The Smoky Mountains

From the 1st to the 4th we've been camping. We means my host family and me. It has actually been the first time in my life I've been camping. And indeed, it has been awesome! Something I'd really like to do again someday. The Smoky Mountains were our destination. The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee-North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. It's the most visited national park in the US. The name "Smoky" comes from the natural fog that often hangs over the range and presents as large smoke plumes from a distance.

Bambi, haha :D

We got there with a camper. On Friday we didn't do a whole lot, but still it was a pretty good day, I think! We just went on a path extra for cars to see a bunch of animals such as deer, turkey, or even a black bear. We've really seen all three of these, even though the bear was pretty far away. It was neat! In the evening there was an "auction night". The camp gave us fake money to bet on some stuff they gave up for auction. 40 dollars each person. I really wanted to get one of these stuffed animals so Whitney and me put our money together to 80 dollars.. We still lost the first two stuffed animals (a sweet penguin and a plush bear). The very last thing for auction was another animal. All the people around who didn't want their money gave us theirs so we had about 220 dollars... - And still got beaten up!! So in the end we didn't get anything.. Guess we're just bad at this! Anyways, they gave tshirts and some over stuff away for nothing (: So I got a shirt, and two bibles (I'm gonna give them to our church). Whitney got some kitchen stuff for her mom. Might have been tablecloths...
After that we had dinner and made a fire over which we warmed up some marshmellows (.. probably written wrong..) :D
The next we went hiking in the morning. It was cold. Icecold. Can't say any more.. :D 

Enchanted <3

Then we did tye-dying (weird, american way of painting shirts), went swimming and played BINGO in the afternoon. She won a free popcorn for the evening movie "ENCHANTED". This is the cutest movie ever! I love it so much! You gotta be watching this, it's too cute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRYU4cqUAUs It's actually really ironic because I was singing songs of this movie the whole entire week before and Whitney would get really annoyed of it. :D
I remember Isabel, my best friend, and me watching this movie and keep singing the songs one evening last summer. It was a good time!


Jap, we had a lot of fun
on the playground :D 

I broke the line... :s

This was the first evening I realized that Whitney is really a sister to me. I wanted to get some M&M's and the woman behind the counter asked me if I liked the movie, so I answered "Oh  yeah, I've seen it a lot of times before!" And she was like: "Oh me too! And I love the songs! Got all of them on my iPod". So I said: "Me too! I keep singing them and my sister gets really annoyed". - On my way back I realized that I called her my sister - Not my friend, or host sister. Just sister. And I actually meant it, I didn't just say it so I don't have to explain a lot. I just love her sooo much! Even though she can be annoying, playing the recorder at 10am... I love her! Today at church one man said "Hey girls" to us and we turned around and said just at the same time "Hi!" So he was like: "Oh my!! You both must have been practicing this! This was at the same time and in exactly the same pitch!! Like in a choir!". Whitney was like: "Sure.. We practice it every evening in front of the mirror"! It was a good time!
On sunday we went hiking a looot! First up the

hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill, to a waterfall (it was nice), and the way back. I've been in front of my host family the whole time because I was a lot faster. Then I saw a snake o.O Freaked me out a bit... In the afternoon we've been resting, and swimming in the pool. In the evening we wanted to see the "Fireflies" in the Smoky Mountains. Our "neighbour" family told us they was a really nice place you could go, up in the hills, where all the fireflies are kind of synchronized, and light up all together at one time.. We thought we could drive up there with the car. Obviously we couldn't. So with this family we decided to hike about 2.3 more miles up there and then back. After about the first thirty minutes of hiking it was dark. I couldn't see anything. And I wore flip-flops because I was thinking we'd drive up there.. It was rough but I wanted to see the fire flies. So after fifty minutes of hiking they'd all stop. David and I have been a bit (like ten feet) in front of them. They were discussing if they wanted to go back because it was way too dark. Suddenly David said: "Look to your side, guys. There are fireflies!" We've been all surrounded by those beautiful, beautiful creatures. It was so pretty! I looked like people would be taking pictures the whole time! It was just so pretty and romantic. It was great. Even though I'm thinking it would have been better if we would've kept walking. 

Hiking in the shirt I won the evening before
- Little too large, but good message: Donating blood!

