Last Day of Our Trip

Unfortunately, today is the last day of our trip. We started again with an amazing breakfast at the hotel. We had to get up pretty early today, because we left for Alcatraz. Once we arrived, we got separated in groups of seven and left for Alcatraz on a boat.  On the island, we got showed around with an audio tour. It was really scary but cool seeing all the cells, especially the isolation cells.

 When we got off the island, we walked back to Pier 39 to eat lunch, which was delicious.
In the afternoon, we got to see the world famous Golden Gate Bridge, which is one of the places many people have on their bucket lists. It is pretty amazing that we got to see it at this very young age.  Well, we didn’t only get to see it; we walked over it, too. It was an amazing view over the San Francisco Bay from the middle of the bridge.  

Tonight, we’re having dinner at the hotel and a good-bye party. It’s always sad leaving friends, considering that two weeks ago we didn’t even know each other, and now we are best friends… isn’t that crazy??
Well, we all had a ton of fun on this trip, made a lot of new friends, and got to see the best places of the American West-Coast. To all future exchange students out there: If you have the opportunity to go on this 
trip, DO IT!

Max and Earl

Left Our Hearts in San Francisco

Monday June 16

Today San Francisco stole our hearts. We started our day with the cool morning breeze at the cable cars. It took a lot of cable cars to get the entire Belo group to The Union Station, but we all had a great time. The ride really showed us how unique the city is. You are constantly going up and down the huge hills. We all thought it was a great way to see the city instead of just walking around.

In the early afternoon, we spent time shopping in the big fashionable stores - some of us left with our wallets much emptier than we started. We were amazed by the city's open minded heart, everyone had their personal style, the gay parade was very present with the flags outlining the streets, and in general there was room for everyone. 

We had the opportunity to have a personal tour guide in each of the busses. We made a couple of stops, and everyone's favorite seemed to be the amazing panorama view from the the top of the hill outside the city - you could see everything!

When the tour was over, we headed to Chinatown, which was lit up by lanterns as far as the eye could reach. We spent time observing the culture, that was clearly different than the rest of the city. We finally went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where they served us food enough for days. We always feel a little bad for the people who are around our big group - we are not exactly quiet...

We are now at the hotel, realizing that this amazing trip has almost come to an end. It's incredible how close you can get to people in less than two weeks. We all feel so lucky to have met each other, and we know that some of these friendships will last for years to come. Wherever we will go in the world, we will have a friend waiting there for us.

Michelle Sand Mogensen (Denmark) & Delphine Rivier (Switzerland)

San Francisco!

Sunday 15/6/14 San Fran

We have an amazing day. We saw everything, we went from Yosemite to San Francisco and coming in to SF was beautiful we could see Alcatraz from far away, it was an amazing view but only for a short time because we came down town.

Down town we went to the de young, a museum of modern arts, it was very funny with the "right" perspective of things, the perspective that most young people might have so it will be fun for you as well

Loke

Sunday 15 San Francisco 

Today was fantastic after have seen the young museum and have coffee in the garden we took the bus and we went to pier 39 a little mall/port full of shops restaurants and a lot of chocolate shops! In pier 39 we have the chance to see sea lions and eat at the famous bubba gump the restaurant take the inspiration from the famous movie forest gump, where shrimp are made in hundred ways! After a fabulous dinner we went to the hotel and we have the last fun moments berfore go to bed, waiting for a new and exiting adventure the day after!

Carmen

Yosemite!

Today we left for a new amazing adventure, YOSEMITE. After spending some time in the bus with crazy music and crazy friends, we arrived at the Yosemite national park. First, we hiked up to the top of the Vernal Falls.

 It was pretty hard, but worth it. Not only because of the great company of our new friends, but also because we experienced a unique trip in the first national park in the United States. The beauty of the nature and the spectacular waterfall were breathless and stunning. After a quick lunch in the shade, we had a wonderful time discovering the park from the river. We rafted in boats of four people through the valley and everyone got wet at some point, either intentionally or by accident.  The water was freezing. In the beginning we were paddling really hard racing other boats like a competition, but later we just laid back and relaxed while the water was carrying us!

