28 June 2010

Disneyland, CA

What is there to do after these topics are done?

- Toy Story 3 in 3D in a Gold Class Cinema with a lounge/bar at the theater, a personal waiter and 1st class plane couches with electric adjusting
 - Stand up comedy by Al Madrigal in the Ice House Comedy Club in Pasadena
- Eating out at Conrad's in Pasadena and saying hi to Carlos and Jerry and the troops
- Driving along the coastline of North Pacific Ocean on Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Monica to Malibu and kicking it with the surfer kids with sunscreen molested faces as well as battling the powers of the ocean in the waves without a surfboard, just yourself rolling around uncontrolled in the braking tidal waves
- Seeing a crash on freeway 1, 5, 10, 101, 110, 210, 405 or 605 every day or just listening to it on the frequency AM 1070
- Hanging around with a mushroom pop artist named Jeremy in Santa Monica who's originally from Sweden
- Crashing into a surf shop keeper whose father is Finnish and knows some of my language
- Driving around in a Mini Cooper S on the freeways of LA (without crashing only observing)
- Seeing the biggest chalk festival (paintings on the ground) in the world
- Getting a parking ticket of 1 minute extra on the meter
- Getting pulled over by the cops after 200 meters of seeing the roads of USA
- Walking down Broadway street in Downtown LA with all kinds of junk shops scattered around the street

Well I'll tell you! Go say hi to Mickey Mouse and Goofy in Disneyland in Anaheim! Oh boy, oh boy. Although it's smaller (scaled down to 3/4) than Disneyworld in Florida, it's the first one around, established in 1955, designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney himself and it has been upgraded since to fit the newest Disney shows. A 12 hour day goes by in a blink of an eye and ends with a show called Fantasmic, where Mickey fights the powers of evil which eventually gets topped by a $125,000-$250,000 fireworks show, every single night. To attract even more people, another theme park was built in the late 90's; Disney's California Adventure which has bigger and more fun roller coasters and head-spinners. What makes your stomach turn and laugh like an idiot? Tower of Terror, which takes you into an elevator that goes up and comes down fast. Really fast, called free falling. This is an attraction that makes the happenings in the Hollywood Tower Hotel in the 30's back to life again when a bunch of people got into an elevator that crashed and left the hotel haunted. California Screamin' makes you laugh like an insane person with its fast speed turns, drops and loop. It leaves a taste of more, bigger and better. A taste that doesn't go away. Six Flags is the next resort to ride then. Another great attraction is the California Soarin' which takes you over the most beautiful areas of California in a dome-like screen hall which makes you feel like you're flying yourself filmed from choppers/airplanes. This state has really fascinating places to offer. Wish I had a plane to explore it with.

So what's the after taste? Good! You know, kids go to Disneyland eager to get into all the attractions. The parents rip their hair off mainly thinking of the 1h queues to each attraction. People even make plans down to the minute to get their "fast-passes" to each attraction. A response to a kid's yell at a parent was a dreadful "It doesn't matter what you want, it matters what the parents want!" and a most utter lie to a little boy "Aww.. Johnny, don't you know it's all about having FUN here" when in fact it's a place for ultimate spending! Disneyland is a money making gold mill for Disney, having tickets that cost up to $100 just to get in to both theme parks. Yes, for one person. In 2009 Disneyland enjoyed a rate of 15.9 million visitors. Do the math yourself!

After hanging around with Pluto and friends go to Conrad's in Pasadena to eat some more. In-joy the pics!

Mark Twain Riverboat, Disneyland

The Aviator

The Hollywood Tower (Tower of Terror) CA Adventure

California Screamin' and Mickey's Fun Wheel in CA Adventure

Fancy burgers at Taste Pilots' Grill, CA Adventure

Taping the show Fantasmic in Disneyland

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27 June 2010

California so far

Westwood Village - behind the scenes

Walt Disney concert hall, Downtown LA

Beachstuff, Malibu

Motherly Love, Santa Monica beach

Emily, Westwood Village

No swimming, only surfing, Malibu Lagoon

"Help me out here!" Malibu Lagoon

No swimming, Santa Monica beach
Who needs mobile phones anyway? UCLA campus

Santa Monica

The Gathering, Santa Monica

Kids are kids, Santa Monica Pier

From another perspective, Santa Monica Pier

Mini Cooper S; The ride

Fruit Mayhem, Santa Monica

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Last days of France

What happens when there's an eager will to get somewhere for the weekend? You go to the Mediterranean coast (the French part in this example). First to La Ciotat, which is absolute crap from where you find your way with the aid of helpful locals that doesn't want tourists hanging around to Cassis, which is absolute beauty. We went there with Ale, Emily and Tijana in the beginning of June.

The main beach

Cassis main beach from the hill

Restrictions make you B&W

Walking prohibited (because of the rocks rolling down from the hill. Didn't stop brave Emily.

