July 6 San Francisco

Our last day of our Belo West Coast :( 

We woke up very early to make our way to our Alcatraz tour! We got there early and had to wait for our ferry. When we finally got to the island a lot of us were so excited to see something so famous in US and even world history! We watched a short video about the islands history then walked up to the cell house for an audio tour. We were in groups of 7 and walked around through the prison together. The tour was narrated by past inmates and guards! It was like stepping back in time! 

For lunch we had free time at pier 39. Then we were off to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge! We arrived and it was so windy and chilly! We were happy we knew it would be cold and we had our jackets. The bridge is about 1.5 miles long and we enjoyed our walk across, stopping to take pictures every 5 minutes to make sure we don't miss a good shot. The view of the city was breath taking! 

We headed back to the hotel for our last dinner together. We also had a short orientation about our departure day. Some of our flights were canceled because of the plane crash at SFO but the Belo staff helped us right away. Our dinner was delicious and we had fun listening to the winners of the superlatives! Four of us even wrote a song for the trip- a version of "we are the world, we are the children" it was so great! After dinner and speeches it was time to party. We had a DJ the played everything we wanted, even some of our favorites from our home countries! Sadly the night did have to end and we all had to pack for departure day. 

This trip was so amazing! We would like to thank Rotary, our friends and family, and Belo for a great year in the United States and our West Coast trip! 

July 5 San Francisco

We woke up at our hotel in Oakland and had a delicious breakfast to give us energy for our long day out in the city. San Francisco is so full of life and culture we knew our day would be a good one. Our first activity was a cable car ride! It was so cool! Our group split up into two cable cars so we could all enjoy a good seat. The cable cars are the last of their kind in the world! It was so fun to go up and down the hills of San Francisco. Once we made it to our stop at Union square we had free time to have lunch and check out all that downtown San Francisco has to offer! 

After lunch we met our tour guides that would tell us all about the history and culture of the beautiful city. We went to walk down Lombard street, the most crooked street! There were so many beautiful flowers lining the street as it curved back and forth! We also saw so many neighborhoods! We stopped at the city capitol to see the beautiful buildings. There is a panoramic view of the city from a small mountain like area called Twin Peaks. You have to get there at a good time otherwise the fog rolls in and you can't see a thing! Lucky for us we could still see the city streets, buildings, homes and parks! It was an awesome view! Our last stop was China town. It's the biggest in the US! We had Chinese for dinner, so much food! We all got fortune cookies with our dessert and so many of them surly brought us good fortune :) 

Our day was a long one, but we want to see as much of San Francisco as possible! It's city is amazing! 

July 4 Yosemite to San Francisco

Happy 4th of July! 

Today we got up early to make our last big drive to a new city. We watched movies and enjoyed the beautiful landscape of California as we made our way to San Francisco. We stopped for lunch before getting into the city. 

We crossed over the Bay bridge to arrive in San Francisco! What a beautiful sky line! We could also see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance. Our first stop in SF was at the de young museum. It is an art museum. There was so much to see and some pieces were very interesting. They had different fabrics on display, photos, paintings and pottery too! The museum even had a special look out 9 stories high that had a great view of the city. 

After time enjoying some art we went down to Pier 39. Usually this spot is busy with tourists but today it was especially busy because it was July 4! There were sooo many people! We had some free time to check out all the shops and stores before we headed to dinner. We had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. It was delicious! After dinner we had some more time to enjoy the busy streets and side walks at Fisherman's Wharf. 

Then we finally headed to our destination to watch the fire works! We made it just in time to Treasure Island. It was an amazing view of the fireworks off in the distance! The Bay bridge to our left, the city in front and the fire works to the right! It was a great show. The only bad thing about this great night was that everyone had the same idea to watch the fire works from the island. But it was okay, we watched a Forrest Gump on the bus so we weren't bored :) 

Our first day in San Francisco was a beautiful day! 

July 3 Yosemite National Park

Today we got up bright and early to drive to Yosemite National Park! Some of us went right back to sleep on the bus as soon as we left the hotel! When we arrived to the park we noticed how different it was from that Grand Canyon! Here there were so many big beautiful trees and it was all green! We couldn't believe how beautiful the park was! The big cliffs were so steep! Can you believe people climb up the sides of these mountains with no harness or ropes?! Don't worry, we only went on a hike. 

We first listened to a park ranger talk about the park and bears that live in the park. It was very interesting! After that we took a shuttle to hike up Mist Trail to see Vernal Falls. It was very steep sometimes and a work out for sure! It was so worth the sweating! When we got to see the falls the water was misting and it felt so good after our hike! 

