#17 - Waitress Picking My Meal & INSTAGRAM

(hahah, Last night's Conga drum video was epic, you should go check it out if you haven't seen it already. Big thanks to my roommate for her amazing moves in the kitchen!)

Oh man I'm so full. 

I just got back from Gringos Locos, a restaurant that serves Tex-Mex chow. It's located in the same building as Kisahalli, next to the National Opera. I owed my sister a birthday dinner and she decided we would eat at GL. My plan was to take advantage of this situation and let a waitress pick my entire 3-course meal. I normally like to eat burgers or steaks at restaurants, so gambling for my meal and getting something I would never normally order is something new and forces me to try new dishes. I also took a challenge on the side of taking INSTAGRAM pictures of all my meals. I've never used it before and it didn't seem that interesting to me, but since it's so popular, why wouldn't I give it a try?

My second Instagram picture: Picture of my first Instagram breakfast picture with a golden rose. PICINCEPTION! The hashtags in the bottom help users find pictures of what they like.

I entered the restaurant a little bit earlier than my sister and as I sat down, my waitress Laura asked me what I would like to drink. I replied: "You tell me." I explained to her that I was going to let her pick my drink and my meals for me today and she looked a bit confused at first, but then told me she'd be back with my drink soon.

My sister arrived after and I got my drink. It looked like cider with it's yellowish color and bubbles and I wasn't sure if Laura had remembered that I asked for a non-alcoholic beverage, since I don't drink at all. I took a sip and it tasted good, kinda like Pommac. I had no idea what it was, but it didn't matter. As my sister ordered her food I told Laura that she could pick anything for me on the list except the spicy stuff, since I don't really want to get sweaty & uncomfortable when I eat. She said she had already planned to pick the "Platter of Death", which is the spiciest food they have on the menu, but now she was going to have to change the dish.

My top secret drink

My appetizer arrived soon after. It was a small cup with three Nachos and a tomato sauce full of unknown bits and pieces. I think there was some avocado in there and I definitely identified shrimp. I've never eaten shrimp and my sister told me that if I was allergic to crusteans, my airways would soon be swollen shut. I freaked out a little, but since there were no ichy feels I continued to eat them. Oh yeah, the appetizer was cold. The taste was tomato. The tomato sauce was dominating all the other ingredients, so I would describe the taste as tomato sauce with unknown pieces thrown in, although it was a good choice, since I never eat shrimp.

Three nachos, a lime slice and tomato sauce.

As the food kept coming I kept Instagramming that stuff. I noticed People love taking photos of their food and sharing them to the world with Instagram filters, so I decided to do so as well. My hashtags needed a little work though..

Anyways my sister got her tortilla tray full of wonderful EATS and I got my main course. It was a steak of some sort! HALLELUJA! This was good because I FKN LOVE STEAK. For the challenge it wasn't that exciting, because I lucked out in the food roulette and didn't get something I wouldn't normally order. The steak had some kind of a black sauce on and under it. The garnishes included steamed veggies, potato slices and fried corn. I quickly tasted every steamed veggie to make sure I still didn't like steamed veggies. Check. The steak was good, but I didn't particularly care for the sauce. I enjoyed the buttery corn.

Dat meat

Join the tortilla side

I was quite full already, but we still had to enjoy dessert. My sister ate cheesecake and Laura brought me 3 balls of ice cream: Pineapple sorbet, Vanilla and Chocolate-chili. My favourite was the chocolate. We also ordered a Chili-chocolate milkshake out of curiosity, but the amount of chili in it was miniscule and didn't give us any burning sensation :(

Vader ready for cake

So after one hell of a meal I asked Laura to show me what I had eaten and explain why she picked them. She told me the drink was a Ginger Ale, something she likes to drink. I liked it as well!

My starter was king prawns marinated in lime and chili with tomato salsa, avocado and nachos. Three nachos to be exact, lol. She was contemplating on giving me snails, but decided to go with prawns as she thought everybody has eaten snails. Well, I haven't and that would have been even more exotic, but chili-lime prawns were a good choice nevertheless.. Too bad the tomato sauce kind of overtook the taste.

My main course was a Sirloin steak with chocolate-chili sauce, corn with chipotle butter, grilled vegetables and Creole potato wedges. The whole meal sounds pretty exotic, but I think the taste was quite the same as any other steak meal. I lucked out on this one, since there were a couple of vegetarian tofu meals on the list that I might not have enjoyed as much as steak.

