The American Dream Reloaded - Part 1 of 4 There and back again

Yeah, the stories with USA are far from over.

But first some prolog is in order.

Remember when i told that before we left for the first year in the USA we put things in motion that influenced many points to come?

One such outcome was regarding Adrian.
After we came back from the USA, we start school again.

Adrian found out because we had such good grades (back then it was a strong requirement for a positive outcome for the visa process) they selected him for a scholarship !
He was in the top 3 students in his entire university !

Respect.

He told me the good news and of course he accepted i mean it was a very good opportunity and we will see what our next moove will be after he comes back.

In the mean time, it was good timing for me as well because i wanted to go again in the USA.
Thus i started to ‘brainwash’ people to make my own travel team.
I invited 10 people to my house for a party and showed them my first experience.
They loved it.
And finally 3 greed to come.
Two girls and one guy.
Excellent, double date it is.

We will leave in June as usual and come back in 4 months.
Adrian will leave in a few weeks and come back in the summer.
So he was the first to arrive at his destination.

It was him and two others.
Their choice: Finland
In a small town that was the border with Sweden.

So yeah, almost on the edge of the world.

He sent me pictures which got weirder the longer he stayed there.

Because there’s only snow.
Minus 25-35 degrees C, by day.
And the day lasted forever.
Like only half an hour of night.
And then it switched to only night and no day.

So this it the weird happening.

Then he had hair, wtf ?!?!

Came back home man, before you loose all of your marbles.

Neah, he was fine, it was a great experience from what he told me and maybe in a future post he will writes his own story as well.

In our country snow also hit… BAD !
I mean look at this.
He was supposed to have the most snow, not me.

Ah and I also had some political stuff going on.

When i showed Adrian these, he said, will there be a country when i get back home or should i build an igloo here?

Time passed, no revolution, winter was gone and it was time for me and the others to go.
Visa interview, flawless victory for all of us.
Couldn’t believe it, that 4 different people, we synchronized completely.

(Translation: Are you ready ? )

Karma has a sense of humor.

We went to Tofte, were all the good things were happening.
The summer passed quickly but we had a blast.

You know Tofte by the earlier post so i will update only with the new stuff.

So let’s begin.

Almost every day and night in a different color spectacle.

Almost every weekend, a wedding.

Some around the restaurant and local stuff.
The restaurant view and location is unbeatable.

“..a little tequila does spice your astronaut pants”

Yeah, why do you laugh? It makes perfect sense.

Some more interesting cars.

The white one, completely built by the owner.

Then to Grand Marais, the next town.
Very nice as well.

You know me I’m the driver and they also had some delivery/pick-up jobs and i was their main back-up.
Here an excellent road trip to get some fresh supplies from another restaurant which was near the lake.

Then i wanted to do some kayaking, what a wonderful experience, on Caribou Lake.
It’s calming and very fun.
My first time too and it was a charm.

A lot of parties and campfires.

One crazy adventure happened when we went to Ilgen Falls and … jumped !
Madness i tell you.
It was pretty tall, the camera doesn’t do it justice, it’s a bad one, for obvious reasons, couldn’t afford to break the good one.

The fall is very weird, the longer you go down the more acceleration you get of course, and you feel like you’re going to ..die.
And you know, water is 600 times denser than air so you can get pretty knocked up if you don’t know how to fall into the water, given a high velocity.

Luckily the waterfall made so much foam that it cushioned everything.
It was like floating inside the foam.

I filmed it but you can only hear stuff.

One off the best was to Gooseberry Falls State Park.
I mean just look at it.

Before we left, we had one more trip to Mall Of America - the biggest Mall in America.
There are so many shops inside that if you stay 15 minutes in each one, it will take you 6 days to finish it !
And God knows how many inside roller-coasters.

I’m not a mall person, so i just went to eat and build LEGOs until they came back. For like 5 hours…

And the best for last - Valley Fare.
This is were i lost a few years just by getting scared.
They have crazy machines and roller coasters.

This is the first one we did and of the most scariest.

The acceleration is so fast, you have to take off your shoes because they will fly off.
Then it does the corkscrew thing and reverse and catches speed even more.

Then on the next one they stopped the ride because of me - i wanted to record (?!) - still pretty in shock from the first ride so i wasn’t thinking clearly anymore.

My bad, i put it away and we continued.

One guy from our group i think he had a death wish or something, we did all the rides and even some of them twice !
His face was purple and could barely speak.

The park was big.

And the last one i did it was an old school wooded roller coaster with sharp corners.
The guy next to me, (Hi Ace !) we had each others seat belts so it wasn’t a tight fit !

Oh my God we thought we were going to die !

We realized too late to do anything and we just .. held on.

You know when they take your picture at an extreme moment in the ride, usually everybody is happy and enjoys it.
But not us, our faces contained true terror and fear of death.
I mean look at our hands as we were holding for dear life.
And my right eye decided to leave me, no more iris.