Spring in New York

Kaikki mikä millään lailla olisi mitenkään voinut mennä väärin lauantaina, meni väärin. Siitä ei sen enempää.

I am going to tell about these few weeks only briefly because I don't have time and I'm tired. Be happy because it would be extremely long otherwise.

New York was so much more fun with my mom. This was my third time in NYC and the first time I actually liked it. The first two times I went with a group and that made the difference. This time I was with my mom, and we had the freedom to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.

I cannot describe the feeling when I first saw my mom walking towards me on the airport after these eight months. Being apart from my mom has been the hardest part of my whole exchange year. I squealed and laughed and cried and so did she. That was the perfect moment, I was so happy. I was somehow proud of my little momma; she survived without her little girl for a long time. And I'm sure she was proud of me too.

Every time I've been in New York I have seen a musical. The first one I saw was Billy Elliot. I knew nothing about the story but I loved it. Absolutely loved it. That's when I fell in love with Broadway musicals. Something about it is so magical. I am sure I am not the only one who thinks so. The second time I saw Mamma Mia!, which is one of my absolute favorite movies ever. I knew, that next one I wanted to see was The Lion King. I never though I'd have the opportunity to do that though. I didn't think I was going to go back to New York City any time soon. And see what happened! There I was with my own mamma.

Mom's expression when she first saw the Times Square!

So we booked the tickets to The Lion King on Broadway few months ago and went to see it on Sunday. I guess there is no need to say that it was amazing. Only ten seconds of The Circle of Life had been on and I was crying. It was so touching in every way. The music, the props, the amazing singers and actors and dancers. I wish I could that good someday (only in my dreams will that happen).

On Monday we got up early and took a subway to the Central Park. I think it was the subway that gave me the real New York feeling. I loved riding them! We had some trouble figuring out which way they were going though. Maalaisjuntteja isossa kaupungissa!

Central Park was beautiful. I could've spent the whole day there! Such a peaceful place in the middle of a city that never sleeps. It was amazing. If I'd ever live in a city like that (or any bigger city), I would need a place like that where I could escape the never-stopping traffic and hurry. I got some nice pictures from there too.

At first I was all confused about languages. It felt pretty damn good to speak Finnish to somebody face to face to be honest. So much easier, I don't have to concentrate on speaking and forming the words. In New York there are so many people speaking different languages that nobody looked at us funny, but when we got to Uniontown lots of people thought it was hilarious that we were speaking Finnish in front of them. And some people thought it was rude. But I didn't really care. If I start speaking English to my mom just so everybody could understand, I will get so confused that I'll probably speak Finnish to everybody else. And nobody wants that.

After visiting Central Park we were going to go to the Metropolitan Museum of the Art. But, we were stupid and didn't check it before, of course it was closed. So we continued to China Town and Little Italy. There we did some shopping and looked for a nice place to eat that night. My mom wanted to see the Statue of Liberty so we took a subway to the South Ferry. We didn't have time to take a ferry to the Liberty Island, so we just walked on the coast so she could see it.

From there we decided to walk to Chinatown. It was a nice walk, not too long at all! We still couldn't find a nice restaurant though, it's kind of hard to decide when the menus are in Chinese. So we ended up to go and eat in a Italian restaurant in Little Italy. It was my mom's birthday dinner.

We saved Tuesday for shopping. I have arrived to the conclusion that I am unable to do any kind of shopping without my mom. I just can't make any decisions and I don't have the patience to shop. When she's there, she doesn't even do anything but magically I find nice clothes to myself. I don't get it. I'm going to be in my forties and still going shopping with my mom.

That night we had our flight to Pittsburgh. Of course it was delayed (have I had one flight from New York or to New York that was on time? NO, I HAVE NOT), so we got home around midnight. And I had to wake up for school the next morning... Everybody knows how lovely I am with only 5 hours of sleep.

Mom enjoying an American breakfast.

I was really excited that my mom was going to meet all the people that have become close to me here. On Wednesday she came to school with me. My friends kept telling me that she would be so shocked about the crappynes of my school that she would take me home right away. I wouldn't be surprised. She was only allowed to certain classes. That was okay with me though, I wasn't too excited for her to sit in my Algebra 2 or English. She saw my art class and my choir class and met my friends. That's all I wanted to happen.

The rest of the time went way too fast. Feels like we didn't have time to do anything! She is going to leave tomorrow and I don't want her to leave. Not at all. We had an Easter break so we had Friday and Monday off. We didn't do anything special with my mom, just spent some time together. Which was special to both of us. We baked and cooked some Finnish things. We played the piano and sang. We also got to experience the American easter with egg hunts, turkey, ham and baskets from the easter bunny (Americans come up with the ways to make everything materialistic).

Watching Colton's and Cameron's soccer game.

The boys fell asleep on the way home from the easter hunt.

Yesterday night was really nice. We were sitting outside around the fire eating smores, playing with the boys and just talking. This has been so great. It was so weird bringing my mom to my world and life here. These two worlds, the American and the Finnish one, have been separate. It was really hard to figure out how it would feel when my mom was here. Because she doesn't really belong here. This is my world. A place, that I made my home. But she fit in just fine. We had such a great time. And now, there's only two more months without her and my other family and friends.

So tomorrow my mom is going back to Finland and I'm leaving to Florida. It's really late for me right now and WAAAYYYYY past my bed time but I had to get this text done. It would just be way too much to write about all this that has happened after Florida.

Anniina kiittää.

I miss my dogs.