Way home, million degrees without air conditioning

Then what? Time to realize Erasmus time is over. So Fran organized a surprise party for me because I left earlier than him. Oh man.. Muchas gracias brottthhher!


See you around mes amis!
 

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24 June 2010

-10 hours

Time went by, partying took place and Lyon got abandoned for a moment. I was going to stay, but something else came up. Something exciting, something random, something absolutely unpredictable. Little Fred widened his world view, packed his bags and went to LA, California for the summer. I just haven't updated this blogggg, partly because confusion, distraction, change in life and most importantly no battery in my laptop and no adapter to these standards here yet.

How did this happen? I mean CA, not lack of motivation. Well, Emily, my better part nowadays met me in "The" Park in Lyon about a month ago and she smushed through a little suggestion that she's not going to stay in Lyon, BUT I could go with her to her homeland if I wanted to. Although I had looked forward to stay in Lyon, the lack of a job made the choice of getting my plane tickets to LA as fast as I could easy as pie.

The couple last weeks in Lyon were rainy and unmotivating. ECE Lyon, my school in France makes no effort in informing us Erasmus students about absolutely anything that is going on with our classes, grades or anything in between. They (administration) hate to work. Absolutely. I'm not saying names, but I guess they who know, they know well. Frustration is the key word to everything. Well don't worry people, you'll have your summer break soon when you can stress about something else with a pastis in your left hand and a cancer stick in the right. Good luck!

We had a little ex tempore trip to Cassis in southern France with Ale, Tijana and Emily which was absolutely fantastic! Two days at the beach and swimming in the Mediterranean (cold!) was absolutely worth it. Thank you France for working trains. You'll see pictures of it when I get the adapter to my european electronic devices to fit these weird American ones.

What else happened? Oh yeah, Fran threw a surprise party to me! Man I love the guy. I LOVE YOU FRAN! Hope you were here.. See you soon buddy!

So, the day of 10th of June arrived and I left France with tears hugging and kissing my room mate goodbye towards Finland and took Emily with me. Yes, an American in Finland. Language barriers? What? I even organized a bit of work for myself in the brilliant company of Pakuovelle.com. During two days of work all the employees were awarded a 100e bonus. Isn't that great? Fitted my situation perfectly! We went to Hogsara (sorry for misspelling, but this text is being produced with a lot of sweat from a local computer) with Emily for the weekend and she both had a sauna for the first time and enjoyed about 12 degrees (celsius) warm sea water. Hardcore girl, I'm telling you! Farmors Cafe for the win! Tack Bee, Amanda, Ylva, Mats, Antti, Jone, Sarah, Marcus, Jontte, Jens, Cortley (sorry for misspelling again), Elina och Bruno samt Blanca for sallskapet o maten an en gang! Time ran out eventually and we had to get our stuff together and drive back towards Helsinki to Dick's and Jenny's crib. Rickster, mon amour invited us for a little beefy dinner in between though, so we spent our evening in Kimito with him and Nickster. It was gooooooood! Man, was the week a well eaten one or what!

20th of June, 2010 Fred and Emily took off to the HEL airport with Dickster as le chaffeur. Funny part in this story: the plane left 7.50 so we were there at 6 sharp and who's there by default saying goodbye? Pops of course! Thank you for coming, because you weren't home the night before! Anyways, the plane to Heathrow took what seemed ages but atleast we got there. Almost missed our connecting flight but got on the American Airlines 137 flight to LAX. This flight was going to take about 13h or something and it really took forever. Luckily we had plenty of movies to watch from the planeTV. And about 5 meals. Aahh! So. Next fun fact. I've never witnessed 26 hours of continuous day until last Sunday when we woke up at 5 Finnish time and went to sleep at nine Californish time. That's 10 hours time difference and we went with the sun. Oh! I saw Greenland and Alaska on the way. Fascinating areas full of snow. The Hudson Bay was covered in ice too. It was of course nice to come to a place where it seems to be above 20 degrees all the time and sun every day.

So here we are, living at Ze Wares (parents). Emily's taking classes at UCLA and I'm taking classes in street business walking around, making friends with random people and enjoying the time here in a country where everything's supposed to be big. Everything. My ass. Almost anyway.

Once I get the adapter to my laptop, there will be a metric shit load of pictures uploaded, so stay tuned boys and girls, women and men, grandpas and grandmas, moms and dads, SDFs, Aliens and whoever reads this thing anyway anymore. I bet you'll like it!

Today I had a walk in Santa Monica beach, you know the place with the ferris wheel and amusement park on the pier. Only been there in THPS, GTA and some other game, but never in real life until now. It sure is nice, and exactly as it is in the games too. Epic! Not only did see a random group of Navy Seal wannabees getting all pumped up by their instructor but I also crashed into Swedish people and French people. You never get rid of these people, do you now? My question remains. Where are the Finns?

Anyways! Stay tuned for more and you will get it! Back tomorrow with more news so In-joy whatever you're doing mes amis! Bisous and fuck off!