Much more pictures of the trip

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25th of June - Departure day

Today is the last day of the tour, the day everyone departures to their host towns. Since we are out of volunteer to write the blog now I decided to write it myself as I sit in my plane heading down.

I must admit that I wasn't ready for the end of the tour, I had my head focused on trying to run it the best I could that it was over before I realized. I wish I had more time to talk to you, to know you better, to do more staff with you but I guess this is life, when you least expect it is over. I hope you have a different feeling, a felling that you did everything you could to enjoy this tour and specially your exchange.

I will miss you and hopefully I will see you again some day.

Happy end of your exchange,

Your friend,

Fred Malab

24th of June - Philadelphia

Today was a really great and fun day, but it is also a really sad day. Because it is officially the last day of the East Coast Trip 2016. The day was started with a trip back to Philadelphia from New Jersey! It was a decent two hour ride on the bus, I tried to sleep but as always.. I couldn't, I don't understand why, but I just can't sleep on the bus, I need to be extremely tired to do so. Anyway, back to the trip, our first stop in Philadelphia was the Reading Terminal Market, it was one of the amazing place to eat that I've ever been to! There were plenty of choices to pick, varies from all over the world, well not really all over the world but, you get what I meant : \ . Our bus driver, Paul gave us suggestion to get the Philly special Cheese steak! And so I did, and it was AAAAWEESSOOOMMEEE!! Well , not as awesome as my grandmas food but still it was quite awesome, highly recommended! After we finished filling our stomach with some awesome quality food from the market, we continue our journey to the Rocky Steps, it was actually staircases to an art museum that was used in a legendary movie named Rocky, I haven't watched all of them so I'm not sure which Rocky it is. As we got down from the bus we were all running together to the steps as fast as we could to the top trying to recreate one of the scene from the movie, it was hilarious and so much fun!! After we were all catching back our breaths we went to the Rocky statue and pose the same style with it, like we're a strong boxer, who had been nominated three times for Osars!!! Lol.

Satisfied with the pictures we went on to the Capitol of Pennsylvania  located in downtown Philadelphia! I was really blown away and amazed by the structures and the sculptures of, in and out of the building, and thanks to the tour they gave us, I learned some cool facts about the history of the capitol building itself and about Pennsylvania. After finished with the Pennsylvania history class 101 we finally made our way back to the hotel.

Now, this is my favorite part of the day, on our way to the hotel, Bruna gave us 'Award Sheets' to fill, it has some cool and silly award categories and we got to vote for one guy and girl for each category. Arriving at the hotel we got some free time to get ourselves dressed up for dinner and get our luggage organize. Sorry for being so detail, can't help it :))) lol. DINNER TIME! It was one of my fave dinner of all time, cause it wasn't just dinner, it was also 'get away' party, I guess.. And it was the last dinner and event we had together as a group in this awesome East Coast Trip. We ate some awesome well made Pizzas and we announced all of the awards after we finished eating. Everybody exchanged pins with each other and some even did arm wrestling, everybody was so hyped and yes.. Fred did the arm wrestling too! It was a lot of fun! By the end of the party, Bruna told us about our flight schedules and how each of us are gonna get to the airport, some people even have flights at 5 am and gotta be at the lobby by 3 am, that is madness! After all of the happy yet emotional chats and speeches we headed back to the hotel, and Bruna gave us a survey sheet for us to fill, oh also that night we didn't have curvue, how awesome was that!!?

It's been a really GREAT trip, and it is by far the best two weeks that I had in my life that I will never ever forget. I had so much laughter, smile, new bonds of friendships, and definitely new valuable experience that I could use in my life. I believe nothing is eternal in this world, and so the trip has to come to an end. To all of the coordinators, Fred, Bruna, Kiersten and Doug, Thank you very much for making this trip run smoothly! And to all of you, friends, bros, and girls, the end of this trip doesn't mean its the end of our friendships, hope we can maintain our communication and be friends for life!

