Much more pictures of the trip

https://www.facebook.com/TerraNorthAmerica/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10154116184222860

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