Dessert was ice cream, which is probably the safest choice for me. 3 scoops was quite much though, I'm usually content with one ball of chocolate :)

After the explanations we took a picture together with Laura and I gave her my blogs url. She gave us the milkshake for free. Thank you Laura for great service and agreeing to choose my dishes :) It was cool to hear what went through your head when you chose my meals.

Our lovely waitress & me.

As for the instagramming goes, I think I'm done with the experience. The app is really easy to use, the filters give a "nice" artistic touch to the pictures and getting likes from unknown people is cool, but I just don't see any point in having such a photo blog. As my last Instagram picture I took a snapshot of my water. It already has two likes... 'Nuff said.

One of the most expensive challenges

#16 - Conga Drum Extravaganza!

Ay Carambaa!

AY AY AYY, OR WHATEVER-THEY-SHOUT-WHEN-THEY-PLAY-TEH-CONGAAS!!

Today eso una Conga drum partyy. I've had Conga drums sitting in my apartment for a week now and I've been itching to play them. A friend of mine suggested I try banging (literally, not in the other way) his Conga drums for a day and he was kind enough to drop them off to my place last weekend. Now he couldn't really teach me anything but the basics, because it is a sad known fact that bald Caucasian males who have a Ph.D. in physics just can't play the Congas.. In his defense though, he's one of the "Original Gangstas" of Finland's Locking scene. That's right folks, I'm talking about the one and only Kai aka Locky Balboa from Will Funk for Food! Doctor of Philosophy & an Original Gangster, now that's bad ass.

A picture from one of Kai's lectures.

As you might have guessed, Conga drums are from the Congo. WRONG. We'll at least they're from Africa, right? WRONG. They actually originate from Norway, as the Vikings used to play drums whenever they were ready to attack & plunder a coastal village.. nope.  They are from Cuba.

ANYWAYS, I looked up some tutorials and after a couple of minutes I figured I was already a master at drumming and rhytyhyhym. You see, I have deep imaginary roots in Africa, so that's why the rhytythm runs in my blood. Wrythym. RYTHM. Rhytm. RHYTHM. YES!

Any-fucken-ways, without further ado, I present to you my Conga SOLO! (Don't mind my roommate constantly running in front of the camera, she didn't appreciate my playing AT ALL!!) 

ps. My outfit is a fusion of a locker/latin ballroom dancer/elevator guy, oh how faaaabulous! (no homo)

#14 - 15 Shopping at a Charity Shop & Parkour

Yo!

I almost quit this challenge yesterday. I wasn't feeling well after the funeral and I announced that I was quitting, but my friends managed to change my mind. Even the smallest gesture from a friend can help you keep moving forward and hearing how people enjoy reading about my adventure and telling me to just push through the feels-bad-man moment helped me to turn my decision around!

Thank you, my friends.

ANYWAYS, After my temporal insanity yesterday I decided to take out two birds with one stone today and go shopping in a thrift shop first and end the day with some awesome Parkouring! I need to catch up if I'm going to complete 30 challenges in 30 days, so why not do two challenges in one day. Today was all about bromance, as I had made plans with Niko to go shopping, and Jontte was going to teach me some basics of Parkouuuuuuur!

I met up with Niko aka Sharkie (which is his locking alter-ego) in the center and made our way to UFF. UFF is a shop that sells used clothes people give away to charity and today every piece of clothing cost 3 euros! My original challenge had me buying a full outfit from a thrift shop, but I decided less would suffice. I asked Niko to go with me because we're joining forces for a battle. That's right, we're going out to Estonia Twirls blazing next month to take part in a Locking 2vs2 dance battle! So we thought it would be cool to try find some fresh battle gear for our upcoming showdown.

Soon we found ourselves in the basement floor of an UFF, going through the clothing racks. The selection for men was quite bad, but we managed to find some amazing looking jackets from the ladies side..

Pimpin' a little too much? I only know a couple of stunning girls who are Badass enough to rock this kind of gear... ;)

After an hour of trying on dusty jackets, blazers and trousers we managed to find some new pants for our epic locking collaboration! We ended our mandate with some deliciously greasy noodle MÄTTÖ. Great Success!

Picture of our Naturally Funky Foot-Hype Clan pantalones!

After our meal it was time for me to go jump around with Jontte. We warmed up and got down to bidniz in a park in Hakaniemi. 

