WE LOVE NY!!! (Empire State Building & Brooklyn Bridge)

North Manhattan from 86 floors up!!!

WELCOME TO THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING!

The Southern part of Manhattan...

We're on Wall Street!

We passed by the World Trade Center Project...Done in 2014. 

Reunion party?

Our BLOGGERS walking the Brooklyn Bridge!

The walk was fun and the view of New York City was amazing!

M & M World in Times Square (Julian, Emilie & Tari)

Hard Rock Cafe Times Square!

We <3 NY! It will be hard to say goodbye...

We started off the day with an exhilarating bus ride in 2 hours of New York traffic. Don’t worry, though, our amazing bus driver kept us highly entertained. James is simply the best.

First stop of the day, we discovered our inner King Kong and climbed the heights of the Empire State Building! We got a beautiful view of New York and lots of pictures. The best part was facing the angry tourists as we attempted a group photo in the small space on the observatory deck.

After a quick lunch break in South Side Sea Port, we visited the financial district with our tour guide. Juan has a perfect combination of a Puerto Rican accent, Bruno Mars smile, art history knowledge (including fun facts), and a hint of “funny”. We learned about the Stock Market and the building where George Washington was inaugurated. Then, we walked by the soon-to-be World Trade Center. It was interesting to learn about the Church of St. Paul that was completely untouched during 9/11 even though it was so close to the towers.

Next, we prepared ourselves for a hardcore workout with tennis shoes and lots of water; we were ready to take on the Brooklyn Bridge!! We got in a little trouble with the bikers when we were on their path, searching for the perfect photo opportunity. The view was absolutely breathtaking!

The moment everyone was waiting for… free time in Times Square! Most of us got a chance to experience the wonders of M&M world! The overwhelming smells and colors added to the unique qualities of the stores in New York City. If you were lucky, you got a few seconds of fame on the big screen in the middle of Times Square…SO COOL!!

At last, we ate dinner at the infamous Hard Rock Café.

With sore feet, full stomachs, millions of pictures, and a tear in our eye; we all waved our last farewell to the beautiful night skyline of NYC.

Blog written by: the fabulous four- Kiana (USA), Tanja & Tari (Germany), and Emilie (Belgium) 

NYC: LIBERTY, PEACE & CHINESE FOOD FOR ALL!

Welcome to the STATUE OF LIBERTY!!!

Let's do a running picture!!!

Walt, Val & Heta match Lady Liberty

Ping & Toshi enjoy the view from the ferry...

We're taking the subway from Battery Park up to Grand Central...

And we all made it! Now we can call ourselves New Yorkers ;)

Time for a visit at the United Nations!

We had a guided audio tour around the galleries, the General Assembly & Security Council

We left the hotel at 8 AM to go see the most popular sightseeing statue in US: The Statue of Liberty. Everyone was excited, and nobody got disappointed. But before going there, we had a little adventure going on a boat. All of this was happening with really nice weather outside. We took the ferry boat to the Liberty Island and had time to walk around, hang out and take jumping pictures in front of the 10 story-high statue. The view of the city was also pretty great from there…

After an awesome morning seeing the beautiful statue and taking pictures, we went to a fun ride in the subway. We stopped at Grand Central Station to eat lunch in the food court and we also had some time to shop there and walk around the huge train station.

Following our list of cool things to do, we went to see the United Nations. There, we had a tour, where we learned about all the member countries and the activities that UN does to help the world from starvation and war and disease. It was cool to go there because a lot of people know of the UN but do not know what the organization actually does.

Since everybody likes shopping, we had some time in SoHo- a neighborhood in Manhattan. After a whole day walking through NYC, everybody was starving, so we headed to Chinatown to eat in a typical Chinese Restaurant over there. Everybody learned how to use chopsticks and of course, we took a lot of pictures. And the last- before going back to the hotel we had some spare time in Chinatown to bargain for cheap I <3 NY t-shirts and other souvenirs (Made in China, of course!).

At the end of the day everyone was really happy and we are having an awesome experience in the “Big Apple” together.

Jonas- Germany

Amanda- Brazil

Titus- Lithuania

Sayuri- Japan

1st Day In “The City That Never Sleeps”- NEW YORK

Juan (our tour guide) beginning his tour with us

On our walking tour of Rockafellar Plaza

Annika, Lena, Christine & Lena from Germany enjoying their walk

Colombia University!

We all decided we will attend for college... together :)

Without words...

Just hanging out on the steps of...

...The world-famous MET!

Welcome to TIMES SQUARE!!! We are going to Broadway!

Our bloggers got famous in Times Square before becoming authors of our blog

We left our hotel early in the morning, around 8am. Everyone was still tired but that changed quickly when we finally saw New York’s skyline before going through the Lincoln Tunnel...We listened to "New York" by Jay Z and Alicia Keys four times during the bus ride! 

We met our tour guide, Juan (a really nice and friendly guy), at the Public Library. He was open-minded for questions and he did the best he could to explain New York’s lifestyle, history & geography.

The second stop was the Rockefeller Center; we took pictures with the golden statue surrounded by the flags of every nation, walked around and also stopped at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

 After a while we got back to our bus and we drove to Central Park. The beautiful nature compared to the big skyscrapers all over New York was attractive for runners, families, weddings and a lot of tourists!We walked through to see Strawberry Fields and the famous fountain that is in many movies and TV shows filmed in NY.

