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