June 13, 2009 Universal Studios

Post By: Nora Farkas
Today was the day everybody was waiting for. After a long bus ride, what actually was full of fun and we watched a bunch of movies, we arrived to Los Angeles and we went straight to Universal Studios. It was AMAZING! Really… I’m speechless… I don’t think I could describe how all we felt after this day. You have to be there to feel this. We could try lots of different rides like Jurassic Park, Simpsons, Mummy explore movie effects and try some effect as a volunteer (some students were sound effect volunteers) We ate at Bubba Gump, where we could eat a bunch of food again! We eat a lot of food as exchange students. We really enjoyed the place because we could be loud and they would just ask us to be louder! The food was great and the decorations were cool. One lucky student had an 18th birthday so she heard the birthday song in like 6 different languages sung by 200 students! What an exciting and fun day! Then, as if we have not spent enough time and money shopping, we went out into the outside mall next to Universal Studios and shopped some more!
Mickey is waiting for us tomorrow and we are sooo excited to see him and have our dreams come true at Disney! :)

June 12, 2009 Yosemite

Post By: Michael Bro

Today was the most beautiful day of the trip so far! Hiking, riding bikes and rafting were some of the days activities and my favorite was the rafting! I thought it was hilarious when we were rafting and went in circles all the time because some of the students were paddling more and more and getting no where. We hiked to the Vernal waterfall and had some of the most beautiful views of the park! Everyone took sooo many pictures. After lunch at the park most people went rafting and some others went biking. It was a beautiful day to spend so much time enjoying the calming nature. For dinner we ate at a local pizza place in Mariposa. There was so much food and we had boxes of left overs! Who knew there would be so much left overs with so many people eating?!

PS...We are all so excited for Universal Studios tomorrow!

The trip is only getting better!

...and better...and better

June 11, 2009 Yosemite

Post By: Vat Tanprasertsupa

Today was another fun day that I would never forget!We woke up early to head to Yosemite National Park. We said goodbye to San Francisco and headed to Yosemite National Park. It takes around 5 hours to get there. The view along the way was amazing it is very beautiful... I looked out at the road and I was wondering: how in the world can the driver be driving our big bus along these narrow roads, but our drivers are good at their job. When we arrived at the park we ate lunch and listened to a park ranger talk about black bears and other things about the park! She even had a bear skin and skull! It was crazy. After spending time looking around Yosemite we had a BBQ cookout for dinner. It was pretty good! Well, tomorrow is our big day at the park so that is all for tonight! :)

June 10, 2009 San Francisco

Post By: Eda Sarman and Dani Theissing

Our wonderful day started at the Golden Gate Bridge. We first took a group picture and walked across the bridge which was a really looong walk but the view was impressive. After that we went back to Pier 39 and got to try some local foods! Then we walked to the harbor where the Alcatraz ship departed. On the cold and windy ship ride we were able to take some great pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. Alcatraz was awesome and a kind of scary! We all went on the audio tour and the escape stories were captivating. We drove through the beautiful Golden Gate Park and saw it's mass of beauty. On our way to Outback Steakhouse we drove through the Golden Gate Park which was really beautiful. AND we saw the beach! Finally we got to eat dinner which was delicious. We hope all days are going to be so much fun.

June 9, 2009 San Francisco

WE

LOVE

SAN FRANCISCO

SO MUCH!!!

Post By: Gwen Laungwattanawanich and Dani Theissing

This was our whole first day of our awesome trip! We went on our way to Pier 39 and got to see the city and the amazing buildings of San Francisco. We were so excited and kept trying to take pictures through the windows of the bus. We got to Pier 39 and shopped, saw sea lions and bought lots of souvenirs. Then we went to ride the cable car! They were loud and awesome and very unique. We all thought it was cool. For lunch we stopped downtown at Union Square and ate and bought even more stuff! We then went on a city tour on our busses and we learned some interesting facts about San Fran. After lunch we saw the cable car museum to see how they worked. We walked the steep roads of San Francisco to Lombard Street and saw the flowers lining the crooked road. How impressive! From there it was finally dinner time and off to China town we went. We got to walk around and see all the shops and adorable Chinese stuff. Hooray for dinner: Chinese food with chop sticks and heaps of food. By the end of dinner we were exhausted and our feet hurt and it was time to go back to our home, the hotel. It was a good start for our trip and we all are enjoying the it! We had a lot of fun today!

June 8, 2009 Arrival/ San Francisco

Post By: Lisa Ullbrich, Mook Leethochawalit

A wonderful day lies behind us! After the arrival at the airport, we had a shuttle to an amazing hotel. Crown Plaza hotels are really nice, a lot of people use the opportunity to jump in the pool. A lot of other people arrived after that, but they still had time to meet each other in a park in front of our hotel, while playing volleyball, or soccer. At 7 pm we finally got dinner and started our whole West Coast Trip experience! The orientation was really entertaining and so we got to meet all the volunteers and helpers! Wow…already after the first day we had so much fun, and met friends for life!

Second Post By: Mariagiulia De Maria
Today was an amazing day. I personally think that is really beautiful, because it is so different from the typical American cities and it reminds me of Europe. The first place we visited this morning was Pier 39. Everybody was free to walk around, do some shopping, and of course, taking pictures with the sea lions. From there we took a cable car, the typical San Francisco public transportation. The ride was fun and we were able to see the city closer and its real characteristics. The free time for lunch was spent in different ways: somebody went in the close mall, somebody found a restaurant or fast food on the street, somebody just went shopping, and some students found interesting getting on the external elevator of the main hotel in Union Square. From Union Square, where we met our guide, we got on the bus for a complete tour of San Francisco. While the bus driver was driving us around, the guide told us some history of San Francisco. We saw the city hall, we stopped for some pictures of a wonderful panoramic view, and we had a little tour in the Cable Car Museum. It was really fun. But the day wasn’t over yet, Chinatown was waiting for us! We got to spend some time shopping in the typical Chinese shops of Chinatown, and then we ate in a Chinese restaurant. We had so much food you can’t imagine. After this huge dinner we finally got back to the hotel, and personally I am really tired. Hopefully tomorrow will be even more fun than today.

WELCOME TO THE WEST COAST!!!

Here it is, the WEST COAST TRIP! Get ready to take in the best of the West: funky San Francisco, beautiful Yosemite, glamorous Los Angeles, fabulous Las Vegas, the amazing Grand Canyon, and historical Phoenix! 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 familes and friends can experience the trip along with us. It's going to be a wonderful time, so get ready...IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!