Bagus Unggul Pranoto

23th of June - Seaside Heights

This morning we were leaving from New York to Seaside Heights, New Jersey. Everyone was really excited to go to the BEACH. But.... It was cloudy and it was raining on the way to the hotel. We went to the hotel first to prepare ourselves for the beach. We arrived in hotel around 11:30am and we have relax time at the hotel. Then we leaving the hotel at 1:00pmfor lunch. We went to Walmart and we got Subway for lunch. And heading to the Seaside Park!!! At the beach we took a lot of picture together and we learn SEXY lesson from our friend Lele (from Brazil).
And we also trying to be professional photographer by took a picture when our friends playing volleyball.
After the beach we went to Boardwalk, the place that the show Jersey Shore was filmed. It is a really fun place with a lot of ride and games. We played basketball game but it was really hard to get the ball into the loop. So we give up and we played the pop balloon game and finally we got a cute little poop for our chaperone, Fred. And we also have dinner there. We ate pizza that was really really really big for us. It was tasty but we cannot finish it. After dinner we came back to the hotel. And we were getting ready for our TALENT SHOW!!!!!!! The show started at 10:00pm. In our group we are rapping and singing for introduce our Awesome club. And other friend they did magic trick, singing, dancing, etc. It was really fun.
After the show we have curfew until 12:30am. We was playing around and teach our friends Thai dancing. We also learn some Brazilian dance, Taekwando from our Taiwanese friends. And It was the best night of the trip.
Daingern Chotirod and Winny Supakchaya

Thailand

22nd of June - NY

We enjoyed New York City through morning to late night! Feel we were there for couple days….

In the morning, we went to Rockefeller Center and climbed up to the observation deck. The gorgeous view from 67 and 68 th floor was great! All buildings around the center were very close to us. Such as The Empire State Building, World Trade Center, rivers and bridges. After we stayed there for an hour, we walked to 5th avenue where we had an hour to shop. It was so fun. Many famous shops are located there and we visited most of them.

Afterwards we walked toTimes Square! It was breath taking view. Since we were kids, we’ve watched many movies, pictures and posters showing this amazing place. So we wanted to have lunch in really nice place. However, we just had an hour so we just went to Macdonald’s. Although it wasn’t a “normal” MacDonald’s. The place was really big and had a shiny wide sign.

Finally, the moment we’ve been waiting for……Broadway Musical!! The show was called “Something Rotten”. It was a comedy influenced by Renascence and Shakespeare. All actors were really good and so was the music. The play had tons of parody of others broadway shows. Wish we could have understood everything but we still loved it! By the way, we stayed outside of the theater so we could get the signature and pictures with the actors. That’s my treasure forever.



Before the dinner, we took many pictures around the Times Square. It was so interesting to see people dressing up in may ways so the public can take pictures with them (5 backs each). For dinner ate in an Italian restaurant and it was good.
From around 8:30pm to 10:00pm we enjoyed the Limo Ride to Brooklyn. We were able to see the beautiful and shining Manhattan skyline. We also enjoyed the late dessert at an Ice cream shop.

During our last minutes in NYC, we walked around The Times Square again, to see how different it is in the night.

It was an amazing day we will never forget! Thank you Fred, Bruna, Doug, Paul and Kirsten to make up our trip!

Malu Pastor Castillo
Kei Namiki

21st of June - NY

There were so many interesting and fun things yesterday. At the beginning of the day, we went to take a boat ride to the Statue of Liberty. It's smaller than I expected because I have seen lots of other huge monuments in Washington D.C. but it's still beautiful and awesome. I couldn't believe that I actually saw it because I used to see it on my television when I was a kid. I will never forget that scenery and I hope that I can go there again one day.

While I was taking some pictures, I realized that I had to leave the island and head to the second destination - The Ellis Island - where I had my lunch. After finishing our lunch, we walked to the famous Wall Street and took some photos. I thought that was a long walk, but it's not the longest.

We walked again to the 9/11 memorial. I still remember that feeling when I was watching the documentary about 911. Everyone doesn't know what to do because the thing happened all of a sudden. For the purpose of remembering those who died in this event including passengers, citizens and fire fighters, I want to take this opportunity to express our tribute.

After that, we headed to the One World Trade Center. We saw the supremely extraordinary views up there. It's worth doing it, I'm so glad to have remembered the views in my mind.

