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)

The Fabulous LAS VEGAS!

It's party time! We're touring Vegas in style...

"Don't Stop Believin'...." at Fremont Street

The world famous Bellagio fountain!

Bumpin' in the stretch hummer limos!

Our last stop on the limo tour...

WE’RE GOING TO VEGAS BABY!!! That’s probably what everybody thought when we woke up this morning. Today is going to be exciting!

After breakfast we left the ranch for a 5 hour bus ride. It’s not that long when you are dancing, singing and watching movies with an awesome group of people. To prepare us for the night we watched the movie “What happens in Vegas”. We stopped on Route 66 to buy some souvenirs and have a real “American experience. After many pictures we got back in the bus. We can feel the excitement in the bus as we get closer to Vegas.

We started off by going to the outlet mall. It was 109 degrees outside and there was no cloud in the sky. Perfect day to go shopping. All the girls were excited because we got to stay for 2 hours and a half. But now it’s time to go to the hotel and relax at the pool before getting ready for the unforgettable night that we’re going to spend in Vegas.

Everybody looks really nice. The boys look handsome and the girls look even better. But first we’re going to eat. All you can eat buffet. We are having Asian, Italian, American, Mexican and so many other kinds of food. Now that our stomachs are full we can go in our  Hummers. The music is loud, everybody is dancing. We stopped at Fremont street to see the light show. There was a concert and we all danced and sang with the band. We made a big circle so we could see the show, and ended up dancing more. It was great but our limos were waiting for us so we had to go back. More music, more dancing and singin’ and here we are at the Bellagio! Vegas at night seems magical. The fountain show is starting and everything we saw in the movies was now in front of us! It was amazing to see it. The last stop was at the Las Vegas sign. Many pictures were taken and everyone was smiling and happy.

Tonight was magic and we will remember it forever!

Signed, Marie-Cecile Melsheim from France

OUR DAY AT THE GRAND CANYON!!!

WELCOME to the GRAND CANYON!

So many photos to take...

We loved the different shuttle stops...The views were amazing!

Davi (Brazil) on our grand hike into the canyon

Ally (Australia) met a squirrel in the canyon

Representing a few of our countries!

Hike, hike hike!

We all got a free souvenir to take home-- Canyon dust! 

A few students enjoyed the view from the lookout

while others hiked below

This morning we woke up and had breakfast, it was scrambled eggs, bacon, French toast and syrup--it was a real common American breakfast.  We were supposed to leave at 8, but something terrible-which ended up being wonderful happened to our bus.  Bus 2 ended up staying 2 hours later at the hotel while Bus 1 left on time for the Grand Canyon. For the extra 2 hours, we were able to play tennis, basketball, UNO, and we even danced! We bonded like family.  We finally got to the Grand Canyon with the new AWESOME bus, the best music, and the best people.

When we got to the Grand Canyon National Park we had no idea what to expect. We got out of the bus and walked through a narrow path to find the whole canyon in front of us! No photo could ever do justice to the beautiful view that we had! We all started taking pictures like crazy, just to try to capture some of the pure beauty. Every angle gave different perspective, different colors, different depth to the canyon. After taking hundreds of pictures, we realized how hungry we were so we split up to find a nice place to eat lunch. We also had free time to take the shuttles around and see the different views of the landscape. We started taking our flags out of our bags and waving them with pride around the park, taking pictures to represent all of our countries.

After relaxing and taking in the beautiful views of the canyon, we began preparing our minds and awakening our adventurous spirits to explore the GRAND Canyon. We felt like Indiana Jones, but with mules instead of snakes all around us. We got very excited to go down, filled our water bottles, stretched our walking legs, and then, before we knew it, we were at the bottom… And then it was time to go back up! Oh, that was hard… Challenge accepted! We took some more flag pictures, refilled our bottles, and had contact with some canyon animals—birds, squirrels, and a mountain goat on a roof. It was interesting and helped distract us from the hard task ahead—going up! We took twice as long to go up as we did to come down the 1.5 miles… We stopped frequently to take pictures, drink water, enjoy the view, sit on a rock, watch the other hikers and listen to music to pump us up… The motivation was good- we had dinner waiting for us! When we got to the top, we cheered, hugged each other, sang “We Are the Champions”… We all felt like there should be a person waiting at the top to give us each a star for successfully finishing the hike (our suggestion to the Park Rangers)…

Anyways, our hungry hiker bellies were ready for dinner! We got on the bus and rode to another area to eat yummy pasta with meatballs and then brownies for dessert. They also had salad, but hikers need more, so we went straight for the carbs!

We are looking forward to the days ahead, but good night for now… Us hikers need our beauty sleep because tomorrow WE’RE GOING TO VEGAS, BABY!

Intro by Ricardo & Naomi

Grazi- Brazil

WELCOME TO PHOENIX & SEDONA

The giant Saguaro cactus- only found in the Sonoran desert (Phoenix, AZ)
Grazi (Brazil), Tici (Belo Staff) & Carlos (Bolivia)

Posing at the Hole in the Rock in Phoenix

Welcome to beautiful SEDONA! The land of the Red Rocks

Wigwams outside our Ranch-style hotel in Williams, AZ

We are super excited to be here… Most of us have not met, and some of the exchangers from the same districts have not seen each other for many months, so it is really nice to all be together again, and to meet new people!

Here in Arizona, everything is different from the East Coast, so it is very interesting for all of us to see… Our time zone also changed- we are three hours behind all our friends and family back “home”… And some of us thought that our home countries, like Thailand and Mexico were hot, but here it is REALLY hot! It was 109 degrees (42 Ceclius) today!!! It is also dry because we are in a desert.

We chatted a lot and met many new people throughout the day… Starting with the wonderful buffet breakfast, then on the bus, and at the hotels, people started to exchange pins and business cards. We are feeling like the trip is getting off to a great start!

Today, we had a city tour of Phoenix- the Valley of the Sun- and saw many famous buildings throughout the city. We stayed in the bus most of the time because of the “warm” weather, but we stopped at the state capitol building for pictures, and then we stopped at Papago Park to walk and see a cool rock formation. It was a huge hole in a rock, called “Hole in the Rock”. We also went shopping, ate lunch, saw lots of cacti, walked in the heat, and saw the famous Red Rocks of the West! in Sedona. We had a fun bus ride to the Grand Canyon. We all sang along with the music on the bus. It is so cool that, even though we are all from different countries, we can still come together with American music.

Tomorrow should be even more fun than today because we will discover the Grand Canyon together! The weather should be nice, too! (80 degrees!)

Feng- Taiwan

Cream- Thailand

Mook- Thailand

Perim- Turkey

Here it is, the WEST COAST TRIP! Get ready to take in the best of the West: historical Phoenix, the amazing Grand Canyon, fabulous Las Vegas, glamorous Los Angeles, beautiful Yosemite, and funky San Francisco! It's going to be 14 days of adventure, excitement and friendship...we hope you are as excited as we are!

This blog will be our journal of all the fun things we'll be doing. Every day, we'll be posting our stories and our pictures so our families and friends can experience the trip along with us. It's going to be a wonderful time, so get ready...IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!