NHL game

This Friday after school me and my host parents hit the road and drove to Philadelphia to see a hockey game! Going to NHL hockey game has always been one of my biggest dreams and now I got a chance to make it true! Hockey was actually one of the reasons why I chose to come to America. (To be honest, can you even find a person from Finland who doesn't like hockey...?). Because almost all of the games are on TV for free, I watch hockey almost every night :D But why wouldn't I?

There was some traffic on the way there but we still had plenty of time to go around the arena before the game started. During these past few months I had been sending emails with Kimmo Timonen with help of my mom's friends. We got two guest passes to go downstairs after the game to meet with him! 

This guy had just returned from Afganistan! What a great way to be honored. Later a girl was being asked to go to prom with someone, so cute!

The game itself was amazing! Flyers won 4-2 against Toronto Maple Leafs. 

We walked through the room where they later started the press conference.

Downstairs in Lexus club I met these awesome guys from my home city Kuopio, Finland! I had so great time talking with them in Finnish! I really had hard time talking with them though, it felt unreal to talk Finnish face to face with someone after being surrounded by English.

Meeting with Kimmo Timonen was incredible, and I must say that he was really friendly. We caught up, took pictures together, and then he signed some stuff for us.

A little souvenir for myself!

A big thank you to my wonderful parents who bought the tickets for us! And to Mikko and Tiina for emailing with me and making the meeting possible. This was seriously one of the best things that has happened to me this year. Hopefully I will get a chance to go to another game before the season ends!

Grease

I'm a such a bad blogger, I seriously haven't had time to post anything after the Philly trip! These two weeks have been crazy; full of rehearsals and other (good and bad) stuff. Like I told earlier, my high school was doing the Grease as their spring musical this year! I got to be in ensemble with my friends, singing and dancing on the stage. We had rehearsals almost every day and the Wednesday before the show we didn't have school because we had an assembly day, where we performed a little sneak peak to the elementary and middle schools.  

Sabrina!

Sabrina and Sydney!

Cast dinner after the first show :) Kyra, Sabrina, and Courtney!

We had three shows; on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Almost all of them were sold out, only about 50 tickets were left to each of the shows! Everybody knows how good Warwick Music Department is ;) Grease is also a show that almost everybody knows somehow, even tough we did the Broadway show, which is a little different than the movie. I think I like the Broadway one better now!

Basically we always arrived two hours before the show time to warm up, and to do our hair and make up. What made this show so amazing was that we actually had a very talented pit playing the songs, so we didn't had to sing on recordings! Then the show lasted for about two hours, including a ten minute intermission. Again my family and friends were able to watch it in Finland because of the live stream for the choir room :)

Favorite Greaser Cameron!

Courtney and Sydney!

After Saturday's show in McDonalds, Shamrock shakes :D Courtney, Sabrina, Kelsey, Kyra, +Sydney!

Kayla!

Sunday's show was of course special for the seniors, but also for me because it was the last show in Warwick for me too. I feel so honored that I was able to be part of the production and to get all of these great memories that I will remember forever.

Fabulous Abbie, who played Cha-Cha!

Sabrina, amazing Mary Lynn (Rizzo), and Cameron!

After Sunday's show we all went to the after party that they had arranged for us! What a nice way to end the musical.

Sabrina, Kyra, Kayla, Sara, Sam, and Kelsey!

Sara!

I will write another post of Grease soon, after I will get more pictures from the actual shows :D 

Philadelphia 2.0

This Saturday we woke up early to go to Philadelphia! The weather gods were on our side, the day was really beautiful to walk around and to take a lot of pictures.

Martha :)

Our group!

At first we took a tour in the Independence Hall, and then we went to see the Liberty Bell. Both of them were free to see. We also did some shopping at the tourist shop, of course.

After the tours we went to the Central Market to take some lunch and shop. We also visited Macy's for a short time, isn't that a beautiful building?

From the Love sign in downtown we walked through the Chinatown. Back closer to the river. we visited the crave of Benjamin Franklin. 

Haley!

Around 4pm we were done with the downtown, so we decided to go to the huge mall, King of Prussia. When we were leaving Philadelphia, we accidentally took a wrong way, and ended up crossing the bridge over to New Jersey :D The drive from the downtown to the mall took longer time  than we thought because of the traffic, but we still had about two hours to shop around before heading back home.