’s house, where was no electricity, due to the thunderstorm. In the candlelight we watched some pictures and videos from Benton’s laptop of Lions YE camp in Sweden, where he had been last summer. So much fun!! I can’t wait for my camp to begin! And he told me I have a Swedish accent. :D It was about 10 o clock and I was terribly tired. Mr. Wise said: “there is power in your house” and I answered “I dunno”, because I heard he asked “is there?”. And that was just one misunderstanding among the others. The strong southern accent he has wasn’t the only reason for I was quite unable to understand and speak right now, I really needed some sleep.



tiistai 22. heinäkuuta 2008

Poor golf cart


Kuva Suuresta Sombrerosta, tyypillistä maisemaa South Carolinan koillisosassa.


Yesterday it was boring and I made an embarrassing screw-up. I was on computer sipping sweet tea. Accidentally I shoved the ice tea and it fell on a pile of paper! At that point I thought I was ingenious when I tried to hide the mess and dry the papers. I didn’t talk anything and left for Country club’s pool, which was the worst mistake. After couple of hours Dave came to pool and asked if I messed the table and why didn’t I clean it up. I had no other options than try to explain.. Fortunately he wasn’t too angry, he probably new I felt embarrassed anyway. And told me “now we’re going to Mexico”. I happened to know Mexico is in west and we’re in east coast, where are we going? Dave told we’re going to see Pedro in Mexico. We drove about 20 miles and Dave told “we’re soon in Mexico, this is a short cut”. Finally I saw huge signs: “WELCOME TO MEXICO, THE SOUTH OF THE BORDER” and “WELCOME TO PEDROLAND”. Pedro statues and sombreros were everywhere. It was a Mexico themed amusement park! Not very big one though. I bought one Pedro pin and went by elevator to big, high sombrero, which was in the border of South and North Carolina. Pity that the landscape was mostly just forests, few fields and authentic American water towers. At home I ate spaghetti and a mortal plate of spinach that I didn’t eat (I could eat fresh but not boiled), plus corn, that I have, wonder of wonders, started to like.





Today, 22.7 woke up for brand new and marvelous day. In other words, I had no idea what was going to happen. I took Marion newspaper and noticed to my horror there was my picture in the front page. The interview was quite lame but okay. The second interview will be published tomorrow. I went to some quite of town hall where I got a pile of all kinds of leaflets about Marion. I also got a Marion t-shirt and I was welcomed to Marion etc… Then we were off to Florence to buy food for my parrots, that is not sold in Finland or it is much more expensive. My parrots have always been on American diet. At home it took me by surprise that Giulio and Donát are coming to Hollandsworth’s for afternoon. I suggested if we could go riding golf cart. It was a mistake. First I rode safely to Double-road. Then Giulio wanted to drive. Oh buy! He was driving as fast as the cart could ever go, which was quite okay since it’s not too fast. But then he started to take shortcuts through forests. He also made U-turns at top speed. Donát fell once. Once the golf cart bounced to the air after driving across a ditch and some branches, and I was quite sure it broke down. I heard few times a weird voice: KLONK, KLONK, KLONK. Then the voice stopped, I hope nothing serious happened. I kept repeating all the time “please please stop lets go home you will break it Dave is gonna kill me please let’s go home!”. :D

At home we played dominoes, which Giulio hated, since he thought it’s a game for retired people. I guess the real reason was he didn’t understand the rules. Still he won, because Dave helped him. It was a championship USA vs Finland vs Italy vs Hungary. I was the loser. L

sunnuntai 20. heinäkuuta 2008

NO MORE BEATCH!