Parkour is a training discipline focused on overcoming obstacles, involving moving from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient way possible. It combines a variety of movements like running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, leaping, and rolling.

As we began, Jontte explained and showed various moves to me, such as the Side Vault, the Monkey Vault and the Cat Leap, but during the exhibition all I could think of were moves like the Face-Plant, the Half Flip Neck Bang and my personal favourite the Land-on-Your-Balls-And-Say-Goodbye-to-Babies Leap!

My parkour specialties

I performed some of the leaps over a fence and I'm quite glad that I didn't crash during our session! Out of all the moves I tried, the Lazy Vault was my favourite one.. It really spoke to me on an emotional level and felt like my kind of a move..

How the pros do it.. SICK!

It was fun to learn some of the basic techniques behind Parkouring, I think I can confidently hop over a fence now and not faceplant..*knocks on wood* Parkouring reminded me of skateboarding, because there's a mental side in both of them, where you have to let go of your fear and just do it! All in all it was a fun day, and I can safely say:

I'm back in the Game, bitches!

The flying Lockness Monstah!

 Parkouuuuuuur!

#13 - Funeral, a day off & (not)ending the challenge

On Saturday we buried our beloved grampa, Reino Björn..

You can read an obituary about him here:
http://muistot.hs.fi/muistokirjoitus/5098/reino-bj%C3%B6rn

On Sunday I filmed a quick vid with my crew for a video competition. I didn't feel like doing any of the challenges..

Today I still feel like shit and all the challenges I have left don't appeal to me at all. I started this project to do something different, but aside from reinforcing my preconceived thoughts about myself , it didn't have the effect I was hoping for.. I'm not stopping because the challenges aren't fun, I'm stopping because they haven't helped me in a way I wished they would have.

I did enjoy writing and trying to entertain my tens and tens of readers, lol. I had fun and got to hung out with people I normally don't, so that was cool. I hope my stories have entertained and/or inspired some of you to get out there and do something new!

bye.

UPDATE:

HAHAHA GOTCHA!!! I fooled you again, didn't I? You think an AWESOME MANLY MAN with chest hair like mine would just quit a challenge?? Well think again!

... Some peeps didn't want me to quit so they sent me a couple of nice messages, which made me think it through.. Since I'm easily manipulated and have nothing better to do than sit here and write to my 1 follower, I have decided to CONTINUE my challenge, starting again tomorrow! Even the mayneliest of mayne's need a couple of days to cut some onions after the passing of his mom's pops.

#12 - Taking locking back to the Streets!

My back is aching from all the over-extending & my hands are sore from hitting the concrete all day, but all I can say is 

I LOVE LOCKING!

Today the weather was good so me and Energia-Elja from my dance crew (the Funky Footclan) took it to the streets with a plan to make that street money! We have danced outside with my crew, but never with a plan perform and entertain people. We were accompanied by Elja's GF Yvonne, who took all the epic photos in this blog post!

Me and Elja from FFC!

I was so full of enthusiasm and anticipation as I loaded batteries in to my Boombox. The butterflies in my stomach and the excitement from thinking alone was more intense than I had felt in any of my past challenges! I get such a good feeling from dancing I don't ever want to stop. I took the tram to the core of Helsinki and after making up a couple of eight-counts of choreography on the spot we were ready to KICK IT!

Random encounter with a couple of poppers and a B-Boy.

It was really exhausting to do a solo after a solo after a solo! We didn't get much rest during our performances as you only have the time it takes for your friend to freestyle to catch your breath, and then you have to get down again – locking requires a lot of stamina and endurance, but boy it was fun!

Here we go!

We performed in two places and met quite many dancers we know by accident! Our teacher Jenny "Silppuri" Silfver found us near Stockmann and she did a quick solo and we danced together for a while. You can see her on the video I posted below. She's kinda like Funky Footclan's sensei, since most of us danced in her locking classes when we started. Her nickname translates to "the Shredder" from the TMNT, and our crew's name came about from the thought that she was our master (The Shredder) and we were her funky minions (The Footclan) :)

OP, OP, OP-OP..

..OPPA GANGNAM STYLE! We did a couple of sets to Gangnam Style!

At Kamppi we bumped in to Skitsoflex's Funkyo & Tobyek. They're in the same crew as Jenny and their street dance discipline is Popping. They did a couple solos for us and we were having a good time! Also BBoy Ozone showed up and took over for a some epic bboying!

