June 20th 2008 - "Do not cry for what is ending, but be happy because it happened!!!"

Hi everybody, I do not want to be long with this post, I just want to be thankful towards all of you, because you made my west coast trip one of the best moments of my life!!!! I will remember you all, from the closer friends to the others, the roomates, the Belo staff and the chaperones, the bus drivers and the photographer. This trip became my dream trip, and I hope it is the same for you!!! Have a good one guys...keep rocking around the world...

Take Care...

Best Regards....ciao ciao

Simone Pagano from Italy

P.S. I love you... Vi amo... Je t'aime... Ich Liebe Dich... Ik hou vanjou... Aishiteru... Jeg elsker dig... Rak na... Seni seviyorum... Mina rakastansinua... Adoro-te... Eu te amo

sorry for the missing languages!!!"

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HI Guys,

You are all awesome. We will never forget you. This was an unforgettable trip,we will always remember Thank you SO much

Kiss on your noses

Jessica, Sonja, Sylvie

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It's the end of it, the last day of the trip, SO many things to say but so little comes out of my mouth right now! This whole thing was amazing! We've made great friends and memories that will last forever! PRICELESS!

Thank you guys from Belo for making this possible. I know you've worked really hard for this and I want to ask you to keep doing it, you make us all really happy! and it's a chance that nobody can miss, we have learnt a lot during this two weeks and I'm sure it will give us some good and it will help us in our future!

I want to thank everyone for being part of this, all of you guys that came here with all that energy, the bus rides were amazing! the walks! the shopping! The singing! hiking! and all the exciting things we've shared!! I'll never forget this trip!! Thanks guys for being SO AWESOME!

I wish you all the best always! You really deserve it!

Hope life is great for all of you and we meet again sometime!

Love always,

Maribel Aiquel - Argentina

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Hello

Is it possible to become addicted to a group of high school students?

Maybe it's because I don't have teenagers of my own.

Whatever the reason, knowing that you all were in San Francisco and that I might be seeing you made me distracted and agitated. I found myself having ahard time going about my business and wanting to be with you.

The weather was so unusually beautiful I began to wonder if you all didn't have something to do with it.

I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to spend time with young, open, curious minds. It feeds me in so many ways. Thank you. I am also grateful that the folks from Belo offered such a magical, well structured and professionallyconducted program.

I will miss the students and hope you were all seduced by the magic of San Francisco enough that you will come back and visit.

With a warm hug,

Greg Rowe

France 1979

rowegregory@yahoo.com

PS Don't forget to each send me one photo so that I can have a collective photocollection!

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Hey guys,

I had the best two weeks of my entire stay with y'all! I love you guys so much and will never forget the moments that we've spent together! I will always cherish these memories!!

Jagruti Khabiya - India

June 19th 2008 - San Francisco... wow!

Last day baby! Thirteen days of fun, craziness and intense friendship are already gone... today we crossed the Golden Gate bridge, almost as a symbolic passage from the beginning of the trip to its inevitable end! An end full of tears and full of friendships broken by the necessity to go back to the origins!We ate lunch at the Golden Gate Park, surrounded by a beautiful naturalistic view! We had finally the occasion to take a break and enjoy deeply the trip.1,2,3 it's time to " grab our sailor's hat ", because we are taking a boat tour around Alcatraz!

After the empresonament, it's time to be free; in fact we went through a shopping spree for about 3 hours in the "Pier 39" dock.Meeting at 7:00 in front of the hard rock cafe', where we had the "last dinner" together and where we celebrated our beautiful chaperone Elisa's, Rube’s and Yoshi's birthday. Another “touchful” moment!

The best part came finally at the talent show that we organized. We started with the national anthems, chosen randomly by Raphael. Somebody was blushing because they didn't even remember their anthems, the Italians were even too loud, somebody was not very good at singing, but everybody was already having fun!!! A thousands of laughs later, it was time to get serious, even sad. It was time to say goodbye! Guys, it's time to leave !

Between the tears, we help each other to keep going and to be strong, because today is the last day, but we know this is not THE END but the beginning of great friendships that will go beyond the bound of space and time!

Thanks to every single body for every single moment you gave to contribute tothis trip

With love

your "most popular" Duilio from Italy!

June 18th 2008 - City Tour in San Francisco!

