Heritage Music Festival - competition

25th of April, Saturday

Today, we had to wake up insanely early, breakfast was at 6 am. We got back at midnight, so no one got a good long night of sleep. Today was competition day. This is what we came for. This is what we prepared for the entire year. But I didn't feel nervous at all. I don't think I'm taking this year very seriously. I don't consider myself in jeopardy, if we loose. But we won't, because we're awesome.

The competition was held at the Riverside Church in E Manhattan. It's a huge cathedral, with lot's of space to create a beautiful echo. We unloaded the buses, all the equipment and dresses made it off
The string orchestra started the competition with a flawless performance. They got great comments from the judges too. Then came the symphonic band and jazz ensemble. All of them were great. The jazz ensemble was especially praised.

Before we knew it, it was noon already, and I had to get ready. That meant putting on makeup, hair, gown. Not all of these are easy tasks, especially for someone, who doesn't wear makeup or fancy hair often. We watched the women's choir, sitting in the church, in full preparedness. The girls sang beautifully too. After Ms. Dyer was finished with their performance, we went to the chapel to practice, and before I knew it, we were standing on the risers ourselves, ready to sing by our best skills. It felt surreal. We prepared for this moment the whole year, and now, we were ready to finish our journey. And I wasn't even scared.

Our first song was Noel, a Nigerian Christmas song. This one is the most exciting, because there is movement in it. The girls are on the floor instead of the risers, and we turn and clap, and sing. All to a wonderful rhythm and melody. I think Noel is my favorite of the three songs. And thankfully, I didn't mess up the clapping and the turning.

For the second song, the girls went back on the risers to sing Mozart's Lacrimosa. I thought it went pretty well. The third song is a morbid song called Clementine. It's about a girl, who wears the wrong shoes one morning, and she falls in a stream and drowns. But instead of being faithful to her, her lover forgets her, and settles for her sister instead. It is a very strange song, but the melody is beautiful. And really hard to sing as a choir. This is definitely the hardest one. I don't think it went as well as the others, but we did well.

The judge commenting on our performance didn't say one negative thing. Usually, the judges point out the mistakes they recognized, but not this time. She talked about how moved she was, because her family's printing company printed the copy of Lacrimosa we used, and how fun Noel looked. Ms. Dyer was very glad to hear these.

And then, we left the risers. What are we going to do now? No competition to practice for. We're done. But hey, we got over our shock and the minimum of fear we felt. We took pictures with the group outside of the church. We changed back into our regular clothes, and packed up. We had a few hours to kill until show choir's turn.

Other than the show choir kids, everybody went to Grand Central Terminal for supper. I've never been there before, but I've always wanted to. Instead of going down to the food court, I just stayed up in the lobby, and took pictures of the clock. We couldn't stay for long, we had to hurry back to the church, and the traffic was horrible.

Show choir delivered a wonderful performance. The judge however, didn't give such nice comments like to our choir, but I knew everybody was impressed.

Two hours later, we were sitting in the nave, waiting for the award ceremony. All the trophies were lined up in the front, and 1200 people were trying to fit into the wooden benches. Finally, after a long long wait, they started it. All of our groups did very well. And this could be seen from the six gold plaques we took home. This is just an individual achievement, it means we were great. Then came the big trophies, with even bigger names, that nobody remembered. All we knew, is every time Greece Athena was mentioned or called out, we started screaming and shouting, clapping our hands off while jumping up and down. The orchestra didn't win a lot of big trophies, those were taken by a rich prep-school, but we all knew how good Athena was. The choruses however! Select choir and show choir received the exact same best score, therefore we tied each other for first place! We found this quite funny, because nothing like this has ever happened.

Immediately after the award ceremony, we got on the buses, and at 8:30 pm, we headed back to Rochester. The road was long, and uneventful. Everybody tried to sleep, but the constant rumbling of the bus kept us half awake. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, when we finally arrived back to Greece. Kim was a hero, she came to pick me up in the middle of the night. It was 5 am however, when I finally fell asleep.

With Lady Dearstyne

Grand Central Station ...