Friday 18.7.2008

I woke up 7 o clock and thought I had slept in. After rushing to shower I was told that family Wise is not coming until 12. So I laid waiting, I had no idea what kind of family was going to pick me up. Finally, an American-Philippine Ms. Wise knocked the door and it was my time to leave Hollandsworths for a weekend. There was Donát, Mr. Wise, Blakely and Benton in the car. Blakely is the older daughter, aged 19, and Benton or Ben is at my age. Ms. Wise is from Philippines, Mr. Wise is American and kids are something between. Mr. Wise has a really strong southern accent and I had at times problems to understand him. Blakely told me stories about American college life; she is studying in Spartanburg College. First evening we went to beach, nothing special, I hate salt water. We ate delicious pasta and watched Batman Dark Knight in a cinema. It was just okay! After the movie to Japanese restaurant, I loved the food even it was quite sweet.



The Beach


Saturday 19.7.2008

After a long and refreshing night it was time to go to the beach! A typical American breakfast; bacon, sausages, pancakes, eggs and blue berries. It was raining and blowing in the beach, Donát tried to surf with a low success. The coldest (or windiest) day so far! Maybe ONLY 25 Celsius degrees. Soon came Paul and Giulio and we left for playing miniature golf with boys to a really fancy Mini golf course that Myrtle Beach (the #1 golf destination in the USA) is full of. I was leading until trying to hit Giulio by a golf ball (he irritated me) and so the ball flew to the street outside the course. I lost the ball. :S We got more balls and messed around with the balls a bit. Giulio shoot balls as hard he ever could. Also Donát used much too much strength and we lost more balls! After a few attempted murders we had lost 5 balls, so we continued the round, trying to behave. Giulio managed to make a hole-in-one by hitting the ball as hard he could. NB! The fairways were quite long. Few balls flew to water, some to the street and some got lost to bushes. But it was fun! Fortunately no one asked us to return the balls, I think it’s quite natural that balls do get lost in such a hard course.



Miniature golf and Giulio

Benton surffaa

Back in the Wise’s beach house Giulio and Donát needed necessarily to go to smoke, so we left for walking down the beach. Walking and talking, we walked without noticing many miles and we were almost in downtown! Giulio embarrassed himself few times thoroughly. I asked if they have many blacks in Italy, so he answered: “Not much but a little… I hate them!” and at the very moment a black kid passed us by :D She looked us a bit angrily. Then Giulio demonstrated what he does in Italy when he gets bored, improvising himself hitting a hood of a really fancy car. In Italy he really touches the car so the burglar alarm goes on, but this time he just improvised, not touching the car. But at the VERY MOMENT the owner of the car was right behind us, looking VERY, VERY ANGRY :D He much have thought that Giulio was about to hit his beautiful Mercedes. After this happening we went back to “home” and the Wise were quite nervous about us being out so late in Myrtle Beach. Anyway, they left for searching Benton, who was surfing and no one had found him. Giulio is not actually the best in English and didn’t quite understand what’s the problem and asked after they had left: “Is it a problem if they don’t find Benton??”. :DD Poor Giulio was looking us puzzled when we started to laugh. “Yes it is, ‘cause then he may be dead!”.



Benton was found and we started to watch Step Up 2. It was very good! After the movie we discussed with Blakely, Maria (Blakely’s friend), Benton, Donát and Giulio about the differences between our countries, school systems and stuff like that. We couldn’t help laughing at Giulio who’s English is quite… unique :D We kept repeating: “is it possible Giulio??? Or impossible??” because, for some reason, he used it all the time, for example:” A Mercedes can cost 50 000 euros in Italy.. if it’s possible!!”. I was laughing so bad that night. Donát laughed maybe 3 hours continuously. When it was time to go to sleep, Giulio and Donát couldn’t sleep in the same room with Mr wise because he snored so loudly, so they slept in sofa. Ms. Wise wasn’t too happy about that.

Sunnuntai 20.7.2008

Sunday 20.7.2008

The day started with catholic church. It was so weird! They all even drank the Eucharist from the same cup. I kept asking questions to Giolio about what were they doing, it was all new to me. After the church Giulio left for Winsboro with Paul and we headed for the beach. It was sooo hot there. :s I went to water every 15 minutes but it didn’t make the situation any better. I suffered for 2 hours and then left back to beach house with Donát. The door was locked so we rang the bell. Five minutes but no one came to open. We supposed that Ms Wise may be in shower or sleeping. We waited another 5 minutes and figured out that one of the doors in balcony may be open and Donát climbed up there. It was open and we made in! Unfortunately Ms. Wise didn’t quite appreciate our attempt to break in. We went back to beach and I was about to die. I don’t want to go to beach for a looong time! About 6 in the evening we left back to Marion, bye bye beach.