Let me just not-model here while you do all the work Elja!

In the end we made 62 euros in 2 hours, not bad at all! Of course we gave some of it to our lovely photographer/hype woman Yvonne. Big thanks to Elja my man and all the other people we met during our performances. I love dancing and this was my favourite experience yet! Check out the pictures and the video below!

Look at him go!

Mandatory butt shot!

Power Elja doing a move called the Alpha!

  

Locking it down!

Scoobot Kick!

Our funky kicks and the pile of STREET MANEYYY we made!

Vid with choreography and freestyle from our street session!

#11 - Modern Theatre

YO!

Today was culture time as I was invited to go see a theatre performance called Neo-Hamlet at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Here's what the description has to say about it:

Neo-Hamlet is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic that brings together many artistic disciplines: drama, literature, animation, graphics, film, visual art and sound art.

Here's what I would write if I was in charge of the description:

Neo-Hamlet is an adaptation of Shakespeare's classic that brings together layers and layers of shit from many artistic disciplines tied together with a string of ass-hair. Get ready to be taken on a ride full of boredom through the whimsical ugly-as-fuck visuals; dive in to the depths of the dream world, as we guarantee you'll be falling asleep in no time. The Neo-Hamlet experience will amaze you how well you were able to plan your grocery list while trying to avoid the stream of crap running on the screen. Oh, did you think it was supposed to be theatre? With on stage acting and such? Oh, we're sorry,  this is a CONTEMPORARY THEATRE, which is something brand new!! You'll be seeing the actors on a screen! Pre-recorded! With horrible special effects and bad editing! Yes, EXACTLY like a shitty art school movie! So come on, join us on this mind-numbing experience of audio-visual diarrhea, we guarantee you it will be your first and your last contemporary theatre show.

Well, I think that about sums it up.

Here's the trailer.

#10 - Climbing

Dear diary,

I hope all is well. Yesterday I told you people that you could find a link to my online dating profile on my blog.. Here comes the shocker:

THERE WAS NO LINK!

 OMG

(Sorry, but I feel like it's a lil too personal ;) If you really want to see it, 

ask me nicely in private and the link might be yours)

Today I went climbing with my bro Jedy, aka Jedy King Kong. I know Jedy from dancing and he's been bugging me a lot about going climbing, so this was the perfect opportunity for us to do it! I felt pretty nervous as we entered the climbing place, some of the walls looked massive and my fear of heights wasn't helping. I strapped the harness on and put on some climbing shoes on my bare feet. The shoes started to get sweaty right away and I couldn't help but wonder how full of other people's feet sweat they were.

You look up – climbers everywhere!

The scariest wall of them all!

My first climbing route was, umm, yellow! After a few tips from Jedy (keep close to the wall and always try to use your legs to push you further) I started the climb. The route was for beginners and the belaying was automatic, which means that if I fell or jumped down, the machine would lower me automatically. I was nervous about it and decided to test it from 2 meters. I jumped and it worked wonderfully! "pheew." I thought as I started to climb. The route was pretty easy and I reached the top in no time. All the nervousness had faded away and I felt good!

WTF Jedy get down from there before you get hurt!!

Climbing a crazy curve

Too easy!

As our day progressed Jedy climbed some crazy walls and I climbed the easy ones! All the climbing routes have a difficulty level from 1 to 9, where 4 is the first one vertical. My first wall was a 4 and after that I managed to climb a 5a and later on a 5b! The 5b was quite tricky for me and I really had to use my arms on that one to keep me from falling, since I had no proper technique. Completing it felt great, because it really was a challenge. My gym & dance background helped quite a bit I must say.. I'm still far away from Jedy, as  most climbers get stuck at 6a level.. One of Jedy's routes was a 6b+ at least and, he's currently at 6c level.

Of course they had to shine a divine spot light on me to highlight my awesome climbing skills!

LOL, Stock Photo material right there!

Mandatory badonkadonk shot & proof that I made it to the top at least once!

After my success story I tried a 5b and a 5a and failed them both! I had no power in my grip any more and couldn't hang on after going past the middle mark.. Afterwards we went bouldering to the top floor for a bit.. Bouldering is basically climbing small stuff without ropes. After 3 hours of climbing it was time to go home knowing that the next day my back and arms were going to ache from all the climbing.. What a great experience!

This was my first route

Bruce Lee aka Jedy & me