This is what the web is saying about it: "They are a rare species of firefly that seem to coordinate their blinking into a little Smoky Mountain show (all they need is some music!) around mid-June (the 2nd through the 10th) each year. There’s only one other place in the world, Southeast Asia, in which this phenomenon can be seen. This species of fireflies has an internal “sensor” that let’s them know when a nearby firefly has lit, in which they respond with their own light as quickly as possible. It may take a minute for them to get in sync, but all of a sudden that start performing together with flashes that last as long as six seconds. This, in turn, presents an amazing wave of blinking lights that is truly astonishing." I wanna go back one day! It was awesome! We just stood there for like twenty minutes. Everybody was tired so we went back to the car. One conversation of Whitney and me on our way up:
Whitney: "I see something that you can't see and it's..."
Lara: "Let me guess... Green?"
Whitney: "Oh my... That's right! Can you guess what it is also?"
Lara: "A tree?"
Whitney: "Oh my... You're a mind-reader!"
Haha, even though it was rough, it was a good time!

Titanic exhibition

The next morning we slept in. In the afternoon we went watertubing in the small river which also flows in front of our campside. That was cold... Again. But it was fun! A lot of fun! I had a good time. Then we hopped in the pool for a second (which felt surprisingly warm then..) and in the afternoon we met a part of their family in a town in the Smokys called Gatlinburg. There was man with his wife and their son. In this one streat there were a LOT of really cool attractions! We wanted to go to a museum about Titanic exhibitions all together but their son was crying a lot and (obviously) having some issues so we ended up going without them. This was amazing too. So sad, but amazing. In the first room I almost cried, when the woman talked about the facts that happened. I could talk a lot about how incredible the distuingishing between 1st and 3rd class people has been but I guess it wouldn't make anything better. In the beginning everybody got a "boarding pass". On this pass there was a name and a story of one passenger aboard the Titanic. Michele, Whitney and David all got 1st class people (I believe..) or at least 2nd class. David's person has been a worker on the ship. My person was third class person. I just have to tell her story. It was Helene Rosblom. 41 years. Residence in Kolla, Rauma, Finland. My card said this:
 "Do you take premonitions seriously? My 10-year-old son, Eino, does. That's why he refused to joing his sister, two-year-old Salli, and I on Titanic. He absolutely refused and said, "I won't go with them to drown!" Those were his words! I'm Helena Wilhelmina Rosblom from Finland. I couldn't wait to be reunited with my husband in America. Eino could stay with relatives until I returned. Actually, our original plan did not include Titanic, but when my Salli got sick in Southhampton, England, we had to change ships and departure dates. It seemed like a lucky omen when they booked us on Titanic, yet misgivings nagged me. As the days at sea went on I found my enthusiasm fading. Eino's words kept echoing in my mind: "I won't go with them to drown!"  Why had there not been a lifeboat drill? Would we be able to get into a lifeboat? Could we swim in 28-degree water? What to do?"  - She and her daughter died. Her daughter was, I believe, the second youngest person to die this day. There was another child of one year that died. It made me so upset if you think about her leaving his husband in the US and her son in Finland.. It's just crazy..

The original size of Titanic's anchor

There was one room where you could put your hand in 28 degree Fahrenheit cold water. It was COLD! It's about 2 degrees Celsius. It was way colder than the river earlier. The longest time swimming in there made a man (I can't remember his name). He made more than two hours. Why? He was part of the crew, and when he knew the ship was going to sink, he got drunk. So he was drunken, in the water, swimming for two hours, not feeling the cold - And made it... :O My host dad was like: "So what is this all telling us? If your ship is sinking - Don't worry! Get drunk!" :D
Another thing I didn't know is that there were also dogs on the ship, including an Airedale Terrier (like our Lacy). (: So they showed a lot of stuff that was inside of the Titanic, a lot of facts about it, and also some stuff about the movie (like costumes, how it was made, etc.)
It was really, really interisting! I'm really not a Titanic (movie) fan, but now I really wanna watch that movie again!

The house!! :O

Anyways, after this we just had dinner with this family, which was pretty funny, and then we went back to the campside. The last night there - It was CRAZY! It started raining really bad, so Whitney and me just couldn't sleep. We stayed up, just talking, until about 4:30 in the morning... And this means: YES! We've got issues! Then we'd have small lamps in front of our bed and after a time we've already been able to predict when the other one was going to turn it on right into the other one's face. It was crazy. The other morning, when I got up, I was asking: "Hey Whit, did yesterday night really happen?" "Yap" "Oh my..".
We started our way home really early. 
All in all it was a great trip and I'm so thankful for it! It has been awesome!

The best in the end!!
I've seen the cutest dog ever!! Look in its eyes *-*
Mix of a pomeranian and a chihuaha (: