FRIDAY!!!

Today is our last day in California. We started the day by walking across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was awesome! We then headed to Pier 39 for some lunch and shopping. Some people were dancing to a woman play piano on the pier. We then headed to Alcatraz. We had to take a quick boat ride to the island. The audio tour was very informative and had real ex-prisoners talking about their experiences. Next we head to the hotel for dinner and gave out some awards at the ‘Beloscars’! A cool dance party followed dinner; we had a DJ and danced the night away. We’ll miss you California!

FROM THE STAFF:

We had the most amazing week with all of you! You guys are amazing students and we hope you had a fantastic time on the trip. Keep having positive energy and enjoy the last weeks of your exchange. Stay in contact with each other, these friendships can be life-long! Love, The Belo Staff

LAST WORDS FROM STUDENTS:

-Thank you for an amazing week! It has been one of the best weeks in my exchange year!! You guys are awesome!

Love, Shadi

-I had a really good time! This trip was just amazing! I think this was one of the best experiences in a long time! Thank you so much for doing this for us! You’re awesome!

Love, Katerina

-Thanks a lot for this AMAZING week! What really made my week awesome is meeting all this wonderful exchange students from all over the world J This trip mean more than having fun.. one week can make a difference in the world later! Thanks BELO for brining all of us in one place J

Love, Aml

-Thanks for this awesome week and trip! I’m pretty sure this week was the best memory during my exchange student. I’m so glad to meet other exchange student from mostly of the world and I had fun! Thanks to Belo and for people that made this awesome experience! :)

Love, Youjin Kim

-Thanks to everyone for the great week and all the fun we had! You guys are awesome people! I’m glad I had the chance to learn so much about your countries and languages J

Love, Sophia

-This week was one of the best weeks in my exchange year! I didn’t got to know all of you but I’m sure y’all are awesome people!

David.

-Thank you my foreign friends for this unbelievably amazing super duper cool week! This was definitely the best and funniest experience in my exchange year. I am so happy that I met all those great people and that I could see a different site of big ‘Murica. Thank you Belo! Jonas

-If people would ask me how to describe this Belo trip- I will definitely say that this week was one of the best in the USA. Awesome exchange-students who easily became life-long friends, sunny California with its amazing sights and, of course, lots of fun every second of this trip! New knowledge, interesting unique experience of sharing cultures and memorable pictures of attractive Los Angeles and San- Francisco- that’s our BeloUSA California trip. Thanks everybody for making dreams come true and lovely memories! Dmitriy

-Time goes by too fast. It’s like yesterday we just met . Exchange students’ lives are not that glamorous as others think. It’s true that we only have known each other for just 7 or 8 days, but we’re truly bonding. Probably because we understand each other. Thus you can’t really see this this much people from all around the world together. What rosalia said, “The country is no longer just a shape on the map, but connected to a face.” That really makes me wanna cry. One of my dreams is to travel around the world. I guess I have to make it into action now. Good luck to all of you. Hope to see y’all again in the future!!!

Xinran Li(Alicia)

I would like to thanks BELO because without them I wouldn’t have met all these amazing people. I love this quote that says ; ‘’exchange is the best year of your life so far. Without a doubt, it’s something no one back at home will ever truly understand’’. It’s soooo true!! This week was one of the best of my exchange. I will never forget anything. I discovered two cities that I dreamed of and I met exchange students, the people who understand you the most. I’m so glad having done this experience and I thank everybody! With love, Valentine [Belgium]

I can’t think in a better week that this one. I want to say thanks to Belo and everyone for give me the opportunity of live this amazing experience. I will never forget this week, one of the best weeks of my 8 months in USA. I will never forget the different cultures, the different language and the different exchange student that I met here because they are amazing! Because they can understand you and they are living just like you. I’m so glad to be here and I’m so sad for leave. Thanks everybody for these amazing 8 days! See you soon!!!!

Fernanda Cornejo, Chile.

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying good bye so hard.

Mint Natasorn Arphanunt, Thailand

THURSDAY!!!

We started the first morning in San Francisco visiting the sea lions. It was funny because they made hilarious noises, were very fat and were laying very close on one spot. After taking pictures withe the animals, we were going to ride the famous "cable car". It was fun driving up and down on the hilly roads of San Francisco. We stopped at Union Square, to go shopping and eat the lunch. A few hours later we came back together to meet our guide Barbara. We drove through the city, saw the most famous places in sights. We learnt a lot about San Francisco, its history and culture. We experienced people can be naked in public (well not completely naked)! We stopped to visit an art museum in the Golden Gate Park. Then we took photos of the whole city on the second highest hill of San Francisco.
After a little time in Chinatown we had dinner there. Most of us really enjoyed the Chinese food, we were so stuffed and we still had food leftover! Since we had plenty food left, we gave it to homeless people in the area and they really appreciated it. We really enjoyed the day, but we also were sad, because we had to say goodbye to Bianca, from Italy, who is going home early for Prom.

Written By: Gabriel-France and Ellen-Germany

WEDNESDAY!!!

Hit the road, Belo!