Family Wisen Beach House.. ja Bentonin trucki




torstai 17. heinäkuuta 2008

North Myrtle !

Wednesday 16.7.2008

In the morning I forgot I was meant to go down to the beach with Donát and Giulio. It was quite a shock when Charlotte woke me up 8 o clock and I didn’t realise what is happening, went to down stairs looking shabby and Donát was there. :D Dave took me and Donát to Bojangles where Paul picked us up. First I didn’t realise Giulio being the Italian boy after he spoke some English, he really looked like a real American boy with the FBI- shades. So we went to Paul’s daughters place in North Myrtle Beach. After walking 100 meters to the beach with guys I realised Giuilio is not a shy boy at all when he started to make jokes with a funny Italian accent he had, so all the tension was gone. I don’t wonder if he had an ADHD, he wasn’t a second in a same position. He told how his teacher gave a detention for him after he played with toy cars inside few years. Paul took us to mall close by. Giulio kept repeating all the time: “Paul, are you okay?? Paul, Paul, you are the best! But you drive too slowly!”


In the mall we all were bought a same kind of shirt which was 3 times too big for me! Then I lost the boys and I was very nervous, since I didn’t remember where to go and what time, I didn’t even have phone or clock, nor did I know where I was! Kind of a hopeless situation, huh? In the end I was finally found and we went to the beach house. We ate in a secluded, sleazy (well, not that bad) seafood restaurant where I ate some fish. It was edible but fish is not my favourite. I preferred the shellfishes. Back in Marion we made our plans for Friday; going to beach with Donát’s host family. Fun day with lots of laugh.


Kuva Paulin beach housen partsilta



Thursday 18.7.2008

The day began when I and Donát went to place of which either of us didn’t know. We just considered that the place wasn’t exactly the right place for us. The hall was full of retired religious people, middle age around 70. We listened to some country music and ate something which looked very suspicious. Can you imagine; cold, lumpy mashed potatoes with pieces of egg and broccoli? Served with bean sauce. After a “delicious” lunch we left for Lake City to watch ball game. Marion won! I feel so homely sitting there next to the team and coach, my feet against the web. I’ve also made a habit to eat one hot dog each game. Still, I’m not enough American to eat peanuts. Maybe after 3 weeks. I’m so glad I’m not even in the half way of my journey here. =) I love it here. I could stay here for the whole year – or even for a whole life.



Lake City

tiistai 15. heinäkuuta 2008

Marion Newspaper

Marion Newspaper

Today was the moment I had feared. The interview. :I I was lying outside on my constant spot, the terrace, even it was a rather cold day, just below 80F. Charlotte came outside saying “let’s go, you’ll have two interviews!”. So, looking very fresh and just-woke-up, we headed for Marion News Journal’s office. After a cosy but very meaningless interview we took a jail picture of me (at least I looked like a prisoner) and left for Marion County’s Newspaper. I was led to a place I would describe as a hearing place for murder suspects. The walls where white and there was just a table and two chairs, a tape recorder in the middle. A black man stepped in the room. After all, he was very nice and funny, the interview went a lot better than the first one despite the situation. He was laughing at my stories about Finland and my first touch to South Carolina, even I didn’t consider myself funny. It was true that I hadn't realised I was outside when I stepped out of the plane (it was night, dark, very hot and humid), and also in Finland 70F IS a very warm day. Maybe he was just laughing at me. Then he asked if we have MTV or Youtube in Finland. I hope this interview had some content.