After driving through the Upper East Side, the next stop was Columbia University (Our future college :P). The campus was a nice background for a new group picture. We got back on the bus and saw lots of mansions, museums and tall buildings... And, of course, yellow taxi cabs! Then we got to the neighborhood Harlem and drove through, saw the Apollo Theathre and some other interesting places. We learned lots of history about New York City in only a few hours on the tour. We will meet Juan again on Monday to have a tour of a different part of the city... Can't wait!

Lunchtime – Stop at Greenwich Village! We had several options to get food, even Joe’s Pizza, which was in the Spiderman movies. The weather was kind of cloudy and it started to rain but luckily the sun came out again soon after.

Now it’s time for education: the Metropolitan Art Museum, the biggest in the U.S.- and one of the best museums in North America. We saw art from Egypt, Middle East, Africa, Ancient Greece, Andy Warhol, Prada clothes, paintings, sculptures, musical instruments, furniture... They have everything there! Of course, none of us could see everything in only a few hours, but we walked around and chose what we thought was most interesting. After looking around at the Met, we took the bus to Fifth Avenue, where they have the most expensive streets in the world... We got off the bus and took pictures, shopped a bit, and just walked the streets of this amazing city. 

For dinner we walked to an Italian Restaurant, Sbarro's, which was super yummy! And after that the group split up to go to a Broadway show, the other half had free time to explore Times Square. Many of our group went to see the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and were very impressed with the beautiful voices, costumes and cool effects. We got so excited about the show that we forgot how long the day was and how tired we were and just enjoyed every minute! Then right after, we all were so happy to see the bus and get to rest and meet the others. 

Shopping, taking a bunch of pictures, and being famous for 15 seconds on the TV screen at Times Square have made that day an unforgettable one! 

-Lina & Christine (Germany)

NIAGARA FALLS!!!

Our first group picture :)

One of the amazing views from Maid of the Mist- The American Falls!

Eve (Thailand), representing YFU at Niagara Falls...

"We <3 Hard Rock Cafe!" -Thai girls

Canada is right behind us!!!

The second day of East Coast trip! It’s the first day we really start travelling. 

We left the hotel at 8 am to go to Niagara Falls! All of us were so excited. While we were on the bus, we saw the mist rising from the falls. We got there at 8.45 then we went immediately to take a million pictures. Some of us took pictures of just the Niagara Falls, some of us took pretty pictures, and some us took goofy pictures! 

Then we went to take our first group picture and got into the elevators to go down and ride the boat into the falls. The elevators were so cool! They took just 25 second to get down over 50 meters! We went to see the falls from the river view. We got to ride the boat called Maid of the Mist- which we saw on the movie Bruce Almighty :)  We got ponchos, but we still got wet... It was so AWESOME!!! From the boat, Niagara Falls was so gorgeous. We were surround by the mist. We also saw Canada from the other side, and we can kind of say we were in Canada because we were in between Canada and USA in the water. Then we took the elevator back up. And took pictures of Niagara Falls from the top side. 

After that, we took a break to have lunch. We could have lunch wherever we want. Some of us went to the food court, others to Hard Rock café. But some of us went to buy souvenirs while we were having lunch time. After a delicious lunch, we had a little bit more time to buy some souvenirs and took great pictures then we met again at 12.45 and walked across the bridge to the Goat Island to see another side of Niagara Falls which is really pretty! Arriving the other side of the river, we took a short walk and relaxed a bit before going to our next activity. We had to wear the yellow rain coats for walking in the Cave of the Winds- there was a boardwalk where we could walk right next to the waterfalls. It was so AMAZING! It was windy while we were down by the falls. Water was splashing us. We felt like we almost fly. Hahaha. We saw a lot of birds and one of us got the bird poops on the head! It was almost 3 in the afternoon so it was time to go to New York city! Yay! It took 7 hours to get there. We watched Mamma Mia and What Women Want while we were on the bus. And a lot of us slept! 

Then it was time for dinner! We stopped at Uno restaurant. The pizzas were so yummy and we also had brownies and ice-cream for dessert. Then we continued back on the road to New York City!

Today, everyone getting to know each other a lot more. It was a good thing to start the trip! Good night everyone!

Tamtam, Pan, Eng, May, Mine – Thailand

Vera- Germany

Welcome to the East Coast!!!

Welcome to Buffalo!!! (This is a buffalo...)

The staff was there to greet students from 13 countries!

After check in, we all hung out, talked & learned words in other languages

Then, finally, it was dinner time! (Julian- Belgium & Jonas- Germany)

Our bloggers- Heta, Val & Waltteri- hard at work in the lobby...

This is it! The East Coast Trip is about to begin...


The first patch of students arrived as early as 9am and the last people made their way to the hotel 5 o'clock.Exchange students from all over the US- and the world (of course)- are now about to begin their tour around the East Coast to experience and see the culture of places, such as Niagara Falls, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Myrtle Beach, and Orlando!

During the first evening, after all 52 of us arrived, we ate dinner at the hotel, and learned about the trip and what is ahead of us. After the orientation people headed to the pool and gym to get to know each other better. Tomorrow we will see the magnificent Niagara Falls!!!

We look forward to sharing our fantastic adventures with you along the way...



Valeria (Mexico)
Heta & Waltteri (Finland)

WELCOME TO THE EAST COAST TRIP 2012

Here it is, the EAST COAST TRIP! Get ready to take in the best of the East: historical Philadelphia, the amazing Niagara Falls, fabulous and glamorous New York City, beautiful Myrtle Beach, and the dream world of DISNEY! It's going to be 14 days 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!!!

BELO USA TRAVEL