... I mean Grand Central Terminal

The clock

Busy

Nave of the Riverside Church

Trophies

Sightseeing in NYC

24th of April, Friday

We got up comfortably at 7:30, and after breakfast, we took the buses to Manhattan, for our one day of touristy activities.
 We had a choice between Chinatown and Little Italy, and Chelsea Market and High Line Park, and because everyone's suggestions, I chose the latter. And what a great choice it was!

Chelsea Market is an artsy little indoor shopping place in Eastern Manhattan. Everything is cute, modern mixed with retro, and very expensive. My touring buddy was my friend Lilly, and a girl named Maria joined us too. We walked in the shops for a while, but what we really wanted, was to go on High Line Park.

It's the old tracks, that go above the street, that were used, to make this place. It's a several mile long line of new and old architecture, trees, benches. You can see the street underneath you, and the buildings surrounding it. The park is very interesting. It's definitely a nice part of New York, that you can feel, was once a run down neighborhood. We walked about a mile in one direction, then we headed back to Chelsea Market on the street. I had my street cart hot dog as lunch, and I was very happy.

After just walking around the streets surrounding the market, our whole group gathered together. Because not a lot of us chose to peacefully roam around the city over shopping with Chinese vendors, we got to go to Battery Park, the Southest park , to take some pictures of the Statue of Liberty. There was a bomb scare, so all the people on the island were evacuated, and there were police and helicopter heading there. I snapped a very good picture, that I'm quite proud of.

We only spent 10 minutes, looking at the Statue, then we left for Times Square. We had a few hours to kill, taking pictures of the landmarks and looking at the shops. I liked the independence and freedom we got from our chaperons. Lily and I, we discovered how crowded and brutal downtown Manhattan can be. So much pushing, shoving, shouting. I grew up in a big city, but Budapest is much nicer. I loved the whole experience though. So many things to see, you don't know, where to turn your head. And everything is so expensive. I thought Rochester was pricey, but the Hershey's store on Times Square has astronomical prices. The price of one medium sized chocolate bar could feed an entire African village for a month. All I bought was 10 postcards for a dollar in a sketchy gift shop, and a few magnets.

I looked up, what kind of film shootings were happening in NYC, and I convinced Lilly and a chaperon to come see it with me. It's been my dream to see a film being shot ever since I could remember, and I was so close now, only a few blocks away. It was on the West side of 54th and 55th on 6th avenue, so we walked there. I thought we would come at a bad time, and we wouldn't see anything, and I was almost right. Until we saw filming trucks, and a crew, setting up. It's a Christmas movie, so they were putting up Christmas decorations on the building, and fake snow on the ground. We talked with the workers, turns out, the filming will start at 9 pm. Although this was not the real thing, I was happy I at least got to go, and see some of the preparations.

We had dinner at Times Square at Mama Sbarro's, an Italian place. It was pretty crowded for the whole music Department to sit down, but the food was great. From there, we left for another program we had to choose in October: The Ride. It's a tour-bus, leaving from 42nd street, and it's quite unique. It's not the usual double decker bus, that I thought we were going on. It's a bus, with the seats facing the street, in three rows like a theater, and the side and top of the bus are made of glass. The inside is full of funky lights and screen. We had two hosts, Scott and Jackie, who were hilarious. While we were driving around, they entertained us with different jokes and comments about NYC, the people on the street and even us. We saw some performances, that were involved with the Ride, like people dancing, rapping, singing, just outside of the window. We also learnt about the different sights and building in downtown Manhattan. The Ride only last 1,5 hours, but it flew by like crazy. We had so much fun. I recommend it to everybody, tourist or New Yorker.

After being in the bus, in the warm, going outside was a chilly experience. The weather was quite cold at this point. Our group (which wasn't very big, I always chose the least popular choice by accident), walked to the Rockefeller Center, to go to the Top of the Rock (which is the roof). It took us a while to get in, but finally, we were in an elevator, rocketing upwards to the 67th floor.