After our hike we went to grab some much need lunch. We had pizza, salads, and other yummy foods. Some of us even splurged on ice cream! We then walked over to start our mini adventure of rafting! We got a quick orientation and then headed off to the river! It was shallow and there were not many rapids at all! It was so much fun! We all paddled together and loved seeing the beautiful view of the park! Some of us brought our water proof cameras so we got fun pictures! 

Later we took the shuttle back to the main lodge to eat dinner! It was Sandy's birthday so we all sang happy birthday to her in the middle of the cafeteria! After a delicious dinner we left for the hotel. We watched Moneyball. It was a very good long day! It is so nice to explore the beautiful nature here in the United Sates! 

July 2 Los Angeles to Yosemite

Today was a travel day for our group, and our last day in LA, which made most of us pretty sad! 
After checking out of the hotel, we drove up to Griffith Observatory, which looks out all over Beverly Hills, LA and Hollywood! 

From there we could see the Hollywood sign pretty close and get some awesome pictures. Right after that, we drove down to the famous Rodeo Drive, the chic shopping district of Beverly Hills. We took a great group picture in front of the Beverly Hill sign there, and then had lunch and explored our favorite shops, such as Gucci and Louis Vitton-- very affordable stores, you know! :)

After Rodeo Drive, we hit the highway for 5 hours, arriving in Merced, California, at around 7 pm for dinner at a pizza joint. During the drive we watching some cool movies like the Blindside and Inception.  And of course we enjoyed the beautiful view of the California countryside!! 

After dinner, we checked into the hotel (which is not too far from Yosemite), and had some free time by the pool.  We're excited to go hiking and rafting at Yosemite National Park tomorrow! 

Lots of love to our family and friends back home!

July 1 Hollywood & Huntington Beach

Los Angeles

Most of us woke up today thinking, "Welcome to Hollywood, baby!" 
We got to sleep in before heading off to the famous Hollywood Blvd! We started by visiting Madame Tussaud's wax museum, where we were able to meet some of our favorite people in wax form, such as: Justin Beiber, President Obama and Britney Spears! The visit made for some awesome pictures that look like we met the REAL celebrities. Some us tricked our friends back home that we actually met them in real life! 

After that, we had time to explore Hollywood itself, which included glimpses of the Hollywood sign and visiting our famorite actors' stars in the sidewalk, the Hollywood walk of fame. It was fun to look for celebrity  names that we knew! Some of our favorite stars were Sean Penn and Michael Jackson, the king himself! Thriller, anybody?

After our time in Hollywood we drove to Huntington Beach, which was about an hour away. Driving there made us realize just how big Los Angeles is: the 8th largest city in the world! The traffic is crazy, no matter where you go. The beach was nice, although the sun didn't come out until we had been there a few hours. It was so awesome to see the Pacific coast! It was the first time for most of us. It was so nice to play in the waves. some of us come from places where there are no big beaches! It was so peaceful to walk down the pier and look at the beach! 

We all ate, played in the waves, played football, frisbee and the REAL football: soccer. :) Many of the Brazilians and Spanish students were also glued to the TVs in nearby restaurants to see the Brazil-Spain futbol game for the final of the Confederations Cup (Brazil won)! Great game!

After our beach afternoon, we headed to a true Italian dinner at Buca di Beppo, which was not too far from our place on the beach. We ate as much pasta, chicken parmigian and salad as we could possibly handle- yum! The cheesecake for dessert was also pretty delicious.

We ended the night at the hotel with a few hours of free time, which for most of us entailed finally doing laundry and hanging out by the pool and hot tub. Overall, it was a relaxing and fun day--even some of the Scandinavians got a nice tan! ha! 

Filip- Croatia

Piotrek-Poland

June 30 Disneyland!

Disneyland!!! Today we went to the happiest place on earth! We left early in the morning so we could spend a whole 12 hours in the two Disney parks! (Disneyland and California Adventure) There was so much to do! Thank goodness it was a week day, so the park was not that busy! Most of us went on sooo many rides! Some favorites include: California Screamin, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, the new Cars ride, The Pirates of the Caribbean, and Hollywood Tower of Terror...just to name a few! 

At the park there are the Disney characters going around taking pictures with people and doing songs and dances for everyone! We got to see so many characters! It made me the happiest person ever! I was so excited to get so many character's autographs! Around dinner time we all met up in front of the castle to take our group picture! It will be so nice to have the group pictures later so we can remember all our friends from our Belo West Coast trip. 