Next stop: China Town. It's a very interesting place to go in NYC because it looks so different. We had time not only to walk around and shop, but also to see the different side of NYC. My friend bought a pair of shoes, and a lot of us bought souvenirs because they're cheap. After having a free time for 45 minutes, we all met in front of McDonalds and walked to the subway!!!! The subway is kinda cool because that's the "thing" about NYC.

Arrived at our destination, we walked again to our dinner place: a Market. We had 20 minutes to look for and go around. Do you know I couldn't believe what I saw in front of eyes. How come? I found the treasure (Taiwanese beef noodles)

It's our traditional dish in Taiwan, so I felt like I go back to Taiwan already because of it. In short, we had a really fabulous dinner time

Leonardus Santoso and Sean

20th of June - En route to NY

We all were very excited and pumped up to see New York that we barely slept a wink last night! We stayed at the hotel at Hartford overnight and ate breakfast in the morning and then left the hotel at 8:30. We drove for 2 hours and reached Yale University where we saw the beautiful campus! We saw the basketball court too which was really cool and saw the amazing basketball players play! We shopped in the gift shop for some time and then departed to see the city which we all were waiting to see since the beginning of the trip- 'The Big Apple'- New York!!

Entering New York we saw the gorgeous skyline. We then went to the Grand Central station which was grand indeed! The hustle and bustle made us all baffle up! It looked more like a museum or palace than a normal station! We couldn't believe that it was a station! We all were amazed!We then went to eat at the lower floor at the 'Shake Shack' which was famous for it's sandwiches! Then we walked towards the United Nations building! On the way we all saw flags of our countries and we all got really excited by that!

We went inside the UN building and after passing the security check we saw the different exhibits of pieces and sculptures gifted by different countries.
On going inside we went to the gift shop and bought different things of UN and of different countries across the globe! Then we split up in two groups and went for a guided tour. They told us about the role of the Secretary General and about the different organs of the UN. We then went inside the Security Council meeting room and the General Assembly room. We were lucky enough to even witness a convention about India and how it was promoting the advantages of Yoga for world benefit. We then saw the disarmament and human rights protection exhibitions! The UN building was really pretty and was one of the coolest things! We then got our passports stamped in the building which was awesome! Then we left the UN building and walked towards Central Park. We rented bikes and biked all through Central Park which was so much fun!! There was a lot of greenery and fresh air there! We stopped to see three places on the way- a beautiful fountain; a lake which gave us the view of the beautiful skyline and the memorial of John Lennon. Central Park was a lot of fun ridding on bikes, seeing people run, skateboard and have a good time! Then we went to Columbus Circle which was a circle surrounded by tall buildings! On our way we saw the busy streets of New York amidst the breathtaking sunset. We ate dinner inside shopping plaza and shopped for a little while. After dinner we took the bus and drove through the Times Square which was unbelievable and beautiful , filled with people and glimmering lights everywhere! It was breathtaking! We then arrived at our hotels!

The day was a blast and we all couldn't believe that we were in Manhattan in New York! The place we had all dreamt to visit! I lack adjectives to describe it's grandiose and magnificence! Today was the first among the three amazing days we are going to spend at New York and it's going to be awesome!


Mrunmayi and Sana

19th of June - Six Flags

Today was a great day! Maybe this sounds like every other memory of any other day but this is because is truth everyday is unique and fantastic. This morning we could sleep a little bit more and we left at 9:30. We took a fantastic breakfast because we were going to spend the halo day at the six flags. Like any other day we took the bus and we drove to the park. Everybody was so exited about it. Finally after 2 hours in the bus we got there. First of all we went to two roller coaster together. And we separated in groups. Some people went to the water park and 

some other tried with the super man ride. Also our fantastic cordinator Bruna was enjoying the day with some of us in the water park even Fred left because his phone died :( (just kidding we love him) we got tickets for lunch and we went to eat that unhealthy food that we love. We spent day the whole day and in the very end everybody was running to enjoy the last minutes. After we left we met with our

amazing driver Paul and went for dinner at Chipotle after shared some fantastic stories about the day. Finally we are spending the night in Connecticut (where Bruna wrong up) definitely it was an unforgettable day.