The view was extraordinary. It was night now, past 10 pm, and every light was on. I've never seen the city from this point of view, but I have to say, it's pretty special. It's crazy to think, that 8,5 million people surround you. I took some great pictures, but due to the cold, we couldn't stay for long. It was 11 already, when we got on the bus to go back to the hotel. My feet very aching, I was tired beyond tiredness, but I was so very happy. I got to spend an amazing day in this wonderful city. I felt kind of unsatisfied, because there is so much left to see, but this is how much I got for now. Hopefully, I'll visit again soon.

Chelsea market

Chelsea market

High Line Park

Old tracks in High Line Park

"Balancing"

Decorated High Line Park

Cab and food cart, so NYC-ish

Street art

Met a dog that looks like my Reli

Freedom tower

Bomb scare at the Statue of Liberty

Texting on the job in Battery Park

This is where the Titanic was supposed to dock

Times Square

Times Square

Hershey's store

Shoe shining

Fifth avenue

Rockefeller center

Crowd

Love statue, Philly memories

Putting down fake snow for the film shooting

Christmas decorations in April

Police

At Rockefeller Center

Creeping in Times Square

Broadway

Inside The Ride

Times Square at night

Top of the Rock - Empire State Building

NYC at night

NYC Broadway: Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

23rd of April, Thursday

And to New York City we went!!!

Today, I took the bus to school like every morning, but with a medium sized suitcase. The whole Athena Music Department gathered in the APAC foyer with their luggage, waiting for the buses to arrive and us to board. 

  Then the fire alarm went off. The timing was painfully hilarious. The whole school went outside, in the snowy rain, all traffic in and out of the school territory stopped (leaving Ms. Dyer angry in a lot of traffic), and we waited for the fire department to scan the building. As we later found out, there was a fire scare, and someone pulled the alarm, but nothing serious happened. We just waited, and laughed about the events (freezing).

  Our departure wasn't delayed by too much. The bus boarding went fine, all the instruments and clothes fit, and I found some good seats near my friends too. I was told the trip from Rochester to NYC will be long, but it didn't really seem so horrible. I'm either used to long travels, or time flies when you have fun. We made a stop in Pennsylvania (a state I love very much) in a Wegman's for some lunch - which was sushi for me -, and our next stop was in New Jersey, where our hotel was, just outside of New York City. 

  We settled our luggage down, and rested for 15 minutes. I was sharing a room with the Bo sisters, Brittney and Tiffany, very nice girls. Then, we dressed up fancy, and put some makeup on, because we were going to see a Broadway show! I wore Kim's black dress, the same one I wore for Avon Casino night, and my Desigual boots. Last time I wore those, I was in the Hungarian State Opera House with my Mom, I guess they're theater boots from now on.

   And to Manhattan we went! We took a tunnel under the Hudson river, some horrible traffic, but at last, I was in the city. I've been here before, for one day, 3 years ago. I didn't see a lot from it back then, and I knew I wasn't going to see a lot of it now either. New York is a place, where one lifetime is not enough to discover it. So I took what I could with me with my experiences.

  My first though was: yaaay, tall buildings! Rochester and Greece is a very flat part of the world. No skyscrapers, the houses don't touch. I'm used to big cities, I grew up in one. And New York City is the city of cities. It was getting dark, when we arrived, but the lights were up long before. 

  We went straight to the Walter Kerr theater, to see Robert Freedman's A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. In October, we had to decide what show we were going to watch on our music trip, and I chose this, because I had no idea, what it was about. Turns out, my choice was great.

  I loved the play and the story. It's about a young man, who discover's, that he's 8th in line for the title of earl, and he decides to murder the men and women before him. It was morbid but hilarious, and very well done. The songs weren't very catchy, and thankfully they weren't boringly long. The actors did a wonderful job, and I agreed with the director's interpretation of the story. Everything worked out at the end, no lines were left loose. Everybody else loved it too. There weren't many, who chose this play, but I heard no bad comments about it. No wonder it won a Tony Award in 2014 for best musical.

   It around midnight, when we got back. We took our bus back to New Jersey, and everyone fell asleep as soon as possible, this day was quite eventful, and we were sure, the next day will be event more exciting.

