EXPLORING SAN FRANCISCO!

Finally, after 12 days of anxiety, we have confirmed that San Francisco is by far one of the best cities in the USA! To start the morning, we had an awesome breakfast at the hotel, and then we went into the city. Crossing the bridge to hit the city and passing again along the ports of San Francisco, we arrived to the place where the cable cars depart. We had a short tour on the world-famous cable cars and had a real San Franciscan experience. We got off at Lombard Street- the most crooked street in the world- and walked down to the bottom. We had the chance to walk across Little Italy and through Chinatown to finally arrive downtown at Union Square. A lot of us shopped and barely had time for lunch because there were all our favorite shops- Levi's, H & M, Zara, Forever 21... 

Then we met up at the beautiful Union Square for a city tour with two wonderful guides who taught us more about the different neighborhoods. We went by the Civic Center and saw the City Hall where MarilynMonroe was married. We saw the hippy area- Haight-Ashbury, and the Castro district, which is the gay pride neighborhood. We also saw how liberal San Fran is when we passed a naked guy sitting on a public bench!!! (Luckily he was far away so we couldn't see very well) We learned that it is legal to be naked here, as long as the person lays a towel before they sit in a public place. This city is always surprising us! We rode all over SF and even went to the highest hill- Twin Peaks- where we could see the whole city. Then we went to another lookout over the Pacific Ocean, which was breathtaking.

After the tour, we headed for dinner in Chinatown. We ate at a restaurant called Chinatown Restaurant... A lot of people tried to use the chopsticks to eat all the millions of different plates of food, but even the Asians couldn't avoid the disaster that we made on our tables. It was a lot of fun!

Now we are back at the hotel relaxing and hanging out with each other because tomorrow is our last full day together :'(  It was a really wonderful day and we hope tomorrow will be this good!

      Signed,
Karen (Brazil) and Ricardo (Venezuela)

WE ARE GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO!

Today we arrived in one of the most famous cities and travel spots in North America: San Francisco!!! On the way from Yosemite, we stopped for lunch and some of us got a real West Coast experience- the In-N-Out Burger… We got off the bus after another hour of traveling and were welcomed by the cold, salty breeze of San Fran. We went and visited the first museum opened in the city- the de Young Museum of Art. The museum had exhibits for design, fashion, ancient artwork and modern art. After taking pictures of dark and grotesque outfits designed by world-famous Jean Paul Gaultier, many of us enjoyed the comfortable and warm café. Others took the whole two hours to look around the entire museum.

When we left the museum we went on the buses and headed to Pier 39, where we spent 2 hours shopping for souvenirs and shivering, impressive how cool the summer breeze is that comes from the Bay.

The day finished off with us going to the probably most popular and famous restaurant on the pier, Bubba Gump, where we ate out of a choice of salads, fish, pasta, and- of course- shrimp. Now we are at our last hotel for the trip and everyone is tired and sitting in the lobby, uploading photos to facebook, chatting on skype, laughing and talking, and, of course, writing the blog!

We are really looking forward to seeing more of this amazing city… More tomorrow on our adventures!

Signed,

      David from Germany

4TH OF JULY IN YOSEMITE!

First activity of the day: Hiking to a waterfall...

It was beautiful and totally worth the trek!

Sunset as we were leaving the park

First of all, happy 4^th of July to everybody!!! I hope all of you had a good day because we did! Today we went to Yosemite National Park, in California, which was really, really pretty.

Hiking in the morning wasn’t that easy but we made it because we are simply AWESOME!!! I would say that the trail was steeper than the Grand Canyon but the weather wasn’t as hot so it was nice. We survived and it was worth it for the view! After one mile of walking up and up some more, we were able to observe the beautiful waterfalls. At the top, we took some pictures, flew our flags and enjoyed a lot! The view was so wonderful up there! It’s definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

In the afternoon, we had two options. We could go rafting or biking. Biking was nice and relaxing for the few who chose to do it... Rafting was also a lot of fun! Everybody was very excited to experience a new adventure. We were divided in groups of four per boat. For some people, it wasn’t that easy to control the boats but you know, we took that with humor and the hard part became funny and enjoyable! The funniest part was to splash everybody else! As you can imagine, those are memories that will stay forever in our minds!

For 4^th of July, the American spirit was with us all day. Red, white and blue were the main colors of our outfits. Also, we were lucky to spend the national independence day in one of the most beautiful places in the USA!

Have a good night everyone and see you tomorrow for some new ADVENTURES in San Francisco! J

         Signed, 

             Doriane from Belgium

WELCOME TO DISNEYLAND!

Our bloggers met Mickey!

For some of us, it was the first time we went to a Disney park, so we were super excited to finally see what we had only seen in pictures and movies…  We left at 11 so we had extra time to sleep in.