We then went off to eat and go on more rides! After cramming in as many rides as possible we watched the fire works at night! The show was so great! The fireworks take place above/behind the castle so you are always looking at the castle lit up in color and light! Some of us went to watch the Wonderful World of color, a water and light show in California Adventure. It was so amazing!!! 

Coming to Disneyland really did make us feel a little like kids again and it was so fun to enjoy all the rides with our RYE friends! We can't believe how fast the trip is going! Tomorrow we leave for our hotel near Yosemite National Park! From man made wonder to natural wonder! Love to all our family and friends reading this! 

Raluca- Romania

Kania- Indonesia

June 29 Las Vegas to Los Angeles

Today was a travel day. We left early in the morning. We went straight to LA to Universal Studios. It was an awesome day full of rides, screams and pictures! We arrived at the theme park and all went together on the Studio Tour! 

It was so fun to see different things that the movie studio produce. Such as: a flood, fake rain, fake shark, foam sets, 3D effects, earth quakes and many other things. We rode on the new Transformers ride, Jurassic Park, The Mummy, The Simpsons and other rides! It was a great day! 

We had dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe. We loved looking at the different rock memorabilia. The food was yummy! After a long day we were happy to go to the hotel and rest! 

Panu- Finland

Lize- Belgium 

MORE PICTURES WILL BE POSTED SOON

June 28 Las Vegas

We started our day in Las Vegas by sweating. It was very hot, 114f 43c! It was so awesome to see Vegas during the day. The hotels and casinos were sooo big! It seemed like they were close together but they were actually so far away from each other! We had to walk a lot. Some of us went to New York and rode the roller coaster! We also went to the Venetian. There were people riding on gandolas, but it was too expensive for us! Some of us also went to the Eifel tower, Caesar's Palace and other famous hotel/casinos. There was so much to see! 

It was so hot so we went back to the hotel to relax in the AC and swim in the pool. It was nice to feel fresh and not so hot. We already had to pack because we would have to leave early the next morning! Then we headed off to the Stratosphere. We got tickets to ride the three rides they have on top of the building! almost all of us rode all the rides! The rides are on the top of the building, over 100 floors high! I was so much fun! We really had fun and took a lot of good pictures! Then we went down to have dinner at the buffet! There was so much international food we just had to eat a little bit of everything! We were so full when we left :) 

Then we went back to the Bellagio! We watched the water show again. It is just so amazing. People really love to be out in Vegas. Then most of us went to the Cirque du Soleil "O" at the Bellagio. AMAZING. The show was so good! There was so much going on in the stage and we didn't want to miss anything! The stage was one of the coolest things ever! It was a large pool and would also become a whole flat stage in an instant! It was such an awesome show! It is not a normal show, Cirque  always does things extra special! We had two party busses to take us back to the hotel! It was so fun to have one more opportunity to dance with each other in Vegas! 

Las Vegas was awesome! We had such an amazing time there! 

Lucas- Brazil

Juliane- Brazil 

June 27 Grand Canyon to Las Vegas

So we started the day by leaving our hotel near the Grand Canyon. We made one stop at Seligman on the famous Route 66. It was a fun little town with one main road. Think of the movie "Cars", the movie was inspired by this type of town. We saw cars that even looked like the characters from the movie. There was a gift shop that had a lot of mannequins dressed up and we all posed with them for pictures! The town had old funky unique shops, it felt like we went back in time! 

On the way to Las Vegas we watched a movie called "What happens in Vegas" After watching the movie it made us more excited to arrive to Vegas! We stopped for lunch at a mall so we all had options! Some people bought some clothes so they could dress up for our limo ride that night. Then we made our way to the hotel. IT WAS SO HOT so many of us went directly to the pool. 

We all showered and got dressed up for our night out in Vegas! We all looked so good when we boarded the bus. It was so hot when we walked out side, the girls makeup just dripped off their faces. We went to eat dinner at a big Vegas style buffet. The food was really good! There were many options, we just had to try them all! After dinner we got picked up by our Hummer limos to go visit three different sights! 

Our first stop was Fremont street. It was so awesome! When we walked in there was a band playing popular songs we all knew! We all went crazy and ran up to the front of the stage to give the band the best crowd experience of their life! We danced to their music and then watched a Queen song and light show on the Fremont ceiling. 