Today we left the hotel at 9.00 am to have a city tour of San Francisco.
Our first impression of the city is that there are many hills and steep roads. The weather was nice and we really feel in summer with all the flowers around us.
Once we picked up our guides we got into a typical cable car of San Francisco. It was a fun ride and some of us even high fived people from other cable cars when we passed them.
After the cable car ride we went to "Twin Peaks", the highest point of San Francisco to have a Panoramic view of the city.
Then we went to the "zig-zag road". It was beautiful, but not easy for car drivers to go down this way. We went to pier 39 to have lunch, and we had the opportunity to see wild sea lions.
Once our stomachs were full, we went to the cable car museum. It was interesting but we were happy to leave for Chinatown. There we went to a fortune cookie maker. It smelled nice...
We walked around in Chinatown. It was fun but the shop keepers weren't very polite. Chinatown is very different from the rest of the city. We had dinner at a chinese restaurant, it was good, but there was too much food. We, non-asians, had troubles with using the chop sticks (How do you eat rice with sticks?)
We are back at the hotel and we are having fun writing this to share our day with you. TADAAAAAAM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (<--- for Cajsa's mum)

Cajsa Nolskog - Sweden

Gilles Van Herck - Belgium.

Hey this is Finja and Asli writing.

Today we had a great time in San Francisco. After a delicious breakfast we met our tour guides, Joyce and Henrietta, in downtown San Francisco. They taught us a lot about the history of the cable cars. All of us were so excited to get on the cable car and have a great view over San Francisco. It was an amazing experience.

The city hall was our next stop. We were able to take pictures there. All of us had even a better view over the city at the highest hill of the city. We saw the golden gate bridge, Alcatraz island, the bay, the pacific ocean and colourful houses. It was great.

At lunchtime all of us were getting hungry so we headed back to the downtown of the city. Before we had free time for lunch at pier 39, we visited the “crickedest” street in the world -> Lombard street.

At pier 39 our tour guide had some tips for us to find good restaurants. The sourdough bread is very famous in San Francisco so a lot of us decided to eat clam chowder soup in a sourdough bowl. It tasted very good. Our tour guide also told us to watch out for the sea lions. They were really cute but they smelled pretty bad ;)

After some free time at the pier we went to the cable car museum. Chinatown was the next place we were heading to. We also had time to shop there which some of us used to go to Macys and see David Beckham. Some others shopped in Chinatown and had their hand full of bags at the end of the day.

For dinner we had Chinese food. All of us were really full after eating there =) The bus picked us up at 7.20 in Chinatown and brought us to the hotel where we had free time to go swim, play soccer or just sleep.

This trip has been so much fun and we made so many great friends. It is amazing. We are sure tomorrow will be the last great day of this trip.

Finja Draxler (Austria) and Asli Alkan (Turkey)

June 17th 2008 - "Frances, move that bus..."

Hey y'all !

This is Carolin. I am having such a good time on this trip!

It ist amazing to see so many cool and beautiful places! I can't even tell which of the cities was my favourite, they were all fabulous!

There hasen't been one day, that we didn't have lots of fun!

Today we drove from Yosemite to San Francisco, so I can't tell you a lot about San Francisco yet!

We had dinner at T.G.L. Fridays, I had a club sandwich, it was very good! Then we went shopping in the mall! Somehow most of the people bought underwear today, maybe they are running out!? :D

It is very sad that this trip is nearly over, I met so many nice people and made such good friends!

I think that everyone would agree with me, if I say that we had the time of our lives this year and this is the perfect ending for it!

Please stay in touch everybody!

Carolin Kirschner (Germany)

June 16th 2008 - Yosemite... speechless!!!

Hello everyone!

This is Doruk…

Today we went to Yosemite National Park. It took us 2 hours to get to the park and 1 hour inside the park to the Yosemite Lodge. Most of us had brunch at the restaurant in the park.

Sonja, Jessi, Sylvie and I took the Shuttle together. First we went to the Happy Isle and walked around. Then back to the shuttle we went to the Southern Down Falls.

So, we went to the most exciting part of our day: Rafting! It was a light rafting, but the cold water and the scenery made it really nice. After rafting we all swam in the water of the Merced river, it was cool!!!

Back in the shuttle, we met the group. The return took us longer because of a natural disaster that happened months ago on the road that we should have taken. We had chicken barbecue and was good and hit the spot.

Back to the hotel very fast, the temperature had dropped and we are heating up at the hot tub and getting ready for another day tomorrow.

I had fun!!! I just loved the nature; Yosemite is so cool and it is just an amazing place!

I also want to add that I love everybody on the trip. It is so nice to see people nice to each other. It has been a dream trip! Hope to keep in touch with all of you…

Doruk Erduran - Turkey

June 15th 2008 - Beverly Hills to Yosemite National Park

It was such a sad time to leave LA, the awesome city in this trip.Espeacially Disneyland, Universal studio, and other kind of those stuffs. It’s going to be fun at the Yosemite Park in this few days. There are going to be a lot of activities for us to do.