Pennfield and Letchworth Park

19th of April, Sunday

After I woke up from a nice dream where I crashed a royal wedding, I skyped my parents briefly. For who never saw or heard about my dog: it's a very fluffy, middlesized goof, and it's very good friends with my cat. Well, because summers are really hot in Hungary, we take the dog to the groomer twice a year. But the cat, who we adopted less than a year ago, has never seen the dog without fur. So since my Mom brought him home naked, the cat doesn't trust the "new" dog, and cries (meaows) a lot because "his buddy is lost". So that's what happening at home.

  At 10:30, Kim and I picked Alma up, and we went for a little trip. The

 weather was a little colder, but still really good. 

  Our first stop was Pittsford Plaza, where we did some shopping at Trader Joe's, an artsy, organic grocery store. I was last here with Herb and Sun. 

  Next we went to the Erie Canal, where we walked 3 miles along the water as an exercise. Afterwards, we had some Greek food for lunch there, and we drove an hour to Letchworth State Park. It's a beautiful park that surrounds a part of the Genesee River, where the water cut itself some nice waterfalls in the canyon.

  The gorge was just gorgeous! (pun intended) We walked along the path next to the river, and we went real close to the waterfalls. These are massive though, almost Niagara Falls big.

  We took some awesome pictures. At 4:30, we headed back to Greece. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes. We dropped Alma off, then we went home.

  Larry came over for dinner. Mike went to Atlanta for a few days, so we had one less person in the house. We just talked with Larry, and caught up on things that happened since we last saw each other. 

  I had an awesome day. I was outside, had some decent exercise, saw some beutiful places in New York State, and spent the time with people I love.

Card Club

18th of April, Saturday

I woke up at the Ritson's house. After watching the Prince of Egypt, an old Disney movie about Moses with an amazing soundtrack and oahead-of-its-time design, Sarah drove me back to the Masiellos.

  The plan was to go see The Little Mermaid, the musical that Greece Arcadia did this year at 2 pm. Turns out, the show was at 7, so we just bought tickets for the only other time we could watch it: next Sunday.

  So instead of enjoying some high school theatre, we enjoyed the sunshine of a beautiful and hot day. We're very thankful for this kind of weather. 

  We went in to Wegmans for milk, and the only thing we forgot to buy was milk. I have to say though, that happens to me in Hungary way more than I want it to.

  At 7, Kim and Mike had their cards club, and I asked them to let me join as a spectator. The party was held at their friend Rita's house. Ten couples came, some I knew, some I met there. Wonderfully nice people!

  Everybody brought an appetizer or a dessert, and we socialized for a while. Then the grownups were randomly put into pairs, and everybody sat down to play euchre. Euchre is an American difficult card game. Kim tried to teach me how to play it the afternoon, I kind of get it, but I'm not confident enough to play it. Basicly, two couples have five cards each, and the goal is to win the most rounds of cards by having the highest cards in the round. We play a similar game with my parents and friends called "Rikiki", but euchre is more complicated.

  So in this party, everybody counted their individual scores. If the couple lost, they stayed at the same table, if they won, they moved to a different table. This way, they never played with the same person twice.

  Between each round, the players would get up, eat some more, talk, have fun. I just walked around, checking out each table. I made quite a few friends.

  After the final round, everybody counted their final score, and the person with the highest and lowest  score won. The person with the highest was our host, while the person with the lowest was Mike.

  It was 11 pm when we got home. I was tired, but happy, that I got to know a lot of my hostfamily's friends.

Youth Group

17th of April, Friday

Today was the end of the third quarter in school. I can't believe that the year is almost over. I doubt that my average will be as good as in the previous two quarters, but I don't mind. I missed a lot of school, but for the r ight reasons: to discover America and New York.

  Friday was a skinny day again, so I saw all my teachers. The last block was choir, and after we sang Clementine a couple of times (fortunately many of those were successful), Ms. Dyer went through the itinerary for the NYC trip. I'm so excited to go!! I'm the only exchange student in the area, who hasn't seen the Big Apple yet. I've been there for one day in 2012, but there's so much more to do, to see! We're going to have a day of competition, and two days of sightseeing and practicing. It's going to be very awesome!

