Day 9: June 21

Day 9 just started. The alarm rings at 7 o’clock. It’s a hot day at almost 100 degrees. At 8 o’clock, after we have breakfast, we head to the Grand Canyon, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We are all looking forward to this day so much that we want to jump up on the roof. After an hour bus ride, we realize how long an hour can be. And then we are there, the Grand Canyon! When we get out of the bus, the first thing everybody thought is “WOW, this amazing view is just unbelievable!” But then the heat hits us like a hot oven! Because of the heat, the most important thing for everybody is putting on a lot of sunscreen. (People still got burned today!)

Here we start our hiking tour in the Grand Canyon. We can’t wait to run down the path so we go really fast. After a while a group of mules with passengers pass us, which make everything even more exciting. Unfortunately the mules poop all over the path. Besides the scary trail now we also have to watch out for the poop. Every ten feet people stop to take pictures of the different angles of the Canyon. It was almost like a competition about the best shot. After a hike down there is obviously also a walk back up, which is a challenge for a lot of exchange students who have been in America for one year. ^^
Boys take of their shirts, girls… well they have to walk with shirts on! When we get back to the top everybody is thirsty, sweaty and hungry! So we go to have lunch. Today on the menu is Pizza Hut or Chinese food. After the good lunch we watch an “Imax” movie about the Secrets of the Grand Canyon. A couple of people have a good time with the movie but others use the opportunity for a good nap after the long walk.

Later on we drive to a view point called “Desert View”. Once again we have a chance to take lots of pictures of the wide, open view. This is the last stop of our Grand Canyon tour. Now we head back to the hotel. Shortly after we arrive, we have dinner. The day ends with free time until 12 o’clock, which is 30 minutes longer then yesterday’s, because we are such a great group! 
Writing by: Valli Florack from Germany
Chih Jour, Lu(Zoe) from Taiwan

Day 8: June 20

Beep, Beep, Beep……the alarm clock is ringing and 8th day of our trip starts.
The morning was pretty relaxed. After having breakfast, everybody had time to hang out at the pool, check his or her e-mails and go shopping in the stores, which surround the hotel.
At 11 o’ clock we are leaving the hotel in order to hit the road to our next destination. Grand Canyon, here we come! While driving through the desert and watching a movie, the time is going by rapidly. Around noon the bus stops. It is lunch time. KFC, Panda express, or McDonalds? That is a hard decision that we have to make. For today we want to go with Chinese food, so the group picks Panda express. After having enjoyed our meals, got to play American football or got to tan in the sun, we continue our trip to the Grand Canyon.

At 4.30 we finally arrive at our hotel. Well, actually it is not really a hotel but a super cool Ranch where we have a lot of different options to spend the evening. Some refresh themselves in the pool or play sports such as Volleyball, Tennis or American Football while others just relax and tan in the sun of Arizona. But the really athletic ones burn some calories and get a good work out in the gym.
At 7.30 it is time for dinner, which takes place at the Ranch.
Today’s curfew is at 11.30.
Everybody has to get some good sleep in order to be fit for the next day when the alarm clock will ring pretty early again. Beep, Beep, Beep….. And day 9 of our trip will start.
Carolin Wallmeyer from Germany.

Where are they? Going to GRAND CANYON

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Day 7: June 19

Happy Father’s Day to all our Dads and Host-Dads everywhere!
When we left our hotel this morning at 9am, we got to enjoy a drive through the mountains. During the drive, everyone told the funniest or the more awkward story that happened to us during our exchange. We learned some interesting things such as don’t wash your underwear in the sink or don’t let anyone push you in the snow. Before lunch we entered the state of Nevada and the desert. We had lunch on the road at Subway for most of us. This afternoon the drive wasn’t very exciting until we actually got to Las Vegas!! We saw it from far away and we were all disappointed not to go closer to the city of lights… But everything got better at night. After enjoying the swimming pool and the beautiful sun outside, we all met to go to dinner. And there, Surprise! We went to Las Vegas, drove down the Strip; saw all the Casinos, the (fake) Eiffel Tower, the (fake) Statue of Liberty… It was amazing and we all really liked it! For dinner, Walmart was our destination. Tomorrow we will be back on the road again, but we are not leaving until 11am!! It’s going to be a “Grasse Matinée” as we call it in French! See you tomorrow for some others good news!
Fiona Rappin, France

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Day 6: June 18th

Today we had to get up veeery early because we had a six hour ride to get to Yosemite National Park. We left at 7:30 from San Francisco and started the day watching a funny movie, and the time went by fast. One of us, Polly from Thailand, had her 17th birthday today and we sang birthday songs in all available languages. We stopped at an awesome Californian market at which there were a lot of animals. Some of the parrots even spoke English better than us. Many of us bought fresh Californian fruit. Most of us fell asleep and woke up within the amazing scenes of the park. It was very busy but we got the chance to get close to the highest water fall in the U.S. We counted two broken cameras and many soaked bodies as casualties. Fortunately it was very hot and therefore we were happy about the cooling water. Over the afternoon we saw some more amazing places and took many beautiful pictures. The most surprising and exciting was that there were actually some places with a lot of snow still around while we could walk around in shorts. Some of us used this opportunity to do some rolls through the snow and the snowballs were flying through the hot Californian air. On our whole ride through the beautiful countryside with sand hills on one side and snow, frozen lakes or swamps on the other side we were taking pictures and just enjoyed while we also watched another movie. We arrived in a little town at around 6:00pm and had time to relax and go to the pool before we had dinner at an Italian restaurant. After we opened a couple of trash cans around the hotel to make the bears come in. Everyone went to bed at 10:30. The four incredible writers of this blog voluntarily stayed up to write the blog because we still didn’t give up with seeing a bear through the window. Tonight we can sleep a little longer because we are not leaving until 9:00 A.M. If you want to hire the European writers of this post for any important and high paid work you can contact Fred.
Written by: Monica Sciannimanico from “Pastaland”, Karlo Konig from Croatia, Jan Wujec from Poland and Julius Loebbecke from Germany.
Written in Mammoth Lakes, CA

Day 5: June 17

Today, I had a lot of fun, so I decided to write the blog (:

This morning we woke up knowing that we would have a busy day in San Francisco. It is a big and beautiful city, full of hills and cute shops. After breakfast, we left the hotel and headed to San Francisco Bay. The group of 54 was divided in two; one would explore the area, while the other one would visit Alcatraz Island; my group visited the Island first. Alcatraz Island is located about a mile from San Francisco and it is now a National Park. The island was once an army fort and later on it became a penitentiary for high risk criminals. We visited the prison and learned a lot about its story; we also bought souvenirs, of course. We took the ferry back to the land and headed to Hard Rock Café to have lunch.

After lunch, my group had free time to enjoy San Francisco. We walked around Fisherman's Wharf, went to all the souvenir stores, and finally rode the famous San Francisco’s cable car. The afternoon was really enjoyable; we all liked the free time to shop. At 5:30pm, we left Pier 39 and went to the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bridge was once considered impossible to be built, but it was completed with less money than they would expect to spend. It is glorious and red, so we took a lot of pictures.

Then, we visited China Town. This area is filled with Chinese culture, so we couldn’t understand most of the signs in the stores. There were a lot of stores and restaurants. We chose to have dinner in one of those restaurants, which was a really good choice, in my opinion. We had a big meal with a lot of tasty Chinese dishes. After dinner, we came back to the hotel and now we have to sleep, because we leave early tomorrow.
Giovanna Querido Marcondes de Assis - Brazil