This is going to be one of my last blogs, this one being about the amazing trip I made through the U.S.! I am writing it in English because one, it’s a lot easier to talk about this trip copying the blog we kept (in English) and two, because I want all my American friends to be able to read it!

We spent our first days in the city of Los Angeles, and as I mentioned in my previous blog, we’re staying in a beautiful hotel. During our stay here we’ve had the opportunity to visit Universal Studios in Hollywood, Santa Monica and Venice beach!

The silver van left with 15 excited people at 7 am for Hollywood. When we got there, we walked on the Walk of Fame and tried to catch a glimpse of the famous white letters of ‘Hollywood’. Unfortunately there was too much fog to be able to see the sign clearly, some of us claimed to have seen it, but I didn’t. Our next stop was a cafe in Hollywood where we ate breakfast. Pancakes and coffee! The perfect remedy to a lack of sleep.. If only we knew what was waiting for us these next three weeks! I don’t think anyone got more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep in those tents…

After breakfast we drove to the Universal Studios theme park. The first thing we did was taking a picture with the whole group in front the Universal Studios Globe, something I never even dreamed of seeing. We got our tickets and explored the park in little groups, as our big group of 13 students was too big. For lunch we all met at Krusty Burger from the tv show the Simpsons and exchanged our experiences of the park. Afterwards we split up again and divided our time wisely to explore the rest of the park. My personal favorites were Hogwarts and the Universal Studios Tour. Most of us expected there to be a lot of thrilling rides, but instead there were a lot of 3D rides where you didn’t move a lot but it still felt like you were falling from a building or were flying. I can’t say I liked it better than actual rides, but it was a very cool experience! At 5:30 pm we met at the Globe again and made our way out of the park.

For dinner we went to Santa Monica beach and walked to an Italian restaurant. All the portions were very big and we had a lot of leftovers, since the place sold dinner to share with 4 or 5 people... We just hadn’t figured that out until later. After dinner we went to the Santa Monica Pier and enjoyed the lights of the rides and Ferris wheel lighting up the dark sky. Because we all wanted to see Venice Beach, we drove there although it was already dark and couldn’t see a lot of the beach. The nicest feeling was taking our shoes off and walking barefoot through the sand! I’ve always loved the beach, so it was worth going there anyway. We even made a stop at Muscle Beach, where there’s this outside gym right by the beach. Then it was time to go back to the hotel, which was fine because everyone was very tired after this long, but amazing day.

From California to Nevada, a couple of days further in to our trip we made our way to Las Vegas. We had time to experience the fantastic atmosphere of this city full of cool nightlife and casinos!

After 4.5 hours of driving, we arrived in Las Vegas! When we got there it was very hot and after a quick tour of the Strip in the van, we were all happy to spend some time by the pool at the hotel. We ordered pizza and had our own little pool party.

At 7 pm we rented a real Las Vegas party bus and toured the Strip again. We stopped to take a look at a wedding chapel, where our driver told us he could marry us if we wanted to, and then the tour went on to Fremont street, downtown Las Vegas, where we could see some casinos. On Fremont street there was also a special light show; It was displayed on the ceiling so we all laid down on the ground to get a clear view of the lights dancing across the surface. Some other people joined us and we got a few funny looks but it was a lot of fun! Back at the party bus we had a really good time, we danced and talked and bonded as a group. It was the highlight of the day, for sure! We also stopped at the famous Las Vegas sign to take a group picture.

After a great time on the party bus, we all got some free time to explore Vegas ourselves before we walked back to the hotel and got a good night sleep, the last night in a real bed before we’d get to New Orleans.

We left Las Vegas knowing we’d start camping now. Everything still felt very unreal, but I think our first night camping set that straight really fast. Setting up the tents was an experience by itself, since some of us had never camped before. We had already done groceries – riding around in the carts, working on the list of stuff we needed to get.

Before we got to the Grand Canyon, we passed Route 66, and took pictures there. We stopped in the town where “Cars” the movie is based on, got bandanas and great burgers for lunch. Setting up camp later was a struggle, since the wind was blowing pretty hard. But we managed, and after we were done we went back into the van, basically the place we live in considered how much time we spent in here together.

Arriving at the Grand Canyon, our driver told us to cover our eyes with our new bandanas, and get into a line. It took us forever to walk the short path to a place with a good view, but it’s not easy to walk blindfolded! I’m sure the video of us taking our bandanas off must have been pretty funny, since we couldn’t believe our eyes. It was absolutely gorgeous! We had some more free time to take pictures and later that evening we had “champagne” (apple cider) while watching the sunset.

The first night camping was a little uncomfortable, to say the least, but in a way it was a lot of fun too. Early the next morning, we caught another quick glimpse of the Grand Canyon before moving on to Monument Valley. About 3 hours later we entered Monument Valley - we could tell by the orange-red looking rocks that appeared outside our windows. It is where the Navajo Indians lived for many years. Sadly we got held up by an accident right before the campground and lost an hour. Our planned jeep tour was pushed back half an hour as well and we could eat something before the tour would start. We couldn’t really cook a whole meal, so we ended up eating tortilla wraps with barbecue sauce and salami in the parking lot… Something we did often being on the road all the time.

After lunch, our driver, a Navajo, picked us up for the jeep tour through Monument Valley’s most famous spots. We wore our bandanas to cover up our mouths and noses because the wind blew sand everywhere. Some of the rocks looked like Snoopy, a sleeping dragon or a fat man. With our wild fantasy, a few of us even saw a fox in the colors of the side of the rocks. We saw holes in the walls, murals and had an awesome view! The tour lasted 2 hours and then we ate dinner that Navajos prepared for us. It was like a really thick tortilla with meat, beans, tomatoes and lettuce on it, and we all really enjoyed the local meal.