Today was the fourth day of our trip and we said goodbye to Los Angeles. After we woke up in the morning and finished packing our bags, we started our road trip to San Francisco. We left our hotel in the morning and headed out of town. In the beginning we just talked to each other and after a while we started watching a movie – Pitch Perfect. We watched Despicable Me afterwards, and then the Hunger Games. Lot of people were sleepy and this was the perfect opportunity to catch up on some sleep, so not everyone watched the movies. We had our lunch stop after about two hours and most of us had lunch at IN N OUT burger. It’s a famous burger place here in California. Everyone liked it and we were happy that we got to try the food here. We had two more stops; one of them was at Casa De Fruita. This was a really cool fruit stand, so we got some delicious fruits for snack. When we arrived in San Francisco we headed straight to dinner at the famous Bubba Gump shrimp restaurant. In my opinion, this was the best food we’ve had so far. It was delicious, and we also liked the Forrest Gump theme of the restaurant. After dinner we walked around Pier 39 and then headed back to hotel. We all are really excited for the city tour tomorrow. See you guys later!

Written By: Paul -Slovakia

TUESDAY!!!

Day 3 of California Adventure trip. We had breakfast and headed to DISNEYLAND!  A lot of things to do in limited time. We spent the whole day enjoying various rides, shows and had dinner in Disneyland. There were two theme parks, and we could go back and forth to both Disneyland and California Adventure. Some of the popular ride choices were Cars, California Screamin, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to see the fireworks today but some of us went to see the World of Color which was really cool and such an amazing show! Very inspirational, stunning and brought back a lot of Disney childhood memories. Today is Mint’s 17th birthday! We sang Happy Birthday in our own languages, it was really sweet and awesome! Many of us got blisters from walking, but we had so much fun. Tomorrow will be a recovery day for us. San Francisco, here we come!

Written By:  Natasorn Arphanunt (Mint) -  Thailand

                     Xinran Li(Alicia)-China

MONDAY!!!

Today we left our hotel in LA in the morning to head to Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame. First, we visited the famous wax museum “Madame Tussauds”  and  we had the chance to meet most of our favorite celebrities (from Johnny Depp to Lady Gaga and so on). Then we divided in smaller groups to spend our free time walking around and discovering many attractions. For example The Chinese Theatre with multiple actors’ footprints and handprints in front of it. We also visited the Dolby Theatre where the annual Oscars are held.  Most of us had fun trying to find the stars of their favorite celebrities in the Walk of Fame,  that goes along Hollywood Boulevard for many miles. Our group had the chance to get a henna tattoo representing the globe with California written under it. Other people went shopping in one big mall near the main attractions.

After that, we headed to Beverly Hills aka our future home. We took a group picture in front of the Beverly Hills sign and then we were given free time to seek for any possible living star that could be shopping around. We walked in front of the fanciest stores in the world such as Prada, Chanel, Dior, Vera Wang and so on. We also took a picture in front of the hotel where the movie Pretty Woman was filmed.  It was also possible to see fancy cars driving around (there was a Bugatti parked in front of a store!!!!!!!). Some of us had the chance to meet a nice chauffeur that drives around VIP and showed us pictures.

We finally got back to the bus to see Santa Monica and its beaches. Some of us enjoyed the sun on the beach facing the waves, getting tanned or playing volleyball. Others went shopping in the little store of the Santa Monica Pier or enjoyed the little Pacific Park provided with a roller coaster and some other attractions.

To end the day in the best possible way we had dinner near Santa Monica, in an American-Italian restaurant called “La buca di Beppo” that was definitely filling and tasty (and we have some Italian approvals!!). The party continued on the bus on our way back with most of us jamming to popular hits and what can we say… it was an awesome day and we are looking forward to having another one tomorrow in Disneyland. 

From Cali with love <3

Written By:  Bianca from Italy, Amandine and Valentine from Belgium

SUNDAY!!!!!!!

Happy Sunday!

Today was the first day of our California Adventure trip! we left the hotel and headed to Griffith Park. This is the closest spot we`ll be seeing the famous HOLLYWOOD sign. Everyone of us took a lot of pictures and had an oppurtunity to see Los Angeles from the top of the hill.

 We got in our bus again and this time we headed to Universal Studios! When we got out of the bus, we immediately realized we were in the Entertainment Capital of L.A. After taking our group picture, everyone spread out in the park in groups. We got in the greatest rides and enjoyed our time in the world of Universal. We got to ride the new Minion Mayhem - a ride based on the movie Despicable Me that just opened a few weeks ago!  In the middle of the day all of us came together and we all did the Studio Tour together. We had a chance to experience the most intense 3D show--King Kong!

 In the end of the day we came together again and went to the Hard Rock Cafe which is in the City Walk. All of us had the most yummy food and got pretty full! When the dinner was over, we still had free time to have a walk in the City Walk. Eventually we headed back to the hotel. After a long and full of fun day everyone seemed pretty tired, but we still had enough energy to get into the pool.The California Adventure offically started today and we all are so excited for rest of the week! Thanks a lot to our staff for this beautiful day.

 Written By:
Sena - Turkey
Natasorn (Mint) - Thailand

Welcome to the California Adventure!!!

Here it is, the CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE TRIP! Get ready to visit glamorous Los Angeles and funky San Francisco! We will be going to the place where dreams come true: DISNEY LAND and the place where movies are made: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!!  It's going to be a week 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!!!