By Victoria (vicky) & Masa

18th of June - Boston

This morning we slept in a little bit more than usual, and then we went eat a really fancy breakfast, with a lot a variety, very different with the breakfast  from the last days lol...and then after get our stuff we went to the bus, and our first stop was...HARVARD! all of us felt very smart after touching Mr. Jon Harvard's foot. 
We also shopping for souvenirs in the Harvard shop but we got very surprise after seen the very expensive prices,but well, everything is expensive for a exchange student lol, after that we went to eat to a place call "Tasty burger" very famous here in Boston, it was so good! then Bruna and Fred had a surprise...Shopping Time! we went to a a very fancy and very cute street, and we tried to not go crazy with all the cute stores. Then Paul( the best driver ever) drove us to take the duck tour ( cuaak cuaaak!) This vehicle was invented during the world war II, it can drive and it also can swim, yes...just like a duck( cuaak cuaak) It was very fun and also our driver let some of us "drive" the duck. after our ride we went to play "scavenger hunt" around down town Boston, we separated in groups and the game began! it was very fun and we got to know important and historical places: such as, the first book store, the cemetery, etc, after finished the game we had a little bit of free time so we walk around down town, we meet for dinner and we ate at Quincy, yummy!

Boston was AMAZING!, we had such a good time in america's Europe! 

Victoria (Vic) & Paula (Pau-Pau) 

17th of June - Trip from Niagara to Boston with Stop in Albany

The only thing I' ve heard about Albany was about college life here, so I imagined Albany as a  really pretty, or fun place. However I realized it's not like that. 

Today we got up earlier than yesterday and set off for Boston. Everyone looked still so sleepy on the bus.

Going Boston was one of the best things, and the one I was the most excited for on this trip.

During long drive, I took Chinese and Portuguese lessons  from Jasmin and Lily, and now I can say "Estou" , and I finally mastered dialog of "asking where is bathroom" in Chinese.

  

After couple hours we stopped at Albany which is famous as a capital of New York State. 

After getting off the bus for lunch and walking around, some people found Pizza place or restaurant quickly and enjoyed lunch, but my group were wondering around so long time trying to find place to eat. Maybe we chose wrong street to walk, there was really few people out and it was totally     

 Different from Michigan or Wisconsin where we stay usually. We didn't feel safe to walk.( it was definitely good experience.)

Finally we found Street with so many restaurant and went to Asian restaurant, in our 10 people group 5 people were Asian and knew dishes well,  so we explained each other how dishes on the menu would taste like. It was really interesting for me.

After lunch our group rushed to see building of capital. As you know it  was really pretty.  It looked like stunning old castle.

 I've never seen such a pretty capital building in the world. 

After visiting Albany, our driving started again, and Bagus and Leo from Indonesia lectures us about their life and country. It was really interesting to hear so much different things from our country.

We also watched "killer", it was really funny and good movie. Ashton Kutcher was really hot.

Then we finally got to Boston, biggest college town in America.

 When  I saw the scenery of city with broad river from the bus I got really excited.

It seemed like much prettier than  DC.

And lining buildings or street really looked like Tokyo and Yokohama Japan where Kei and I are from.

In this trip even when we have long drive I always feel like it goes really short. 

Our awesome bus driver Paul always know nice place. He took us to nice hill park next to water. Boston was really pretty place.

We had dinner from small store and many people were enjoying ice cream.

Hotel was so nice and we enjoyed swimming in the pool, and went to bed super exciting for visiting Harvard University tomorrow.