The next stop was the Bellagio!  We went to see their light and water show. The water was sprayed up and choreographed to different songs. It was so beautiful! The Bellagio is famous for that show. We really loved our limo rides. We had loud music playing in each limo and we partied with lots of water and ice! We felt like celebrities and took so many pictures! 

The last stop of the night was at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign! We got our group picture taken there! There were a lot of other tourists there! We were all so tired after hiking the Grand Canyon the day before and then being out all night in Vegas. We crashed when we got back to our rooms after an awesome night! Our night was so unique and we loved it so much! 

Mette- Denmark

Daja- Germany

June 26 Grand Canyon

TODAY WE WENT TO THE GRAND CANYON! It is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. 

On the way into the park we saw a couple massive elk!  Our first impression was amazing! We felt so small as we looked across the canyon. It was a rush to see something so beautiful! We grabbed some snacks and refilled our water bottles then headed over to Bright Angel Trail! We went down in a few groups because there are 70 of us and we didn't want to clog the trail! 

We saw a few groups of mules coming up the trail as we headed. People can rent them to take down the trail to the very bottom of the canyon. We noticed hikers coming up the trail didn't have big smiles on their faces like we did going down! After we made it down our 1.5 mile hike we started back up and realized real fast while people hiking up were not smiling so much! 

The hike was a great experience! We all enjoyed it and appreciate the canyon more especially since we worked to see the view! It was such a thrill to take pictures of such a beautiful place. The pictures are great but they can't compare to seeing such a beautiful place with your own eyes! The size of the canyon humbled us. There is no other place like it! 

We then had some free time for lunch and the opportunity to go to different look out points. There happened to be other Rotary exchange students on a separate trip that were visiting the GC as well! We met some students from our home towns! It really made us think the world really is small! 

Today is Kania's (Indonesia)18th birthday and we celebrated with her at dinner by singing happy birthday and she got some ice cream! We all sang in our own languages, which sounded like a beautiful mess! 

We then returned to the hotel, showed and hit up the hot tub. We are so excited to travel to alas Vegas tomorrow!!! 

Mateus- Brasil

Giulia- Italy

Kelly- Germany

Manasi- India

June 25 Phoenix AZ to Grand Canyon

We started our day with an amazing breakfast! We had eggs, bacon, cinnamon buns, French toast, omelette, and pretty much every other breakfast food you can think of!  It was great! We then checked out of our hotel and started the first day of our trip! 

We took a short city tour and stopped at the capital!  We also saw a really big cactus. After we explored that building we drove to the "Hole in the Rock."  It was exactly as it is called, a hole in a rock! We made a short hike up to see a unique view of Phoenix! We got our first group picture together too! 

That short trip made us hungry and we made our way to a mall for lunch! We got food and did some shopping! Many girls made their way to Forever21 and H&M (two of the most popular shops for the ladies) After the mall, we made our way to Sedona AZ. 

On the way we watched movies, and listened to music and got to make some new friends! Of course, as Rotary exchange students we exchanged pins and cards! We made a stop at Bell Rock, a beautiful view of some of the unique landscapes of Sedona area!  After that we headed to Sedona to check out the shops. They had a lot of quirky shops with lots of hats, gifts, pins, magnets etc. Some of us enjoyed a big scoop of ice cream to cool off!

Then we made our way to our hotel! It's a fun, simple, comfy, ranch style hotel. There is so much to do here! We played volley ball, tennis, soccer and swam. The rest of us relaxed and took in all the scenery! We had dinner together and it was delicious! We talked about our day tomorrow: hiking down then up the Grand Canyon!!! 

Eloiza- Brazil

Marie- Germany

June 24 Arrival Day

Day 1 

Today we all flew in to Phoenix! Some of us accidentally met at the airport and ended up traveling together! Many of us were very tired from staying up and packing the night before and passed out and slept on our flights. We are all so excited, especially me (Niko) because I have always dreamed of coming to the West coast! 

We arrived to the hotel and we changed out of our travel clothes into bathing suits and shorts! It is sooo hot here! (40c!!!) We hung out at the pool and got to meet many new students (there are 70 of us!)! It was also great to see some old friends too! It was so nice to be greeted by the Belo staff and everything was well organized for us to get checked in! 

Finally we had our dinner at 7.  We all sat around at big dinner tables and enjoyed chatting about our time in the United States. The presentation was nice and it made us realize why we are here! Now we are ready to start our West Coast journey tomorrow! Everyone is so nice and we can't wait to become great friends and make lifetime memories!  

Simone- Switzerland 

Niko- Belgium

Theresa-Germany

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!!!

BELO USA TRAVEL