Visiting the Hollywood sign this morning was awesome, even though the sign was too far away and we had just a little bit of time. Also at Beverly Hills, we had such a great time there. Beverly Hill is a big shopping area. Also today is Father’s day. So they had a classic car show. After that we headed to Yosemite Park. It was a very long drive. It took about 6 hours. When we arrived we had a wonderful dinner at the pizza place. We ate, laughed, and talked. It was such as a great day.

น่าเศร้ามากเลยอะที่ต้องออกจาก LA เป็นเมืองที่สวยงามมาก โดยเฉพาะ ดิสนี่ย์แลนด์ ยูนิเวอร์ซอล สตูดิโอ และก็ตึกรางบ้านเรือน ดูเจริญงามตามดีเหมือนกัน วันนี้จะกำลังจะไปที่ Yosemite park ก็ดูจากใบรายการมีกิจกรรมให้ทำเยอะแยะเลย ทั้งขี่ม้า ขี่จักรยาน ทัวร์ที่อุทยาน แล้วก็ล่องแก่ง
ก่อนที่จะไป Yosemite park ก็ผ่านป้าย Hollywood ทุกคนก็ตื่นเต้นมาก ทุกคนก็ยืนถ่ายรูปกันเต็มถนนเลย แล้วก็ได้เดินเที่ยวย่าน Beverly Hills มีร้านขายของแบรนด์เนมเยอะมากๆ ของสสวยๆทั้งนั้นเลย แล้วก็มีโชว์รถโบราณตามท้องถนน สวยงามไปอีกแบบ แล้วหลังจากนั้นนั่งรถตรงไปที่ Yosemite Park ใช้เวลาตั้ง 6 ชั่วโมงแหน่ะ แต่ว่าพวกเราก็สนุกกันมาก ทั้งดูหนัง ฟังเพลง คุยกัน หัวเราะกัน สนุกสนานตลอดทาง พอถึงที่พักก็เป็นเวลาอาหารค่ำพอดี ทุกคนก็ได้ไปกินพิซซ่า ไอศกรีม แล้วก็คุยกันฆ่าเวลา แล้วบางคนก็ได้สอนภาษาประจำชาติของตัวเองให้เพื่อนต่างชาติ สนุกมากๆ แล้วก็ได้ผลัดกันเล่าเรื่องตลกและก็หัวเราะจนน้ำตาไหล มันนี้เป็นวันที่สนุกมากๆเลย

Apinya Chimcherd, Atthaphon Meethawolgul, Kamolporn Kongratsakul, Natthakul Intramesuk, Nicharee Boonfaeng, Passakorn Tapasanan, Phatcharanan Patrapaisarnsin, Roongkamol Seawinthara, Supitcha Puttakorn – THAILAND

June 14th 2008 - Disneyland...

Today we went to Disneyland! We had a .magical. day. Most of the rides were fun, except for the ones that involved leaning back in the seat because the suntan that we got at the beach yesterday stills fresh! Our favorite rides included Space Mountain, Mad Tea Party, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Star Tours (based on Star Wars), Splash Mountain, and Winnie the Pooh. (Lena and I really enjoyed Winnie the Pooh, anyway!)

We worried a while that it would be too windy to enjoy the fireworks but dreams come true and the fireworks were indeed AWESOME! While in the Magic Kingdom we got to see our beloved Disney characters in the Parade of Dreams. The dancers were wonderful and the entire day was magical!

When we weren’t waiting in line for exciting rides, we took time to eat and buy souvenirs. After all, we are on vacation! Everybody looked so cute wearing their Minnie Mouse ears, even the boys!

We must take time to say goodbye to our AFS chaperone, Greg who has to leave us tomorrow. L We will miss Greg very much. And thank you, Greg, for organizing the fashion show we had on the beach! That was really memorable.

Kallie Gundermann- USA
Lena Warsitz- Germany

June 13th 2008 - Finally the Beach!!!

Hello everyone!!!


Well… today it is my day to send you some notes about our trip… When you think about the US, you soon have this dream in mind… California! And here we are… in LOS ANGELES!

The second biggest city in the US, nice weather, beautiful people and a place not to forget! We have started our day going to Newport Beach in the south part of LA. We left the hotel early and drove to this amazing place. All the students were excited in seeing the Pacific Ocean, since many of them had only seen the Mediterranean, the Atlantic or the Indic Ocean and we finally arrived in the Pacific! What a place!