  A few hours after I got home, Sarah picked me up at 6. We had dinner at Wimpy's, and then we went to a youth group meeting to church. We just sat on comfy chairs and played some games, then Claudia, the leader, talked about a passage in the Bible, that we performed in little groups. At the end, we played this really funny game called "grug", where 3  pieces of flashlights are hidden in the whole building (including the sanctuary, the gym and the nursery), and people have to find the pieces and put them together, in order to defeat the "grugs", two people, who chase the others, and  "freeze" them when they catch them. It's a fun game with a lot of running, so I definitely had my exercise for this day. We played two rounds, in the second one, Sarah and I were the grugs, but our game was shorter, because everybody was tired now.

  Before we realized, it was past 10. We went home, and I slept over at Sarah's house.

Broadway Anything Goes

16th of April, Thursday

Today at 9:15, all the seniors had to sign up for one of the buses going to NYC. Luckily I got a spot on Ms. Dyer's bus, and my friend Chelsea is my busbuddy.

   In creative writing, Ms. Domm tortured us with the ending of that Stephen King story, but thankfully, we finished all the horror stories. Next class, we'll start writing them too.

  Ms. Dyer was able to get some cheaper tickets to the visiting Broadway show of Anything Goes. Mrs. Passamonte gave me a ride to the theatre. A bunch of people from the cast came. 

  It was very interesting, to watch a show, because I knew all the lines and songs. All in all, it was a good show, but the whole time, I was thinking how much better ours was. Sure, we had to kisses, and these professional actors articulated their words more, but there was way too much wasted time in this version. 

  In the interval and afterwards, everybody agreed that Greece Athena is better than Broadway.

Ms. Dyer should start charging more for tickets next year.

First warm day of the year

13th of April, Monday

Here came yet another day of school, another Monday. This one was different though. The weather was finally how it was supposed to be. It was warm, sunny and there was a warm breeze in the air. The wind hit us from the South this time, bringing the warmth with him.

  Soon after school, Kim came home too, and we decided, that we can not possibly spend this day inside. We went to the pier, and we walked all the way to the end. Lake Ontario is dirty.

   Then we went walking in a park next to the lake. It was very nice. 81 degrees, probably the warmest it has ever been since I've been here. Just to think, that the coldest it has been this winter was more than a 100 degrees less than it was today. Brrr.

  So yes, being in a T-shirt, without a coat or a jacket is definitely a positive thing to experience. In Hungary, the weather started getting better in February. Here, it's April.

First day living with Kim

23rd of March, Monday

Kim took me to school today. I must enjoy this week of luxury, that I get a ride to school, until my buspass arrives. Hopefully I still won't have to get up too early for the bus.

  School was boring, like for every kid. In choir though, we found out, that three months ago today, our beloved pianist was diagnosed with cancer, but last week, she beat it. She kept it as a secret from us, so the show could go as smoothly as possible. I'm so glad that she's alright! She didn't play in the pit this year, Ms Dyer hired a different lady for it, but I thought that's how thing usually were. Such a relief though!

  Kim picked me up at two, and dropped me off at home. I was supposed to unpack, but I took a nap instead. Story of my life. 

  I did start unpacking after I woke up though, but I didn't get very far. Maybe tomorrow.

  

Moving to the Masiellos

22nd of March, Sunday

This morning Kim took me back to Olde Harbour Trail, to get my stuff together. I skyped my parents for an hour, and stalled for two. I didn't want to pack. 

  But at three in the afternoon, I finally got my suitcases, and started filling them up. Kim and Syd weren't at home. 

  I finished at 7 pm. It's scary, that everything I own at the moment fits into two suitcases and two boxes. Although, I have to admit, I'm more scared of how I'm going to be able to stay under the weight limit in August.

   At 7:15, Kim G. and Syd came home, and at 7:30, Kim M. and Mike came to get me and my stuff. My room was cleaned out and empty. We loaded the car and said our goodbyes, full of promises. This isn't the last I'll see of the Greenauers for sure. I was really sad to leave, but at least I get to stay at the Masiellos. One door closes, another opens.