 After a few hours, we did it and we got dinner all together in the park. The way back to the hotel was hilarious. Probably because everybody is overtired and we easily get crazy and happy. At this point of the trip in the west coast we made really strong friendships and we are like a big family. Now we are looking forward for the last couple of days in San Francisco. It's gonna be amazing even if nobody wants to leave the coast and the new international friends. 

Veronica (Italy), Jana (Germany) and Laurent (Germany) ! 

On the Road!

After a long and exciting day at Disneyland, we had a shorter night, because we went to our next adventure so we checked out at the hotel after breakfast and drove to the famous Hollywood sign to take some pictures. The biggest disappointment was probably the Hollywood sign. We all imagine a HUGE sign but this was not the case. 

After the Hollywood sign we went to Beverly Hills where all the celebrities live. We took our group picture in front of the little and beautiful lake with the sign in the background. In the hills we had a break where we could get some food and enjoy the area. A big difference between the Walk of Fame and Beverly is that Beverly Hills is so much cleaner. You can see all the fancy and expensive stores. In some of those stores they just looked at your credit card and then decided if you can shop in this store or not. It was a little disappointing that we didn't see someone famous. Some people saw Kanye West in his car though! 

After a long and nice lunch, we left Los Angeles, and took the bus to our next hotel. During the ride Belo took good care about our entertainment. We watched two movies and the time went by pretty fast. Now we are all at the hotel and relaxing in the pool, and looking forward for tomorrow. 

Annemarie and Jessica from Germany

Disneyland!!!

After a longer sleep and a delicious breakfast a hundred happy and excited white t-shirts left the hotel to spent an amazing day at Disneyland!

Everybody had a great time, screaming on roller coasters, enjoying the good weather, meeting cartoons like Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc.  and just having fun with new from friends from all over the world.

Our favorite ride was  definitely " Indiana Jones", where they brought us in  an excited and scary adventure!  For lunch we got the chance to eat a delicious burger while we were watching a show about  a Jedi training.

 But the best part was the end when we watched awesome fireworks appearing behind the Disney castle. The music, lights and the fireworks were so amazing! Everybody was amused and the hardest part was to leave the world of magic and happiness! What good day!

Magdalena (Austria) and Francesco (Italy)

Hollywood Stars!

Today was definitely a special day for everyone... because we were superstars at HOLLYWOOD!!! This whole morning we walked on red carpet and took many snapshots with our chased-after celebrities at Madame Tussauds.
Don't forget that we met the real Joan Rivers yesterday at Universal Studios and got to be a part of her filming while we took the studio tour! We saw the statue of her today.

 

Also, we saw The Chinese Theatre on the "Walk of Fame" and there was a graduation ceremony taking place in front of the theatre as well. How cool was that! 

After the moment of fame in Hollywood, let's go to the beach, let's go get a wave! We headed out to Huntington Beach; the city of surfing. And before we began our time under the sea and sand, my friends and I fed our hunger at the awesome seafood restaurant with a great sea view; Duke's. You can't believe how much we fell in love with their deliciously marvelous food!!!  

And finally, it's time for the beach!  FYI, this is the FIRST time for quite a bit of Thai girls to wear bikini, including me! And this was also the first time for a lot of students to swim in the Pacific ocean. There were a lot of first times!! It was really hard for a lot of us to get into the water first, because it was pretty cold and very windy. But as we went in, it was a lot of fun jumping up and down with the big waves. And of course, we did shopping! Along the Huntington Beach area there were a lot of shops. So some of us who did not want to hang out in the beach area went spending some more money! Thanks parents ;) 

*for some people who doesn't know, FYI = For Your Information

 

After this exciting day at the beach and Hollywood we went to the famous Italian "Buca di Beppo" restaurant. It is a very neat restaurant with a lot of pictures as a decoration, which brings the Italian vibe to it. And of course it was delicious! We had two sorts of salads, two sorts of spaghetti dishes, a chicken dish, a lot of different soft drinks, a brownie cake for dessert and of course a lot of bread which was eaten in about 5 minutes ;)

When we got back to the hotel at around some of us were not to tired, so they went to the pool for having some more fun! 

Today was such an awesome day. And behold, we are going to awesome Disneyland tomorrow!

(Cute) Writers & pictures

Ming - Thailand

Laura - Switzerland