Back in Grand Rapids

Good morning!
(i admit it's already 12.30AM but i feel like it's still morning since i slept quite long:))

Right now i'm back in Grand Rapids with my first host family after spending one week in California. I'm so happy to see them again, it feels a little bit like coming home! Because i was so focused on giving you a summary of each day, i almost forgot to tell you in general about the trip! Normally, we would wake up at 06.30AM, showered, get dressed, eat breakfast, make our luggage, take down the tent and load the trailer. At 08.00 we were ready to take off! In total we drove 4000 miles and crossed 10 states! It's really amazing how we all became friends in this short period of time. I enjoyed this trip, it's a great way of seeing different things and meeting new people, learning about their cultures also. In the beginning i had the feeling that there was a bit too much driving but we had to cover a certain distance of course. It was sad to say goodbye and realize that we might never see each other again... But we keep in touch and who knows, maybe one day i will go to Korea and visit my best friend Lucy! Okay, where were we in the trip? First day at Grand Canyon i think. So lets get further from there on!

October 15th: Grand Canyon
Seven of us decided to check out the canyon! We prepared ourselves by taking enough water (approximately 1 liter per hour hiking), a few granulla bars and a rain jacket. We hiked to Skeleton Point and the view while going down in the canyon was incredible. At first i couldn't believe we were really walking IN the canyon:) At noon we reached our point and the boys wanted to go further down to get closer to the river. Fionulla, Emily and me decided to hike back up. Easily said though, but a lot harder to do:) At some points we only walked for 10 minutes and felt like dying! But once we reached the top, we were pretty proud of ourselves! Back on the camping ground, we desperately needed to do laundry since our clothes were covered by a layer of red dust. Unfortunately things came out of the washer more dirty than we put them in because the dust was now all over, even clothes that didn't had dust on before turned out to be red...:) Since everybody warned us for a really cold night below freezing, we decided to sleep with four people in one tent instead of two in order to keep each other warm. Putting two layers of pants on, one thermic shirt, two t-shirts, three jumpers, gloves, a hat and two extra pair of blankets i was quite warm but still shivering sometimes.

October 16th: Lake Powell, Arizona
After swimming in the coldest but most refreshing lake ever we headed to our camping. This place was owned by an ex tour leader from Trek America and was really well provided, there was a dorm (so we could sleep inside), the usual shower facilities and best of all a chill out place with music, seats and a pool table. James and Alan learned me how to play and i won two games. It was one of the most nicest evenings, probably because it was so unexpected, we danced like crazy (for those in the scouts: it really seemed like a scouts party:)), played pool, had fun and went to bed maybe a little bit too late :)

October 17th and 18th: Zion National Park, Arizona
The first day in the park was a little lazy, we had a chilly afternoon, we even made some pancakes! The next day, five of our group did a hike called Angel Landing, pretty difficult and since my back was really hurting i decided not to join them. Instead we walked to the town, had lunch there and planned to do the Riverwalk. Pretty unprepared (only one bottle of water for the three of us and one cookie) we took the shuttle bus up to the point where we started our trip. Luckily it was easy to walk but really beautiful views near the river. We didn't had the time to walk in the river itself because we had to be back on time since Lucy was cooking that night. After dinner we played Black Jack (also called 21) to practice for Vegas:)

October 19th and 20th: Las Vegas, Nevada
Let me describe Vegas in a few words to give you an impression what this city is like: impressive neon lights, casinos called New York New York/Venetia/Paris, the Eifel tower, a big fountain with an amazing water show every 15 minutes, M&M world, roller coasters, film set for a lot of movies (indeed, we felt like in the movie 'Ocean's Eleven'), a train connection between two casino's, the Stratosphere, gambling people no matter what time of the day it is, Freemont street experience (see pictures), mega outlet store, a fake statue of Liberty,... This is Sin City! At night we went gambling, wandered around the strip (this is a four mile section of Las Vegas Boulevard with the main casino's and hundreds of hotels), enjoyed the fountain show and asked ourselves how people could come here and gamble over and over again, most of the times losing their money. I realized i'm not a good gambler, most of the times it seemed too obvious that i would lose :)

October 21th: Los Angeles, California
We arrived quite late in LA, part because we had a flat tire on the last part of the trip. Fate or not:)? Luckily Rob knew how to fix it! At 06.00PM it was time for me to say goodbye to everybody (most of them would stay one more night in the hotel) and i felt so sad leaving them!

During my week in California, i had a chance to visit different optometry practices, stay with different people and learn different things from each of them! Their hospitality and kindness is amazing! I will tell you about my experience later!

The pictures are online! You can see them by clicking on 'diavoorstelling' on the right side of this blog. A website called http://picasaweb.google.com/vandeneyndelynn will open. Click 'Lynn' and select an album. I've put the pictures in different albums, sorted state by state.

Bye bye x