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!!!