The ball game wasn’t today, so I was glad to go to Lexi’s birthday party earlier than midnight. It was about 5pm when I went to Lexi who lives in the opposite side of the road than I do. Her mum took me to her granny’s place where the birthday party is held. So much fun we had that night. At first we ate; pizza, more pizza, chips, soda, more pizza and even more pizza. After eating we went swimming. In the water we played categories (I wonder how youngs at my age still play games I played last time when I was 13??) and baseball. There was Lexi, Kayla, Hannah, Grace, John, Coby, George and some about 10 years old children who left after 10 o clock. We stayed there until around midnight, it was so nice to just lay there, watch the moon and listen to music. There was some mosquitoes though, and VERY humid! My shades where all fogged. We were laughing all the way home, 5 girls in the back of the car. It was the best night so far!


From the left: Josh, Coby, Grace, Hannah, Kayla, Olivia, I, Lexi, Jacob, Emily, George and some unidentified little child.

maanantai 14. heinäkuuta 2008

Getting bored

Getting bored

3 days have passed by in boredom.

Saturday 12.7

In the morning it took a while to realize that I’m the only Finnish in the house. Since I had recovered from the shock and ate some breakfast I went cycling. I cycled about 5km in the suburb of the town center. I also got lost few times but I became familiar with the suburb. I cycled once across the Main Street and back along the corn fields to Pinelake Community. This must be one of the very few cities in the States where people have managed to build cycle paths. :D I was soaking wet from the sweat and after shower I went to pool where I floated on swimming mattress for two hours. Back to home I watched Nascar and sat on computer


Marion's old high school

Sunday 13.7

Whole day I was either getting tanned in the chair outside, sitting on computer or watching TV in my room. Almost forgot; we also went to church, which was the top of boredom. In Marion Chinese the food was, again, excellent. FINALLY the clock was 5 and we were ready to leave for Florence. The Marion boys won the game but otherwise the game was quite boring, small and trashy field with no cover, so it was terribly hot. Hannah and Grace were also there. I was sitting with Lexi, eating. I feel like people come to baseball games just for food, and some fill sudokus. So do I.



Monday 14.7

In the morning I was let to collect pines, hurray! After collecting pines for two hours I was all sweaty. I intended to take some soda from the fridge, so, after opening one 24- pack of soda, all the cans billowed on me from the high cupboard. With my other hand I tried to prevent the cans, which were still in the pack, to fall down, and with the other hold the cans which had broke down on the ground and were showering soda. Finally, all the 24 cans in the pack had fallen down and 4 of them had broken down. So I put all the soda in the broken cans to one big glass and drank it all. That’s how I covered my tracks! After this happening I went drawing for a while until Lexi and Emily came to ask me to drive golf cart with them. At this point we also figured out what mattered our golf cart- no gas! After adding some gas and cranking it for a while we managed to get it start. We raced a bit and found that Lexi’s cart accelerates much faster and also goes twice as fast as ours. It’s neater as well! One more accident; I got stuck on some hillock. We three tried to push it with no avail, until one man who was cutting grass came to help us. :DDD It was a bit embarrassing. After an hour Lexi and Emily came; “ANNIE ANNIE YOU HAVE TO COME THIS IS SO COOL RUN WE HAVE TO HURRY!” and so I left with them as fast as I could without knowing where I was going! We drove to double-road and found our target from ditch- there was a snake! Lexi told as that it is not venomous, so we poked it with a stick, it was all stiff so we thought it was dead. We poked it again and it started to hiss and weave to us :---D. Lexi started to yell: “IT’S A DIAMOND BACK, BACK UP!”. We took a pictures of the snake and showed them to Lexi’s dad. He believed that the snake was just an non-poisonous “garden snake”. In the evening we played dominoes, and in the end I finally found what it is all about! I mean, it’s not a typical “Dominoes”, it is mathematic.


















For the rest of the week there are fortunately a lot of activities for me. Maybe a bit too much, I have to decide between two things. Today we are going to BBQ, if it is not raining. Tomorrow I’m going to go with some American boy, girl, Donát (Hungarian buy) and that Italian buy who’s name I don’t already know, to Florence baseball game. And when I'm back, around 9-10pm, I’m going to Lexi’s birthday party by the pool of her granny.


