Last Day! Goodbye Everyone!!!!

We had a great time visiting Alcatraz Island and walking the Golden Gate Bridge today!

Here's some final notes from the students:

This trip has been a better end of my year than I could ever have wished for. Thank you all! –Katrine, Denmark

In love, in love with the trip, in love with my new family, in love with the new adventures! Nathan, Brazil

This year has been all about adapting to the new culture and learning how to embrace the new ones. However, I feel that this trip brought us together more than any other and made bonds nothing can destroy. For me, relationships created in the light of recent events will mean everything in the future life. - Mario, Croatia

I think this trip kind of show what we live the whole year. How magic is each new experience and how important it is to have your friends with you. –Lorena, Brazil

Best trip ever !!! I wish it could last forever :0 I leave with full memories and one of the best crew in the world! - Arnaud, Belgium

It has been a great; visiting new places with awesome people! It was not only so much fun and interesting but this has been a great life experience! Renata – Italy

West Coast 2014 will stay with us no matter what, spend a 2 weeks with this amazing people was great, thanks Belo and all the staff (Rosalia, Sarah, bus driver Joe and Maryse) to make it possible. ~Danilo

Thanks to all our wonderful students on our West Coast Trip 2014.  Hope you all had a great time and we will miss you.

~The Belo USA Staff :)

Cable Cars, City Tour and Chinatown

We started the morning with a good breakfast and then we headed to San Francisco.  We first we went to the cable car area so we could ride a cable car across the city.  While waiting in line we met this really cool old lady who chatted about San Francisco and her past acting career. 

While riding the cable car everyone waved at us.  It was like we were famous; everyone was taking pictures of us!  We also got to ride on the outside of the cable car by holding onto the handles.  It was really fun going up and down the steep hills.

After that we had free time at Union Square.  We had lunch and went Starbucks.  We also went to this really big mall right next to Union Square for shopping. 

After our free time we met our tour guide, Anita.  She was so energetic and she had some cool stories about the city that she shared with us.  First we went to the city hill building.  There was a big screen in front of the capital so everyone could watch the USA vs. Portugal World Cup game. 

Then we went to see murals (including an awesome Diego Riverra mural) in the Mission District and drove by the Height – Asburry hippie district.  We then drove up to Twin Peaks to take pictures of the cityscape.  It was so windy up there!

After that we stopped at a park to see the beautiful Victorian houses and then went to see Lombard street, the most crooked street in America. It was so pretty.  Our last stop was Chinatown where we ate some delicious Chinese food.  There was so much food; they kept on bring more plates of food!  Steven also taught us how to use chopsticks.

We are all looking forward to see Alcatraz tomorrow!

~Helena and Auriane

Headed to San Francisco!

Our morning started with a quite late wake up because we were heading to San Francisco at 9:30 a.m. After a 3 hour drive, we finally reached our destination: the beautiful downtown area of San Francisco. Our first stop was the De Young Museum, which contained famous sculptures, paintings and photographs from all over the world, such as Picasso, Scully and Modigliani.  We had a great view over the city of San Francisco at the top level of the Museum’s tower.

Once we got back on our bus, we made a quick stop at the Ghirardelli plaza to buy some chocolate for our friends and families.  Some of us went down to the beach and touched the water of the San Francisco Bay.  Before getting dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant, we stopped at the fantastic Pier 39, which is known for great souvenir shopping, sea lions, and food. Most of us bought some sweaters because of the chilly (lol Floridians) weather. 

Probably the tmost exciting thing that happened at Pier 39 was that we met other rotary exchange students from Texas, Montana, New Mexico and Missouri. They were on their West Coast Trip and just arrived a day before us. For some of us it was a reunion with friends that they have met before their exchange, and for others a chance to meet new people. We said bye to our new or older friends and headed to our dinner place which was at the end of the pier. The food was great and the waiters were funny.  

After dinner we decided to go back to the hotel in which we will room with our favorite exchange friends J  We guess we are right in saying that nobody wants to come to the end of the trip but we can not wait for tomorrow”s adventures and experiences J GOOOO BELOOOOO

~Sophie Prokop & Romane Richez

Yosemite!!!