Sae Yamaguchi/Japan

16th of June - Niagara Falls

It's a surprise that we live really close to the Niagara Fall State Park, I was ready to take a bus and ride a long way to the Falls. We actually walked to the Niagara Falls State Park, it was surprisingly empty there, and somone told us that it was really full the day before. It was filled with Indians though, what Mrunmayi told us. We got on the boat real quick and with the blue rain coats, people were extremely excited and everyone took lots of pictures, while we were getting closer the biggest fall, the water from the falls was really heavy, so there was a lot of Mist, so that you sometimes couldn't keep your eyes open.
The water is salty because it is come from the Great Lakes and mixes with water from the Atlantic, we never stop taking pictures. During the free time after that our group went to do the Cave of the Winds, which is an awesome place to go in life, we got closer to one of the falls, and could even touch it. There is one place in the Cave of the Winds , where you get really wet, and you can do the same thing as Rose and Jack while they are in the front of the boat in the Film Titanic.



After that we had Lunch together , where we ate Sandwiches that we ordered the day before. For the free time after lunch every group did something different. Some went for a walk, others relaxed and enjoyed the view. At 4 we left the Falls to go back to the hotel, where we were able to do our laundry.


For Dinner we went to Buffalo , where we found a free concert, where we had some time again, and where we ate. By the time we got done there it was dark so we went back to the Falls to see the Falls at night. They are all lightened up , and even though the Falls are oj the US side it was awesome and everyone enjoyed it and everyone took a lot of pictures. That finished up another awesome day of our trip, and we went back to the hotel to sleep.

Jana and Jasmine

15th of June - Trip from Washington to Niagara Falls

Today we finally got to sleep in, it was nice. We got up and had a nice, filling breakfast. At 9:45 we packed the bus, and drove to a nearby museum called National Space and Aeronautics Annex. The museum was mostly a huge exhibit of planes including planes from both world wars and a French Concorde. The museum also had a space exhibit with a huge spaceship and satellites. It was a really cool museum and we enjoyed it.

After the museum, we took off for Niagara Falls. We drove a couple of hours and then stopped to have lunch at Subway. We all enjoyed the lunch, and we had fun talking to our new friends.
After lunch we drove to the Flight 93 9/11 memorial, we walked around and looked at the amazing memorial. We saw pictures of the people who died, and listened to the last phone calls of the victims, it was a really touching experience. The scenery was beautiful, and the weather was really hot.

We left the memorial and continued our trip to the hotel in Niagara Falls. On the bus we had fun talking to friends. Some slept while others played blackjack. We also listened to music and just had a nice time. We stopped to have a restroom break and were quick on the road again. Our next stop was to have dinner. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant that had a buffet. The food was nice and highly needed after a long day of driving. After dinner we went to Wallmart to buy breakfast for the next couple of mornings.
When we got back to the bus, we had our daily pacifier ceremony. Today the pacifier went to Hans, because he bought a whole pineapple for breakfast, and we don't have knives to cut it out.
We got to the hotel very, very late and went straight to bed.
Stine Nikolajsen & Ida Greisen

14th of June - Washington

Today we all realized that none of us are morning persons. How come? No wonder, if you go to bed at midnight and your alarm goes off at 5:45 am!

After having an early breakfast, in fact, being the first ones in the breakfast room at the hotel. We left surprisingly on time to continue our adventures around the Awesome D.C.

We started of the day with a tour of the majestic U.S. Capitol, accompanied by the funniest and smartest tour guide ever. He knew most of our languages, the answer for all of our questions and even the hilarious desicion of the congress that tomatoes are not considered fruits in the U.S. even though they have seeds, because if you mash them, they don't become tomato Jelly, they become the essential KETCHUP.

Walking through a "secret" underground and mysterious tunnel we entered the Library of Congress. Just kidding, everybody knows the tunnel. When we got there, we first realized that it was not an actual library, but more like a museum, with multiple exhibitions. One of them was about Jacob's Riis famous book "How the Other Half lives". which was pretty interesting.

After the library we had free time to have lunch and visit as much museums as we could in just 6 hours. "We will visit all of them" was our thought, we were certainly wrong. Because most of us only got to see 3 of them. Everyone has different stories about the free time, but in our case, we started of with a very big group. All of us starving due to the early breakfast, walking around D.C. trying to find the closest place to eat, which was 2 blocks down from the capitol, a very good sandwich place by the way. When we found it and filled up our empty stomachs the Journey begun. We head as fast as we could to the "National Museum of Natural History" what ended up in splitting the group in two. Entering the museum was like watching the movie "A Night In The Museum" but for real. We totally failed to keep an eye on everything like Ben Stiller cause we ended up splitting again in groups of at least 3. The museum was amazing, and we found some other exchange students there. We got together with the group and left at 3:00pm to visit the recommended "Holocaust Museum". We were all exhausted, but we kept going.

