APR 16 2010 - White House, Smithsonian Museum, Holocaust Museum, Union Station and Mount Vernon...

Today was the last day of our trip… but it was an awesome day!

We started out the day at the White House. It felt pretty cool to be so close to the president. It was unbelievable, because we have seen this place so many times on TV but today we were actually there!

After that we headed to the Air and Space Museum, which is part of the Smithsonian museums. It is a really amazing place: they even had the original car from the first moon landing.

From there we went to Union Station, where we grabbed lunch and had some time to shop.

Then we went to the United States Holocaust Museum. It is the biggest holocaust museum in the world. It was truly shocking and touching to see all the videos and pictures. It inspired us to act in a way that nothing like this will ever happen again.

Afterwards we went to Mount Vernon, where George Washington - the first president of the United States - used to live. The house also includes a museum where we could learn a lot about George Washington and what he did for his young nation. The program ended with a colonial dinner.

This day was just as amazing as any other day of this trip. For sure none of us will ever forget this week. We learned and saw a lot in this short time.

And we found friends for life!

See you everybody!

Linda Ridder – Germany

Angela Delgado Estrada – Colombia

Ling Luo – China

Dinner at Mount Vernon

Tomb of George Washington

Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon

Union Station

White House

Group at the White House

Apr 15 2010 - Washington DC Tour!!!

Dinner at Hard Rock Cafe

Washington Memorial

II World War Memorial

Vietnam Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Linda Raider (Germany)

Hello everyone...

After a nice night of sleep we woke up we had breakfast and left for our tour.

We started at the Air Force Memorial because when you are under the memorial, you can check the size of it. It represents the lost man formation and there are 3 arcs, but normally would be with 4... so it was impressive the shape and the size! We also checked the Pentagon and we learned the head quarter for the defense of the US.

After that, we headed to Washington DC... (we are staying in Virginia) and we arrived at Roosevelt Memorial. He was the longest lasting president in the american history and the people of the US did not think he was strong enough to lead the country. There are 4 rooms inside and a lot of waterfalls and a nice open atmosphere. Walking we headed to the Jefferson Memorial and we had a surprise... the Marine 1 (President's helicopter) landed on the south wing of the White House! It was nice!

Lincoln was the next stop... the biggest Memorial in DC with a nice view of the Mall and the Washington Memorial. Right next, we checked the Vietnam and the Korean Memorial...

Georgetown was our stop for lunch and some shopping. Nice old city... pretty place... it was calm and nice.

Arlington Cemetery was our last top with the changing of the guards and we walked around to get there. It was pretty impressive the synchrony. They change guards every 30 minutes... We walked to check JFK's grave.

We ended our day at Hard Rock Cafe for a dinner.

Until tomorrow... night night

Res Bosshard - Switzerland

Thomas Klemenz - Switzerland

Gisli Barthelmess - Germany

Apr 14 2010 - New York - Washington DC

Capitol

Library of Congress

Apr 13 2010 - NBC Studios Tour, Ground Zero, Empire State Building, United Nations...

Hello World!!!

Our moring started leaving the hotel early and the we went straight on to the NBC where could admire a wonderful performance from Edoardo (Italy) reading news. After that some shopping followed by ground zero and Financial District.

After we visited the Empire State Building with its amazing view all over New York City and last but not least the Broadway show The Phantom of the Opera. On our way back to our hotel in New Jersey, we were able to stop the bus and get out for one last picture and good-bye to New York City. The skyline was beautiful!

The best part of the day was the Phantom of the Opera! It is the longest running Broadway show in the history of the stage! It is about a girl who is secretly taught to sing by a "phantom" who is actually just a man who loves her. Unfortunately, she doesn't love him back - at least that's what she eventually realizes. The Phantom then tried to win her over but ends up just pushing her away even more. In the end, the Phantom loves her enough to let her go with the man she actually loves. The music was amazing and the actors were even better. It was really cool when we entered the bus and the leaders had the music from the show playing for us!

Tonight we had to say good-bye to half our group. It was very sad! Part of the group is heading home while the rest head off to Washington D.C. It was a great stay in NYC and we will never forget the people, places, and experiences! These are definitely friends forever EVER!

by Ida, Maren, Frankie, Eddie, Jonas

New York Skyline... our last stop

Laura (monitor) and Jonas (Germany) at the Phantom of the Operah

Ready to watch the Phantom of the Operah, our Broadway Show

United Nations

United Nations

United Nations

Top of the Empire State Building - 86th floor

Rockfeller Center

Apr 12 2010 - Central Park, Times Square, Harlem, Financial District, Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Bridge...

Hallo! Privet! Hoi! Hei! Wassup!

All six of us are going to write one blog. There are lots of languages and lots of excited students so here we go!

Florian: That alarm clock at 7am. Ready for a big day. First thing I thought of is kuchistli (kitchen box).

Ben: I don’t get it, why did you say that?