Last AG show with cast and crew party

21st of March, Saturday

We went grocery shopping with Kim in the afternoon, before she dropped me off at five at Athena.

  The last show. For the last time I applied my makeup, I had my hair braided, for the last time, I wore my wig and fake eyelashes. 

  I made a paperplate award for Ms Dyer for the cast party. At 7, we gathered in the band room one last time. Our beloved director gave a speech with tearful eyes, about how amazing of a job we've done. She said goodbye to the seniors too, which was hard for all of us, some more than others. Some kids have been doing the shows for 8 years now.

  So for the last time, we sang, we performed. We had fun, we had a good run. But all good has to come to an end.

  We took our final bows, and most seniors came off the stage crying. Instead of the running hustle to get their mics off, the leads went slowly, stretching their time.

  Sarah and Amanda Ritson came to see today's show with their friend Stephanie. I went outside to talk to them for a bit. 

  The whole cast changed into normal clothes. Some took their makeup off too. The parents set up some tables in the APAC lobby. We had pizza, soda and fun. It was pretty late at night, but I didn't feel tired yet. 

  We gave out our paper plate awards. I got the "Helping Hand" award from Allison, to which I'm pretty proud of. All of these awards and really funny. 

  I gave Schlemmer's award to him, even though I wasn't the one who made it. When I gave Ms Dyer her award, which said "No pics please!" (because she doesn't like her picture taken), all the seniors pulled out their phones and started  taking pictures of Ms Dyer. It was a really funny moment.  

  The seniors got gifts too, a blanket with the Anything Goes symbol on it. That along with some huge pictures were plenty of souvenirs to take.

  With every speech and giftgiving, the whole event stretched out to 1:30 in the morning. Ashley Cahill's mom gave me a ride home, because she lives close to the Masiellos. It was 2 am when I finally got to bed. 

