Last Full Day in Cali

Today was a fantastic day! We got an early start for Alcatraz Island, which was both a military fort and a prison before it became a national park. Our audio tours gave fascinating details about prisoners, officers, officers’ families, escape attempts, and so on. The island also gave fabulous views of San Francisco.

After Alcatraz, we enjoyed free time for lunch and souvenirs before heading for the Golden Gate Bridge! After a group photo, we walked the entire length of the bridge and were impressed again by the views of beautiful San Francisco.

From Golden Gate, we rushed back to our hotel to get ready for our last dinner together, our Belo-Oscars ceremony, and our goodbye party!

   

Looking back at the week, we can’t believe how fast the time has flown. It is amazing to think how many friendships we have made and how many memoires we have shared in the past six days. You are a tremendous group of individuals, and we can’t wait to see where you go. For now, though, here are some great memories from the week.

Xox,

Your Belo staff: Rosalia, Gwen, Laura, and Maddy 

“My favorite thing was the Hollywood sign – just looking at it made me believe that I was actually in California.”

- Lara (Germany)

“The best thing was San Francisco Chinatown – the Chinese food made me homesick. It was pretty Chinese!”

- Tianzhi (China)

“I’ve been to many cities, and I have to say that San Francisco is my new absolute favorite. It really has everything: new and old, super tolerant, and colorful, and it’s so full of nature. It gives you the feeling that there’s a community behind it all. That it’s somewhere you’d really want to live.”

- Lisa (Germany)

“I liked L.A. the best. The buildings and the aesthetics of the city are beautiful. I really like Hollywood Boulevard and the way the Dolby Theatre and the Chinese Theatre look.”

- Martti (Finland)

“The prison thing was really, really interesting. I was expecting it to be boring like other museums, but they made it really interesting. It was ironic to see how a prison can be on such a pretty island. And crazy to see how criminals can live so close to children. I also really liked the music on the busses!”

- Laura (Germany)

 “I liked Hollywood and Beverly Hills because those are the parts of L.A. that every one is talking about, but I had never seen. Being part of it—walking down the streets and experiencing it—was really awesome.”

- Diana (Latvia)

Thursday tour of San Francisco

After five awesome days with Belo, we explored the city of San Francisco today in order to become familiar with the cultural and historical background of the city and the sights of the city itself. The day started, like always, very early but there was one great thing about the morning – the breakfast. A big variety of options was offered by the Hilton Hotel, which we all, exchange students and Belo staff, deeply enjoyed. Everybody went on the bus with a stuffed belly and for the first time everybody brought jackets. San Francisco, traditionally, has a chillier and foggy climate compared to LA. 
Our first stop was Pier 39, which is well known for its sea lions. Pictures were taken in a fast rhythm and we, exchange students, enjoyed getting used to the "unique" sound of the animals. In addition to that, the Pier offered a great view to the historical home of felonies and criminals – Alcatraz Prison. 

After we enjoyed the great view we walked the short way over to the well-known cable cars of San Francisco. The cable car ride was by far one of the greatest things we have done so far. The view we got, plus the feeling of being a part of the cable car was just incredibly awesome. 

We also got a lot of free time today. Everybody explored the city around the Union Square for lunch and had a great time. Then it was time for the bus tour. We went into our bus and were joined by a tour guide. We were all really surprised and excited. We drove up and down the hills in San Francisco, through Chinatown, and other parts of San Fran with cultural background. The tour included stops at City Hall, Land’s End Park, the de Young art museum, and Twin Peaks, which gives incredible panoramic views of San Francisco. 

Our entire group in City Hall

From the observation deck in the de Young museum

Checking out artwork in the de Young museum

The view from Twin Peaks Park

 Our group at Twin Peaks Park

After the tour was done, we stopped in Chinatown again, this time to have dinner. We ate at the Chinatown Restaurant and the food was served as family style. Delicious, crusty, sweet, sour, meat, rice and lots of other specialties were served and enjoyed by us! A fun bus ride home was the last part of this, our sixth day. Now we have some free time and will get ready for bed soon in order to be prepared for a long and exciting day tomorrow. 

-Parsa (Germany), Tammo (Germany), and Eivind (Norway)

Road tripping to San Francisco

We started the day driving. The scenery started more like a city, and then we drove through some vineyards. There there were a lot of mountains, and a few lakes. There were more mountains than I (Frauke) expected, and it was beautiful!

After 2 hours we stopped at a rest stop for lunch. We went to In an Out Burger – a very popular fast food burger place in Calirfornia. We went to Macdonalds afterwards and got smoothies.

Then we got back on the bus, and stopped a few hours later at a market. There were all kinds of fruit, dried fruit, nuts, special candies, and a coffee shop. Some people bought healthy things. We got some some delicious nectarines. The sun was shining, and it was nice and warm with a little wind.

On the bus, we watched movies and listened to music. We also shared our experiences from the first half of our exchange years. It was nice to know what other people have experienced and to hear about different experiences in different parts of the US because there’s so much difference! Every nation also performed their anthem on the bus.