Florian: Just because. It’s the first thing I thought.

Ben: Okay, that’s strange. Well how did you start your day off today?

Yulia: After wanting to break my alarm, we got dressed and prepared, and went to breakfast. It was delicious! We got in the bus and went to….I can’t remember it was so long ago! Where did we go first?

Johana: We went to Time Square! Then we met Jane there!

Yulia: Oh yeah, Jane! Then we went to Central Park with her.

Florian: Hey, Should I say something?

Ben: No Florian, just wait. J Tasha, how was Jane?

Tasha: Jane was such an amazing person! I love her humor; it was very different, but so much fun!

Maren: Yeah she was enthusiastic about everything! She was talking a lot, but I learned so much!

Florian: That is true. Jane taught us a lot, and she was an experience we will never forget.

Johanna: We had a long tour with Jane, and we went to central park, ground zero, and the bull at the financial district. We did some strange thing to the bull that Americans do for good luck.

Florian: We scratched his…

Tasha: balls! But it’s just out of metal, and it apparently is what all the Wall Street people do for good financial luck.

Yulia: Yeah. That was… interesting.

Maren: After, we went to lunch in Greenwich Village and it was a quiet pretty town with lots of good places to have lunch.

Ben: Okay well what was your favorite part guys?

Florian: My favorite part was walking across the Brooklyn bridge. We took a lot of pictures and I like walking across bridges. I felt like a real New Yorker.

Maren: The city was so pretty! I never want to leave! My favorite part was shopping later in Time Square!

Yulia: My favorite part of the day was the hip hop class! It was so much fun! I learned how to move my body.

All: Yeah! That was so cool! So much fun!

Ben: That was hard... But fun. The meal after tasted so much better after that workout!

Tasha: The food was super delicious!

Yulia: It was sooo much food! I’ve never seen such big portions.

Johanna: After we went shopping, I ran out of time! We had to run from store to store and run to the bus! Time square is so beautiful at night.

Ben: Are you guys ready for tomorrow? It seems like we have a big day!

Maren: Broadway! World’s biggest Macys!

Tasha: United Nations!

Florian: Empire State Building!

Yulia: NBC!

Ben: Okay. Well. Go to bed. Good Night! Buenas Noches!

Yulia: Spokoynoy nochi!

Florian: Gute Nacht

Maren: God Natt!

Tasha: Gutinacht!

By Johanna Braeunig, Germany AFS

Florian Dalstian, Germany YFU

Yulia Kalinova, Russia PAX

Tasha Romer, Switzerland YFU

Maren Andresen, Norway YFU

Benjamin Gutierrez, USA (chaperone)

Hip Hop Class

Hip Hop Class

Hip Hop Class

Hip Hop Class

Our chaperone Ben on Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge

Girls!

Guys!

Group with the overview of Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan.

Financial District - The bull!

Strawberry Fields - "Imagine all the people... living life in peace"!

Central Park

Central Park

Our tour guide Jane giving us information

Apr 11 2010 - Statue of Liberty - The Metropolitan Museum of Art - 5th Avenue - Chinatown... Beautiful day!!!

Hey, everybody! Welcome to New York City!

It was our first day in New York! We woke up early in the morning, so we could do all the things we wanted. The first thing we did - we went to see the STATUE OF LIBERTY! It was kind of freezing on the ferry, but the sun was shining and as soon as we got to the Liberty Island it started to warm up.

We saw the New York Sky Line and everybody has at least 10 pictures with it, haha ( probably more then 10). Then we divided to groups and most of us spent about an hour at the local shop buying souvenirs. Then we went to see the actual statue of liberty and took pictures with it. The statue is not as big as I imagined, but other people thought it was smaller, so you never know until you see it yourself. Then we took a ferry back to New York and got to our bus. We went to the pier to grab some lunch and shop a little bit more.

We went to a bus and we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Everybody took pictures in front of the museum. Inside of the museum, it was so huge. You can spend one day in there if you want look everything!! Those stuff are from everywhere in the world, like Europe, Egypt, Asia. It was amazing we can see everything in New York. We went to ancient Egypt part and saw mummies walls of pyramids. We saw European art, pictures of Monee, and van Gogh. And we saw sculptures from ancient Europe. And we saw modern photograph from the American part. We also get some cool stuff from the shop.

We went to shopping on 5th avenue in Manhattan. Everybody bought something and had a very good time. Then we got on the bus again, and went to Chinatown to have a dinner. We ate some vegetables, soup, fried rice, chicken, and meat. The food were so good.

We have more stories tomorrow… Thanks for following the blog!

Kseniya Mironova, Russia

Maho Ueda, Japan

Misaki Shinojima, Japan

Students at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ksenya (Russia) with the NYPD

Statue of Liberty

All group with Manhattan skyline behind.

Arriving at Liberty Island

Res and Gisli in a nice reflection...