Universal's Harry Potter Park

20th of February, Friday

Today was my sister's birthday. So I celebrated it by going to an amusement park I wanted to visit since forever: Orlando's Universal Park. Stephanie and Betty took us all the way there, for which we were really thankful for. Before we headed to Orlando though, we visited a park for manatees. Neither me or Saki have ever seen a "sea-cow" before. It was early in the morning, so it was cold. The manatees were sleeping in the river. The rain forest and the liveliness of the place was beautiful. I've never seen manatees before, but I always wanted to. We couldn't really take good pictures of them, but we did see a lot. There were some babies too. I loved how relaxed they were.
  From the manatee park, we went on to Orlando. Stephanie and Betty dropped us at the gates.
From there, we were on our own, but excited as ever. There were some problems with Saki's tickets, but it all worked out in the end.
  As we later found out, we entered from the Islands of Adventure part, and not the Universal Studios. Our first ride was on a 3D Spider-man attraction. We got 3D glasses, but it was all 4D. They took us through a story with Spider-man and several villains. We got tossed around, sprayed at with water, scared and excited. It was really fun, but it was just the beginning.
  We soon decided to head for the Harry Potter Hogsmeade village, the part we were most anxious to see.  Because it was at the end of the park, we had to walk through some pretty interesting themes, like Dr Seuss and Atlantis. But finally, we arrived to the fake snow covered little houses.
  In the magical land of Harry Potter, Hogsmeade is a little wizard village next to Hogwarts, with a lot of attractions. Such as a sweet-shops, wand-shop, restaurant (more like tavern), post-office, and a train station.
  And everything at Universal was perfect! The details, the sights, the smells, it all fit. We were anxious to try the butter-beer, a famous (non-alcoholic) drink in the wizarding world. Turns out, it's a very very sweet soda. I loved it, Saki threw it out. We couldn't stop wondering, how they achieved such a perfect replica of J. K. Rowling's creation. There were a million places to shop, people in all sorts of replica clothes were wondering about. Wearing Hogwarts themed clothes and waving wands around is completely normal in this place. There were a bunch of speakers that played the original soundtrack of the movies, making the whole experience feel more real. The employees were all dressed as wizards and elves too.
  After we drank our butter-beers, we went to Olivander's wand shop, Honeydukes, the sweatshop (with every kind of made up brands and flavors, made real), and the post office, where fake-robotic-owls hoohooed. Other than building this village, they built a smaller replica of Hogwarts, the castle/school where 80% of the Harry Potter books take place. But instead of being fully decorated, it gave home to the first Harry Potter ride we went on. It was very similar to the Spider-man ride, but this one was a 4D Harry Potter one. The amount of people who wanted to go on it was so much, I lost Saki in the crowd. It took us around 30 minutes to find each other. I had to ask several employees, to help me find her. They all told me not to worry, parents loose their children here all the time, and they always find them. (LOL).
The next attraction we went on was a crazy, dragon themed roller coaster. The seats were hanging from the tracks, and we got tossed around with such speed, my surroundings got mushed together. The ride was called the "Hungarian Horntail", the name of the dragon Harry had to defeat in the fourth book. The fact that J. K. Rowling thought of Hungary when she named the most important dragon of all the books makes me so happy.
  Because we bought tickets to both theme parks, it was time we went to Diagon Alley, the part of the Harry Potter Park, that was in Universal Studios. The two parts were divided by the Hogwarts Express, a train, that took all the schoolkids from London to the well hidden castle in the country. The train was just like in the movies and books. Instead of windows, they put TVs, and they played a recording of the British countryside and Harry Potter characters flying by, while the train really did take us from one theme park to another. When we got off, we suddenly found ourselves in England!
  It wasn't just the King's Cross train station, that looked very real, but outside, there was a double-decker bus (resembling the Knight Bus, an actually triple-decker bus from the books), a telephone booth, a British souvenir cart and building, that looked like they were taken right from London.
Of course, we wanted to find Diagon Alley, a hidden enchanted street.
   It wasn't too hard to spot because of the flow of people, but it was covered by a wall. And then, we saw the street. It was incredible. Diagon Alley, replicated to a 100% accuracy. Everything in it was just perfect! The boutiques, the houses, the Gringotts Bank in the middle of everything, with a white dragon on top (from the scene in the 7th book, where Harry, Ron, and Hermione had to escape by breaking through the roof with a loose guarding dragon). We went in the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, a funny shop owned by George and Fred Weasley, and we visited The Leaky Couldron, a tavern that plays a big part in Harry's life. It's basically the place where he found out about the people who where out to get him (Voldemort in the first book and Sirius Black in the third).
  I had some split pea soup and warm butterbeer (which I like better than the cold. It was almost like a hot chocolate or tea), while Saki had some fish-n-chips. Very British.
  Because it was starting to get dark, and we spent almost all our time with wondering around and looking at Harry Potter stuff, we decided to race through Universal Studios, and get on as many rides as we can. We went on a kind of lame MIB ride, where the most important thing we learned, was that we have to aim for the "single rider" lines. Even if we go separate, we get through the long lines much much faster.
  We walked through the Simpson themed part to get to the front of the park. We couldn't miss the biggest roller coaster of Universal, so even though the wait was 45 minutes, we waited. And oh, it was so worth it. When we got on it, it was right at sunset, so we saw the whole park in beautiful orange, but just for a second before we plummeted down on an almost 90 degree drop! The whole experience was over in 30 seconds, but our adrenaline levels kicked up so high, we were laughing as we got out of the seats and fixed our wind-blown hairs.
  After we got our purses from the designated lockers, where you can put your bags for the time of the ride, we hurried back to Diagon Alley, to get on the Gringotts Bank ride before the park closed. The wait wasn't very long, and there were significantly less people. All the parents with their little children went home. That last ride was pretty good too, same 4D experience.
  By that time, we were beyond exhausted. Our feet were aching from the day's walking and standing. We visited some more shops and boutiques, and we watched the white dragon blow fire out of it's mouth. At 8, when the park closed, we were ready to go home. Stephanie waited for us at the gates, where she dropped us off.
  Today was amazing. Going to this place has been a dream of mine for so long, and now I had the opportunity to go. We didn't go on many rides, and we spent 70% of our time at the Harry Potter part, but that was completely acceptable. We were happy and poor. We emptied our piggy banks on the tickets and souvenirs, but it was so worth the experience.
  Stephanie took us to St. Petersburg, we spent the night at Avary's aunt's and uncle's. We were so tired, we had to go to sleep right away. This was one very very fun day to remember, and we were sure we were going to feel our sore muscles the next morning.
  