After a few more hours on the bus, we got into San Francisco and saw all the houses, the buildings and the Bay Bridge. We ate dinner at Bubba Gump on Pier 39, and it was awesome. Their food is mostly shrimp-based, and there is a great gift shop attached. 

Time really flies, and we can’t believe that this trip is almost half way over. We’ve already gotten to know so many people from all over the world in just a few days! 

 Hello, San Francisco!!

Now we’re on the bus to our new hotel, and we’re excited for breakfast, because we hear it’s awesome.

Lara (Germany), Frauke (Germany)

Disney-mania!

Disneyland today was an awesome experience. Not only the weather, but also the attractions were ideal. The rides were breathtaking, the food was good (especially because we did not have to pay for most of it).

 

Here is a photo of our entire group in front of the famous Disney castle:

The final water and light show was one of the most beautiful things I (Jakob) have ever witnessed. It looked like the Northern Lights. You could see all of the famous and successful Disney movies projected onto a screen of water. The music was also pretty interesting. It included all of the famous soundtracks. The Lion King clip was very sad. My favorite park was the Pirates of Carribean where they shot fireballs, and you could feel the heat!

The "Tower of Terror" was also very impressive. It was my (Lukas') favorite ride because it is a great combination of a scary drive and a freefall tower. From the top, you had an awesome view over the whole of both theme parks: Disneyland and California Adventure.

Exhausted after a full day, we're off to bed!
- Lukas (Germany), Jakob (Germany)

Sunny Los Angeles

Kazu:
Hey guys! How was your day? We are the Japanese exchange students (of course including the BIRTHDAY GIRL ANNA!!) The weather was nice today, not too hot, not too cold!
So what did we do today? After we got on the bus, we sang the birthday song for Anna, first in English and then in all of the languages we speak! It was awesome :)

We went to the Madame Tussaud's Hollywood!!!! Sometimes it was hard to figure out: which people were real and which were wax? I was scared of the one that was standing right in front of the elevator! We took lots of pictures there.

From Hollywood, we went to Beverly Hills. It was awesome, just like the movies show it! We took a group picture by the big sign and had a chance to see the fancy stores on Rodeo Drive. Our group was mostly window shopping, of course!

Yuka:
The Beach in Santa Monica is one of our favorite places. It was so beautiful!! We relaxed, enjoyed the weather, took many pictures and had so much fun there.

Our attempt to write YFU!

At the beautiful beach in Santa Monica!

Anna:
Today was the best birthday of my life!!!! I am such a lucky girl. <3 I love you guys, and thank you so much!!!  I just don't want to leave here!!! I'm so glad to meet such nice people in LA :)

Three of us:
We're sure that tomorrow will be a wonderful day at Disneyland!!! Go to bed early tonight, save as much energy as you can, and see you all tomorrow morning!!!!!

Good night!!!!

-- Anna, Kazuko, and Yuka from Japan

Universal Studios!

Sunday March 16th, 2014


Hey guys, so..today was our first official day here in LA!!! Wooooo! This is Giulia from Italy and Nick from Germany, talking.

This day began with an awesome ride to Griffith Observatory, which is an amazing place where you have a fantastic view on the whole city and of course the most famous letters in the world: Hollywood.

We took some pictures and then we were all ready to go to Universal Studios.

            

Our group in front of the Universal Globe!

First we first did the studio tour, it was amazing!!! Getting driven around to the different stages where they shot all the different movies, like King Kong and Desperate Housewives. They actually had a 360 "King Kong Movie Ride", where we got attacked by dinosaurs and huge spiders. But in the last minute, King Kong, the biggest ape in the country was coming to save us! Splitting up in smaller groups, we directly decided to do every ride in the park! What was closest to us? Of course Simpson's Krustyland!!! We all wanna take an awesome ride with the coaster. It wasn't the only one there. Where our group wanted to go to was the Jurassic Park Ride with the even more dinosaurs. That was our favorite ride!! We had a lot of fun!!

After all these exhausting rides we became very hungry. Our super nice chaperones had the best plan for the evening, eating out in the Hard Rock Cafe!!! It was delicious. After dinner we had free time and we went shopping.

Now we are writing this blog, and we are pretty tired, we need some rest, so goodnight everybody!!

-- Giulia (Italy) & Nick (Germany)

Arrival Day!

Hello world!

83 nervous, but excited students arrived today at the airport in LAX. They were coming from all over America to an unique and adventurous time in California. Four buses arriving at different times at the hotel and some extra free time gave everybody time to get to know each other and start new friendships. Sounds like everybody already know each other for a long time... But each day, this friendship is just going to become more and more close.

Hot weather? This is what everybody want. Friends and fun, this are the perfect combination. 

The days are going to be a surprise. It's not just the opportunity to be here in California, but the opportunity to learn about different cultures all at the same time.

It's gonna be amazing to see the different countries in the same room, and with the same goal: HAVE FUN!

And our adventure has finally started... Keep checking everyday for updates!

- Emilie (Denmark) & Isabela (Brazil)