American football

Life is good in here! Yesterday I went to football game with my friends Julia and Nini! Julia is also an exchange student, she is from Brazil. After school we went to get pizza and warm drinks, it was freezing outside!

This was my first American football game! To be honest sometimes I had no glue what was going on :D The game was the last home game and they awarded senior players. Dress code was pink to appreciate everybody who has cancer! Before the game started there was marching bands playing their music and marching. Our team lost the game what was such a pity because it was the last home game!

I bought my school's t-shirt and scarf also, these are good souvenirs and memories after this year!

Even tough I liked the game I still love ice hockey more!

Baltimore

Last Sunday we had AFS trip to Baltimore!! I woke up around 6am and 7.15am one volunteer came to pick me up. I shared a ride with Austrian and the other Finnish girl. The car ride from Lancaster to Baltimore went really quickly, it was a little bit more than one hour. We got to Baltimore after 9 am and ran into some other exchange students. Because we were supposed to meet everybody 10am we decided to get some coffee.

When everybody had arrived to Baltimore we got our tickets and went to the National Aquarium! They had some pretty interesting things in there, I really enjoyed walking and taking pictures around there with other students! We had three-four hours time to walk through it and to be honest, after a while it got a bit boring. Like we were sitting in the dolphin show area for more than a half an hours because we had nothing else to do. I'm sure that the Aquarium is more interesting to younger kids than to  exchange students who are so exited to meet each others again!

Taylor and Simal!

 Once we were done with Aquarium it was time for a lunch! We got some lunch money from AFS. (Yes, exchange year is all about eating good food, don't even try to deny it!)

Me and Simal decided to go to a seafood restaurant, because Baltimore is located near sea! Then we found this awesome place called Bubba Gump Shrimp! It theme was the Forrest Gump movie and the food was just so delicious! 

(Thank God) there was nothing else planned to do and we had free time! There were good shopping malls at the harbor so we just went through all of the stores. The weather was just perfect to hang around in the sunshine. For dessert we went to the Cheesecake Factory, I got wild blueberries and white chocolate one. (I regret nothing!)

Nora! By the way we both are staying in Lititz and we go to the same school. Someone asked Nora if everybody in the Europe has a pale face and dark eyes because we both have. (Ööh, no? Originally I have blond hair, I just dye my hair dark.)

Group picture! Our group was basically the same as in the orientation camp, but now we had two more girls, one from Iceland and one from Austria. Thank you all for such a great day! Next time we are meeting in New York City!

Adding, now I have been here for two months! Woop woop!

Homecoming week

So last week was the homecoming and spirit week in my school! During the spirit week every day had their own "dress code": Monday was favorite sport team, Tuesday tv/movie actor, Wednesday was twin day, Thursday class color and Friday the school colors red, white and black! I was surprised how many students actually dressed up during the spirit week, amazing! I wasn't that good, our class color was orange and I have nothing with orange in my wardrobe! But on Friday I was reading a red sweater.

On Friday periods were shorter because the pep rally! All the students and stuff went to the gym hall and we had some games and spirit things, it was kinda fun! And of course there was the homecoming football game in the evening...

...but the weather ruined my plans to go to the football game! I didn't wanted to go there because it was raining and I was feeling a bit sick. But luckily we had other plans with couple of my friends! We ate come chinese food and went shopping at Goodwill. Goodwill is always a good idea, a lot of good stuff with low prices! I found three shirts and this beautiful clutch, which was only 4 dollars! 

Saturday was the day for the homecoming dance! We started to get ready early, ate very good dinner and took pictures! I went to the dance with my lovely host sister and then we met more friends at the dance. I found my dress from a store called Deb. 

The dance's theme was Hollywood. They had made amazing decorating to hallways, when we walked in I wasn't feeling like I was going to our school's cafeteria! To be honest, the dance was a lot like our discos in middle school, everybody were just dressed up fancier. Good music was playing the whole evening and they offered everybody free smoothies.

Sing Out Loud

A lot of people have told me, that the best way to get new friends during the exchange year is to join in some kind of club, team or group. Because I'm not really into team sports or clubs, but I play piano, I decided to tryout for music groups! Music groups are totally different here in the USA than in Finland because we don't even have choirs or any after school activities. 

In my school there is a show choir, acapella group, county chorus, holiday production companies and a group called Glitter Girls. Because I have a music as subject in my schedule, I am automatically in a concert choir. Girls are separated as a soprano 1 or 2 and alto 1 or 2. And of course boys as tenor 1 or 2 and bass 1 or 2. I am singing alto 1. It is really fun, because usually altos don't sing the melody of the song! And as a alto you don't have to reach to the highest notes. 

Here are the songs that we are singing in the concert choir. Breath Of Heaven, Betelehemu, That's the Good News and Hallelujah chorus. (Yes, the Hallelujah chorus from Handel, where you sing hallelujah for hundreds of times!) And oh my god how good the songs sounds! When there are eight different voice parts singing a song it just have to sound amazing. Everybody in this choir is so talented and our teacher is really good and demanding. That's the Good News is maybe my favorite song of these! It really represents that kind of song that I've always been thinking of when someone mentions a high school choir! We are going to sing these songs at Holiday Concert and there is actually one more song that we are opening with, In December.

So I had my singing audition to the groups week after school started and a dance audition week after that. I had to sing one song that I picked and then a weird hanukkah song to show my teachers that I can read notes. In dance audition we learned a really fast musical choreography in ten minutes. After a short time practice in small groups we went to show off to the teachers. It was really difficult, I haven't dance for years since I quit dance lessons! At least I tried my best!

Last week we finally got the results! I got in to Glitter Girls and Winter Company!! I couldn't be happier :) Winter Company should start in a month or something, we are going to sing a couple of holiday songs. Glitter Girls is in spring time and are going to perform in the Spring Concert.

Hershey Park

Last Sunday we spent family time at Hershey Park! Everybody in the family were together, including my host parents, two sisters and two brothers. (Well my third host sister is in Germany now so she wasn't able to make it, haha). It is very well-known place in Pennsylvania and is just about 45 minutes car ride away from us. We went there early in the morning so we had the whole day to spend! 

The amusement park area is really huge and after walking the whole day my legs were really tired! Weather was between 85 and 90 Fahrenheit (+30C) which was just a little bit too hot, but when riding  a roller coaster it was nice and breezy. I'm kinda afraid of roller coasters, because I don't like it when it goes upside down. But I did couple of them and another rides, including the Comet! It was rated level 4/5 as High Thrill Race.

After we were done with rides, we headed to the Chocolate World! If someone doesn't know, Hershey is an American chocolate brand and could be compared as Fazer in Finland. 

We took a tour ride, which showed how they make chocolate in their factories. Today's production wall was kind of interesting!

After the tour ride there is a lot of shops where to buy chocolate and another gifts. You could also buy the world's largest Hershey chocolate bars, Twizzlers, Reeses peanut butter cups and so one. 

Of course I had to buy some chocolate! I got miniatures peanut butter cups, cookies and creme kisses and licorice Twizzlers, yummyy!

I had so much fun there and I would totally recommend Hershey Park to everybody :)