"Cold" Florida

19th of February, Thursday

Today was one of the colder days of our stay. If you can call 40 degrees cold, coared to the -20s in Rochester.
  Saki had to do her homework, but Betty, Stephanie and me, we took a cold walk on the beach. There was no one there, and we were wearing our coats. We declared the day a resting day, when we got back in the car. Saki worked on her homework, while me and Stephanie, we went to a nearby thrift shop, just to pass the time.
  In the evening, Betty and Bill, they invited us to have dinner at Outback, an Australian themed steakhouse, neither me or Saki have ever been to. The little Japanese girl surprised us once again on the amount of food she can eat. She was very funny.
  After we got back, with stomachs full, Stephanie helped us buy our tickets for tomorrow. We decided to go to the Harry Potter Park, which is part of Orlando's Universal. I've been dreaming on going there ever since I heard it opened. Universal is divided into two parts, and we had to get tickets to both, to see the whole HP attraction. The tickets were very pricey. But we figured, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.
  

New Smyrna birds and shells

18th of February, Wednesday

We woke up to a beautiful day in New Smyrna Beach, at Bill and Betty's. They're very nice and welcoming people. They love collecting shells (they have a whole room for their trophies), and they love feeding birds at the beach.
  So we hopped in the car in the morning, and drove to the beach. This is the only beach where you can drive your car. 10 miles/h is not much, but it's something. It's a beautiful, vaste open beach.
Betty and Bill took a bunch of seeds and nuts, and gave it to us to feed the pigeons and seagulls, who chilled at the beach. You could just put your hand out, and the birds would fly into your palms. Being pooped on was not a threat - at least that's what they said. Of course Saki got pooped on.
   After all the seeds and peanuts were devoured, we took a walk along the beach, looking for shells. We found quite a few. Betty and Bill knew the names of each kind, they're real experts on the subject. The weather was very nice. We were really thankful, that we were in Florida. Tom, Stephanie's husband kept us updated on the weather conditions in upstate New York ... horrible horrible cold ruled over those lands. And while we were outside in shorts, our friends at home were busy trying to remove the icicles from their nostrils.

Downtown Disney

17th of February, Tuesday

We had to leave the room by 11 am. We packed the car again, and headed to St. Petersburg, where Avary's aunt and uncle lives. We dropped her off there for a few days, while we went to New Smyrna Beach, to Stephanie's dad. New Smyrna Beach is on the other side of the state, so it took us a few hours to get to the East Coast of Florida from the West Coast.
  Stephanie let us choose one of the Orlando theme parks to go to, and we chose Universal Studios over Disney. So, to have a little bit of Disney experience, we stopped at Downtown Disney on the way, which is just like an expensive open-air mall, between the Disney theme parks.
  On the way there, a heavy rain fell down on us, that just wouldn't stop. But we were still determined to go. So freezing in the rain, we ran through all the places to see in Downtown Disney. Everything was decorated, and fun looking, but because it was raining, and it got dark quickly, not a lot of people roamed around like we did. Most of them just ran to their cars.
  I'm a huge Disney fan, thanks to my Mom. We love watching cartoons, and listening to cartoon music.  So even though it was dark, and raining, I enjoyed walking around a lot. We spent most of our time in a huge Disney shop (because we needed time to get dry and warm).
By the time we left the store, with a little pin souvenir for our Rotary jackets, the rain stopped.
We walked the same way back to the car.
  We headed towards New Smyrna Beach, and we got there a few hours later. Both me and Saki, we fell asleep in the car. We met Stephanie's dad, Bill and his wife Betty, the couple whose house we were going to stay at for a few days.