The Holocaust museum was extremely crowded, and the group split again. But because of our inquisitive spirit, we got tickets (that were actually sold out), and got to see the whole holocaust exhibition. Sadly it was just 5 of us who could fully experience the Holocaust Museum. It was about 2 hours of different emotions and a lot of goosebumps. It was an amazing exhibition but none of us ended it with a huge smile in our faces, like after visiting the other museums.   

We headed to our last stop before we had to get in the bus "The National Air and Space Museum". Where we just had a couple of minutes to walk around. They closed all the museums at 5:30pm and we were supposed to leave at 6:00, but we all made it earlier to the bus so we left before 6. Yay!

Our favorite bus driver, Paul, took us to the wonderful East Potomac Park, where we had a pic-nic, with sandwiches, cookies and a beautiful sunset.

After the park, Bruna and Fred surprised us with a short stop at the Lincoln Memorial, so we could say goodbye to our friend Abraham. Being able to see the memorial at night was a whole new experience for us.

P.S. After a tiring/long day we are happy to be able to sleep in tomorrow.

Peace out.

Luca and Cata.

13th of June - Washington

Today was our first day in Washington D.C, and it was so nice that we changed the name to Awesome D.C. 

We woke up very early in the morning and we went to see the Lincoln memorial, the first impression was that we were in a movie and everyone first impression was WOW!  We took a lot of pictures and we appreciate the view and the scenario for a couple of minutes but because we had a lot of things to see we couldn’t stay longer with our friend Abraham (You can visit him, he is there 24 hours).

Then we took the bus to the largest Basilica in the U.S; we had a tour there and they explain to us different things about the multicultural influence in the catholic church.

After lunch we went to visit Obama in the white house, because he was jealous that we visited Abraham Lincoln ( we didn’t really see Obama, but we saw the white house, LOL). In the afternoon we visited a lot of memorials and we walked A LOT, we saw Jefferson Memorial, Martin Luther King memorial, WWI and WWII memorials, and Korea war memorial; There I had the opportunity to meet someone from Argentina and talk for a while with them.  

At the end of the day we went to Arlington National Cemetery, and it was really impressive to see how many people died fighting for their country. We saw where all the Kennedy family was buried, including the assassinated president John Fitzgerald Kennedy; We could also get really good views of Awesome D.C from the top of the cemetery and take pictures with our friends. Something really special was the change of guard of the unknown soldier, which represents all the soldiers that died in war and they couldn’t be identified. 

It was a really good day, we enjoyed a lot and we are looking forward for tomorrow unless the fact that we have to wake up very early. 

Lele Maluf, Brazil  -  Hans Haumuller, Argentina

12th of June - Philadelphia and Fort McHenry

Today was our first full day in Philly on our East Coast Trip. We woke up and started our day out with a good breakfast at our first hotel. After that we loaded the bus with our luggage and were headed to downtown Philadelphia where we saw the Liberty Bell, we got a guided tour in the Independence Hall, where we got see the Declaration of Independence. Some really interesting piece of history. Afterwards we jumped on the bus to go get some lunch, so we had energy enough to go see the Fort McHenry National Monument. It was a two hour drive in the bus, but it didn't feel that long, because we all had a good time on the bus. When we got the the Fort, we started of with watching a movie, about how the National Anthem of the Untied States got adopted. They after the video, we went outside to see the actual Fort itself, where we had a great time with a perfect view over the whole harbor. We all got some good pictures too and were back in the bus at 6.00 ready to drive to our second hotel, in Virginia. Shortly after we came, we went out to eat dinner, at a restaurant nearby the hotel. In total we visited three states, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, can't wait for D.C tomorrow.

It was very nice to meet everyone and get to one everybody better, we are extremely excited to see what the rest of the trip has offers.

- Simone Lund and Erik Møller