We walked in and went straight to some rides. We rode Space Mountain all together and a lot of us thought it was the best ride of the day! We also rode the Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones and saw a show with Marry Poppins. We ate some lunch and then went to another theme park across from Disneyland- the California Adventure! It was really fun and the rides were bigger there… We rode Hollywood Tower of Terror. We were so into it, getting scared and scaring little kids with stories about how terrifying it is. And we screamed our heads off! And we also screamed on the Screamin’ roller coaster ride! They had a single rider line so we all went over and over and waited only 5 minutes.

We met up to get dinner coupons and watched a really cute parade. We saw lots of the characters, and sang the songs as the floats passed. Some of us also met Disney’s most famous person—Mickey Mouse! A few of us HAD to meet him or the day would not be complete, so we waited in line for 40 minutes to get our minute with Mickey! It was totally worth the wait. It was a dream come true and we felt like little kids again…

At night, there was a show on the lake in Disneyland where a video was projected on a fountain and fog over the water. It was really cool! Then we saw the 4^th of July fireworks show, which was all red, white, blue and gold. They even had fireworks in the shape of stars and smiley faces. They shot into the air over the castle, so it was amazing!

We think it was the best day so far on the trip. It was kind of a magical day… Everything was so pretty, the weather was great, and everyone was so happy. The day was just too perfect!

Signed,

Thais (Brazil), Sarah (Switzerland), and Berit (Germany)

Hollywood and Huntington Beach!

HOLLYWOOD!

VIVA ESPANA! 4 - 0!!!

Main Street, Huntington Beach, CA

Awesome v. YOLO epic beach soccer game!

We love Surf City, USA!

Do we have to leave the beach?

Today we had the pleasure to go to Hollywood. First we walked around and swathe different stars on Hollywood Boulevard.  We took a lot of pictures and then ended up at Madam Tussauds, there we took more pictures with the wax celebrities.  It was REALLY fun to see all the wax statues, even though it would have been even better to see them in real life.

 Next we drove about an hour to get to the beach because of the infamous LA traffic.  When we finally got to the beach, we discovered how nice Huntington beach actually is!  It was like in the movies and we weren't disappointed.  We went shopping and for some of us we watched the final of the Europe cup.  all the exchange students from Spain were really happy but not really the only Italian one, Manu. After a great lunch, we went sunbathing on the beach.  Even though the water was cold, the sun was shining and lots of us got sunburnt. We played a soccer game and then left the beach to go back to the hotel for dinner and free time. Signed, Charlotte from Belgium

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS, LOS ANGELES!

Welcome to Universal Studios Hollywood!!!!

Studio Tour showed us the War of the Worlds set

We rode Transformers!

And ate dinner here...

Today we had a trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA!!! During the trip we were singing, dancing and watching movies then we stopped for 30 minutes to have something to eat and drink, later we arrived in LA and went to UNIVERSAL STUDIOS where we took a tour of the real film studios and went to different rides from movies like Transformers, Mummy, Simpsons, and more... It was AWESOME to see the different special effects and where the famous movies were filmed and then we went to Hard Rock Cafe to have a nice dinner with music and having fun as always. It was very crowded at the City Walk- an outdoor shopping area next to Universal- but we were the life of the party! There was a DJ so we could dance and sing and have a great time together. We are becoming such a close group, even though there are 84 of us. Everyone can hang out with everyone else and we all love to be together.

We are having a really nice experience that Rotary and Belo USA helped give us. I will never forget this experience!! Thanks for everything!!!

Fernando from Chile

VEGAS, BABY!

LET’S GOOOOOO! LAS VEGAS BABY ! What happens in Vegas , stays in the Blog. Have you ever been in a big city? Well multiply that by ten and you get Vegas.

In the morning, everybody had the chance to explore Las Vegas and his fabulous hotels and Casinos like Bellagio, Caesar Palace, the Venetian, New-York New-York, etc… Each person had the chance to know a little bit more about different cities which were represented by different hotels/casinos. And also we could see the city’s spirit during the day and we could compare with the night before in our wonderful limos…we saw different characters of movies and cartoons around the streets, and admired the wonderful and unreal beauty of the hotels, some of us went all the way up the Eiffel Tower, others rode on the New York New York roller coaster and without a doubt everyone loved the first part of our day.

After a lovely morning walking around Vegas we took some time to rest and get ready for what the noon and night were reserving to us!! We got the chance to visit one of the highest buildings of Vegas, the Stratosphere. In this building, three big rides were proposed to us where we could enjoy hanging in the air with an awesome view of Las Vegas. Then, we had dinner in this hotel where a huge buffet with all kind of food: Asian, European and South-American…Everyone ate a lot! It was INTERNATIONAL FOOD !!!!

The lights are on and we are on the STRIP! Here we go to a fun night with all ours friends…Walk around and see the casinos full of people and an atmosphere that only Vegas has. But it was already time to go back to the hotel , but not for everybody. Some of us chose to go to an amazing show in Vegas : Cirque du Soleil’s  “O”.

Vegas, there we were. But no worries, now we are ready for Los Angeles, baby!

Signed,

Mariana Collar ( Brazil ) and Jordan Doutreluigne ( Belgium ) 

(photos to follow)