For Wednesday and Thursday I have some activities, but forgetful as I am, I have forgotten what it was. On Friday I was supposed to go to play golf with Steve, but I have new plans: I’m going to the beach with American-Hungarian-Italian group! Luckily this idleness didn’t last for too long. =) I mean, time is running really slow right now!

perjantai 11. heinäkuuta 2008

$$$

Time is running so fast that I didn’t realize I haven’t been on computer for 4 days!

Monday 7.7

Before noon we went cycling with Lexi and Emmi, tried to catch the turtles but they were too shy. The day was boring hanging at home, about 6 o clock we went to baseball game in Marion. I was a bit disappointed since Marion Post 5’s lost. I already remember the names of half of the players and know their looks.

Tuesday 8.7


Early at morning we left for driving to North Myrtle Beach, where is brand new Hard Rock Park. After paying expensive (50$) tickets we rushed in to gleaming and fancy theme park and were a little disappointed since there were only 5 roller coasters, one of them being not available, plus few lame carousels. The best one of them was Led Zeppelin, which took some 10 minutes to get in since we had to watch some introducing video about the band Led Zeppelin. The roller coaster was just super and Led Zeppelin songs were played loudly. Slippery when wet was also ok, but you get quite wet there. The Eagles was alright. It was REALLY expensive there, a small drink cost some 3$. At least 20 gift shops selling unbelievably expensive gifts. We also saw some C-class ice show. We didn’t even know where we went; we went inside some huge, dark building. Suddenly the lights came on and some ice show started! I thought it would be some inside roller coaster. I was really tired back home.





Wednesday 9.7

In the morning we went to Wal-Mart to develop the pictures, after that we went swimming to Dusty Hills Country Club. There I met a nice family, which I had already met once, the children were aged 10 to 18 (Audrey, Grace, Alexia and Joey, if I remember right). We played categories with them and shot each others using some water floats that had water guns.




I left back home, since we were leaving for Sumter to watch Marion Post 5’s baseball game. It is some 60 miles travel to Sumter. The booking clerks were very nice. We were the first Finnish in Sumter baseball field so they wanted to show what the southern hospitality is all about and let us inside for free and also asked our “signatures”, name and home town. In the halfway of the game they announced, “Today we have here in Sumter two girls from Finland, Anniina Heikkilä from Vimpeli and Emmi Ketola from Pietarsaari, welcome to Sumter! It was incredible how well they pronounced the names, since usually the surname and home town are almost impossible to pronounce. We talked with them for a while after the game. I got also two new friends; 15-year-old Hannah and Grace. Both of them were friends of Lexi.


Kuvassa Marion Post 5


10.7

We stayed at home until 3pm, I had the “what could I do”- feeling. So we left for North Myrtle Beach to Alabama Theatre where is “One the show”, which SHOULD BE #1 tourist destination in Myrtle Beach. In my opinion, it wasn’t that special. The stand-up comedian, Ricky Mokel, was quite funny though, wearing simple college- shirt, jeans and sneakers, let alone the hoarse voice he had. They played some old hits, for example the Beatles, and also some own songs (I guess). I must admit they were good at sing and act, but somehow I just don’t appreciate that kind of musicals. We also went shopping to Broadway in Barefoot landing, though I didn’t find anything since I wasn’t equipped with a big amount of money.

Alabama Theatre

11.7

About half past eleven in the morning we left for Lions meeting in Conway. We ate tasty lunch and heard one man telling about his big plans for Horry Country Museum. I had feared about introducing myself and telling something about Finland in the meeting, but luckily Charlotte introduced me and Emmi so we didn’t really have to say a word, except some small talk with some Lions. After the meeting we went to some small village for lunch (again?), where we met Emmi’s upcoming host family. I just drank a glass of Southern Sweet Tee and we left for Florence Speedway. I must say that if I still have to visit many car races, I will loose my hearing for good. Again, there was in for crashing and many pauses.