The beach was amazing, the day was very sunny and we had fun. We even had a Beach Volley Championship. We played football, soccer and built castles… and of course, we also got a great Californian tan.

At 4pm we went back to the hotel to take a shower and get ready to a place that dreams come true… Hollywood! Many sightseeings like Kodak Theater and Chinese Theater were photographed by the students. We also had a chance to see the famous stars with the names of the famous actors, actresses, singers, movie directors…

For dinner, a short stop at Universal City and we experienced some time in a restaurant inspired on the movie "Forrest Gump": Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

It was a day to remember… great time, with great friends!

That’s all for today!!! Please send your comments and special requests to afs@belousa.com

Wish you guys all the best!!

Raphael De Mello – Trip Coordinator

June 12th 2008 - WELCOME TO SUNNY CALIFORNIA!!!

Los Angeles couldn’t start any better. After 5 hours travelling from Nevada to California, we finally arrived to Universal Studios. Everyone was so excited about the park, we couldn’t wait to start exploring it.

The Simpson’s ride was everyone’s favourite. We also really enjoyed the Jurassic Park where everyone had fun getting wet. The Mummy was an interesting ride, it was a little scary but totally worth it.

Next was the Studio Tour, which was amazing, it gave us the opportunity to know how everything works in the Hollywood world. We were able to take a look behind the scenes of many famous movies and TV shows… it was unbelievable.

The Shrek 4D show was awesome, it seemed that we were actually inside the movie. And last but not least, the Walterworld, which was incredible, and once more, Hollywood impressed us. Finally we met the group and went to the hotel to check in and then we were all ready to eat. After dinner the group got together in the lobby and we started writing about our wonderful day.

Words cannot describe how amazing the day was. It’s a day that we will never forget.

Karine Conteratto, Vitoria Silveira and Guilherme Silva – Brazil

June 11th 2008 - Vegas and Vegas...

Amazing, cool, fabulous, attractive, great, awesome, hilarious, unforgettable, pretty, dirty, unbelievable, big and huge, breathtacking…

Vegas Baby!

After our relaxing evening at the pool and a good night of sleep we got dropped off at the MGM building on the “trip”. For two hours we lingered through the streets of Las Vegas, and explored the variety of this Casino Paradise.

While some of us went into the huge MGM building and couldn’t find the exit for an hour (that would be us), others went looking for souvenirs. Afternoon was SHOPPING TIME. Most people really enjoyed the free time at the mall (and spend a lot of parent’s money) ;). Meeting the exhausted Doruk at the exit, we couldn’t hide a smile to this comment: “I don’t like shopping!”
By the way, we can’t believe Switzerland lost against Turkey in the over time (soccer). That must have been pure luck!!! LOL

Anyways, Doruk’s energy came back once we made it up to the Stratosphere Tower. The brave souls went on the scary Roller-coasters, while the less brave ones enjoyed the beautiful sight.
With empty stomachs we all were looking forward for an awesome meal at the Courtyard Buffet. We ate as much as we could and then couldn’t decide between the cherry pie or the cheese cake. (We ended up eating both!).

For the last time we visited the Strip at night. The ones who didn’t get to see the water show, headed straight to Bellagio Hotel across the Eiffel Tower while the others just went around. Some of them returned with mysterious balloon hats and pretty tiaras.

Exhausted as we were we couldn’t do much more than hang out at the pool or relax in our rooms.

Vegas was unforgettable!!!

Tomorrow we are heading to LA.

We re sure that it will be as much fun as Vegas, because everyone rock!!

Murielle Fischer – Switzerland

Carol Kahoun – Switzerland

June 10th 2008 - Welcome to Las Vegas

We knew the normal quote is “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, but this was one heck of a day we want to share with you.

We started the day with a five hour trip through the beautiful desert. After we crossed the Colorado River we knew we were only a couple minutes away from… LAS VEGAS!!!

We checked into our hotel and went to the pool to cool down from the 104 F.

The girls disappeared earlier from the pool to get ready for the big night.

We all met in front of the lobby around 6 o’clock and walked in style to a nice Italian Restaurant, Where we got served a delicious supper.

After the ice cream desert we headed back to the hotel and waited impatiently for our limos to arrive.

Every one went crazy when the pimped limo Hummers drove around the corner.

With groups of 16-20, the limos brought us to the big Las Vegas sign for a group picture. The glamorous wild ride continued toward the fountain show in front of the “Bellagio” Casino. The last stop was the most breathtaking stop of the evening. Standing under a sky of billboards we admired the video clips of “Queens”. We couldn’t help ourselves tossing along which delivered us goosebumps.

We ended the amazing night relaxing at the pool.