Today, 20^th of june 2014 we got to see the wonderful Yosemite national park. We went on a beautiful hike up to see Vernal Falls.  The trees and the waterfall were really impressive.  It's amazing how huge this park is; it seems to go on forever.

We took tons of pictures when we got to the bridge where you could view all of Vernal Falls

After lunch we were going to go either rafting or riding a bike around the park. Our group decided to go rafting.  When Emma, Helena, Moni and I were on the raft we started out a little messy in the way we paddled the raft, though eventually we got better at the rafting.  

Overall we had a blast with the rafting!

For dinner we headed to the food court.  Then it was finally time to leave Yosemite.  I know that we are all sad to leave this beautiful National Park.  I hope to be able to come back again someday!

~Antoine

Last Day in L.A.

Today was our last day in L.A.  We started the day off by visiting Griffith Observatory.  We drove all the way up a big hill to this public park to get the best view of the Hollywood sign.  There was a great view of the city skyline.  We took tons of pictures together in front of the Hollywood Sign. 

After leaving Griffith Observatory, we headed to BEVERLY HILLS!!!  The area was so beautiful and we passed lots of pretty houses on the way.  When we stopped we took a big group photo in front of the Beverly Hills Sign.  We also all sung the “Beverly Hills” song by Weezer together.  Then we walked along Rodeo Drive for lunch and to check out the fancy stores.  We saw stores like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Rolex.  We also saw an amazing Bugatti parked outside one of the fancy stores. 

We thought Beverly Hills was really cool and classy.  Our friends said they might have seen Kanye West walking around.  It was cool trying to spot celebrities.  It was fun to walk the same streets that the celebrities do.

After we finished our time at Beverly Hills, we headed back on the bus to go to Merced, which is near Yosemite.  The drive was about 5 hours but we had a couple pit stops and we watched Catching Fire and Frozen on the bus.  For dinner we went to a pizza place.  It was really good.

Then we headed to the the hotel for some time at the pool.

We are really excited to head to Yosemite tomorrow!!!  

~ Pauliina, Katrine, Eva Marie

Six Flags!

Halli Hallo everyone!

Congratulations, you have to put up with the blog of two GERMANS!!!

Today we spent a whole day at "Six Flags-Magic Mountain", an amusement Park just outside of L.A.

The amusement park itself contained more than 35 roller coasters, Games and Shows, ranging from children's auto-scooters to 7000 ft. drops and rides as fast as 100 mph!!

The most exciting ones were the "X2", a ride that spins around the riders while doing loops and turns, the "Riddler's revenge", a standing up ride, "Goliath", with a 260 ft. drop and "Superman", going 100 mph up backwards before dropping again.

All of us were wearing the Trip T-shirt so we took a group picture in front of the fountain  before heading out in our own small groups, getting splashed by water-rides and thrown around in roller coasters.

We got back together for dinner and then stayed in the park until nine o'clock, at which time we were all exhausted and ready to return to the hotel after an awesome day.

~Katharina and Simon

Hollywood and the Beach!

First we drove through L.A. to get to Hollywood.  We visited Madame Tuasauds and saw all the wax figures of celebrities and musicians.  My favorites were Leonardo Di Caprio, Spiderman, ET, and Obama.  The wax museum was really weird because the figures looked so life-like.  It was to fun take pictures with all the figures.  We also saw the famous Chinese theater and drove by the HOLLYWOOD sign!

After the wax museum we had some free time to see the Walk of Fame.  I saw stars for Winnie the Pooh, Tom Hanke, Tom Cruise Charlie Sheen, Disney and many others.

Then we all boarded the bus to go to Huntington Beach.  The beach was really cool, there were a lot a people there.  There was also a cool shopping area.  There were a lot of surf shops (Huntington Beach is known as Surf city USA).  We took a walk on the pier and even saw some surfer dudes.

We went into the water but it was pretty cold!  We also laid out on the beach and played soccer with everyone.

For dinner we went to Buca Di Beppo, which was an Italian American restaurant.  We had salad, pasta, chicken and brownies for dessert.  It was delicious!

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~Evamarie and Katrine