It was one lifetime experience we will never forget!!!

Hugs and kisses,

Jessica Braig - Germany
Sylvie Arts – Belgium
Sonja Klaunig - Austria

June 9th 2008 - GRAND CANYON!!!

Hello Everyone!

First day of the West Coast trip is almost over, right now, we are all sitting at our hotel near the Grand Canyon! This day has been an absolutely amazing day!!!

Before leaving Maryland (where I live), Grand Canyon was the thing I was most excited to see, so this was a day I was looking forward to!

We all woke up early in the morning, had breakfast at the hotel, and then at 8 am, the buses left to the Grand Canyon. The bus trip was about four and a half hours long, but it went by surprisingly fast, we had entertainment in many forms, some people were watching DVD’ s, some were talking and getting to know each other, and some people, including me, were enjoying the amazing nature of Arizona, which is so different from both Maryland and Denmark. There was barely any green, except from all the cactuses, to see and everything was so brown and beige! I definitely saw how different the nature in the US is. But when it came to amazing views the day was definitely not over!!! We were at the Grand Canyon at about 12.30pm and I saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! My first impression was that is looked fake, it felt like we were just looking at a picture of the Grand Canyon. It was so pretty and looked exactly like the pictures I have seen! it was absolutely amazing! After having taking at least 100 pictures in front of the canyon we separated to by lunch and do some souvenir-shopping, before we had the option to go on a 1.5 mile hike down in the canyon! On the way down we stopped many times to enjoy the incredible view and to take pictures! Going down turned out to be a lot easier than going up! It was hot and we all got tired, but it was very hard to be negative when you turned your head ninety degrees and could see the amazing Grand Canyon!!!

Tomorrow is Vegas, and we are all very excited to see the city!!

This first day has been an incredible and unforgettable day!!!


Anne Theresa Thanning
Denmark

Group at the Grand Canyon

Just amazing!!!

Anna - Germany

Brazil

We're here! Olemme täällä!

Hurray!

We're here!

The waiting is over. Now we all can just take a deep breath and relax, whileenjoying the sights.

I just can't wait to see The Big Hole On The Ground which everyone knows,LasVegas Strip, The Yosemite National Park and The Golden Gate Bridge amongst awhole bunch of exciting attractions that we'll be seeing on this trip. I hope that at least all other students on this adventure shares the feeling ofexcitement with me.

I can say with great confidence that these following twelve days are going tobe the pinnacle of many students exchange year.

Johannes Niinikoski
Finland



Hurraa!


Olemme täällä!

Odotus on ohi. Nyt me kaikki voimme vetää syvää henkeen ja rentoutua, samallanauttien maisemista.

En vain malta odottaa, että näen sen suuren kuopan, jonka kaikki tuntevat, LasVegasin stripin, yosemiten kansallispusiton ja Golden Gaten sillan,muiden mielenkiintoisten nähtävyyksien joukossa, joita tällä reissulla tulemmenäkemään.

Toivon, että ainakin jokainen vaihtari jakaa saman innostuksen tunteenkanssani.

Voin suurella varmuudella sanoa, että tseuraavatt kaksitoista päivää tulevatolemaan monen vaihtari vuoden huipentuma.


Johannes Niinikoski
Suomi

ARRIVAL DAY!! WELCOME TO THE WEST COAST TRIP!!!

Arrival day... Phoenix Aiport.

We would like to welcome all the students from AFS USA to this amazing adventure!

Hello everyone!

My name is Raphael and I will be the trip coordinator. I've been working with international students since 1999, when I first joined Belo USA Travel!

Shhhh... I was also an AFS Exchange Student in 1994!

Let's welcome Elizabeth, Greg and Stephanie aboard, our AFS Chaperones and also our Belo Monitors Brittany, Carleigh and Elisa. This trip will also have the special participation of Belo International Tours President, Mr. Bernardo Gontijo!
You will be able to joing this experience in our 13-day amazing trip, with pictures, videos and lot's of comments from the students.Thanks for joining us and hope you have a great time!!
We wish you all the best!!!Belo USA Travel Team

AFS USA - WEST COAST TRIP 2008

Here it is, the West Coast Dream Trip! The US has continually expanded westward since its founding, and thus the definition of the West has evolved over time.
We will be travelling from Phoenix to San Francisco, visiting the states of Arizona, Nevada and California.
Prepare to join us in this spectacular trip through the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park, famous cities like Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco… 13 days of pure adventure and nature, mixed with culture, learning and friendship.
This will be our blog... every day you will be able to take a look in our trip. News, information and pictures from the students.
Have fun!!!