Before going to the campground we stopped at some places to take pictures. One of them was a sign which signified the border between Arizona and Utah. Also the road where Tom Hanks filmed the running scene in the end of Forest Gump was a stop and we all recreated it, which was really funny to do. Everyone was very excited to go the campground and connect to the wifi, since no one had service and had gone without internet for more than a day. But when we arrived it didn’t work and we had to deal with disconnection again. It was sad, really, how bad we needed the connection... At least all of us could take a shower now and we felt clean again. Setting up camp the second time was a lot easier already and after a small camping fire our day ended. We watched the stars for a little bit but couldn’t make it a late night since we needed to be up at 6:30 am the next morning for our 6.5 hour drive to our next destination.

The day started off early, as we left to go to Roswell, New Mexico. The town is known for aliens, and radioactivity! So we wore little hats made out of aluminum foil to protect our brains from getting sucked out by the aliens. We took a picture with Bob the alien and later went to an alien museum. The exhibition mainly covered theories about flying ufos seen on earth and if aliens have been among us. And if there has been - the government has probably tried to cover it, as the alien fanatics believe! We did find out that one of the girls in our group, Aline, is probably an alien since we only had to switch two letters in her name to spell it out: Aline -> Alien. (I don’t think I believe in aliens though..)

After 2 hours well spent in Roswell and our brains still safe, the party-van left for Carlsbad. The landscape was very similar most of the time; large desert left and right. It was still quite fascinating, realizing how large the United States really is, as you can be driving for hours and you’ll still be looking at the same.

In Carlsbad it was time to venture deep down in the earth. Carlsbad Caverns is well known globally and it is an important landmark of the United States. We descended our fears of the bats and were fascinated by the huge cave ‘rooms’ as big as football fields, pools clear as mirrors, walls looking like popcorn or chicken nuggets (maybe we were a little hungry), and stone giants. To describe how big it was, the tour took over 2 hours and there were still rooms left unexplored!

After going back up, we were all tired and hungry and so we decided it was time to head back to camp and enjoy some delicious Italian meatballs. It was our first time cooking dinner at camp and it was a big relief that nothing was set on fire and that no explosions took place! Unfortunately some of us had to wait since the leaders and a few of us left again to see the bats fly out at twilight to eat. After dinner and some time just chatting and laughing, we could happily say that this was a great end to another day on the road and it was time for bed.

We woke up extra early the next day because we were going to have a busy day. It was time for the trip to Texas, the state where I had lived my entire exchange year! We started with walking the river walk of San Antonio close to the Alamo, and as we walked by the river it kept getting hotter, something most ‘Texans’ among us had expected all along. There weren’t a lot of people on the river walk as we got there pretty early and the stores were closed, but we found a nice, colorful place that served great breakfast.

We headed back to the van and the next destination was Six Flags, the theme park in San Antonio! When we got there everyone had to get some sunscreen since it was about 38 degrees Celsius (!!!) and most of us – even the ones who had lived here for so long – were not prepared to deal with that a full day lacking some sunscreen. We divided ourselves into two groups and walked around at the amusement park all day long, the rides were so good I almost lost my voice screaming and laughing!

After a super fun day with a lots of laugher, new memories and sore feet, we ate burgers back at the camp. When we finished dinner we went to the pool to cool off, we played around with a volleyball and it was yet again a perfect ending of a perfect day! One of the other girls, Nadja, and I had stayed up late just talking and it was nice to see (and feel) the mosquitos disappear as the night went on. Ramon ended up joining us when it was around 2 in the morning, and when he found out there was a cockroach in his tent, he begged us to sleep outside with him. We ended up saying yes, but we barely slept since the sun was already coming up. And unfortunately we didn’t realize the couple of mosquitos still out there, and I ended up dragging my sleeping bag back into my tent for the last hour or so, to get some sleep.

Early as always, we left our campsite in San Antonio to head to our campground in Austin. Because all of us ‘Texan’ students always talked about Whataburger, we made sure to go there for lunch so the rest of the group could try it. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, which made me happy because I love it! It was so hot that all of us wanted to go swimming again so our plan was to go to Barton springs, a huge outside pool, but our plans changed quickly as we saw the waiting line. We still wanted to go swimming so we went to a bunch of waterfalls close to our camp. Because it was so amazing we spent most of the afternoon there, swimming and sunbathing. We were really lucky with the weather here, but what did we expect from Texas other than sun (and burning heat)?

After a quick shower, we went to downtown Austin at night. We tried some of the best food truck BBQ and smoothies for dinner. We wanted to see some street art so we went to a graffiti park where the view of downtown was awesome. To experience Austin even more we went to some thrift shops before we headed to 6th street to have snow cones at Jim Jim’s. It was Ramon who told us that we had to try those since he knew Austin well after spending his exchange year there. After walking around a bit longer we went back to the camp to get some sleep since, surprise, surprise, we had to leave early the next morning.

Before we’d leave Texas completely, we made a stop in Houston (very close to where I spent my exchange year) and went to one of the Astros baseball games. It wasn’t as fun as we expected, but I got to see my friend Taylor that was at the game as well and this made the stop in Houston well worth it!! It was hard to say goodbye again, especially since this time I’d leave without knowing when I’d be in the area ever again.

But when the game was over, it was time to hop back into the van and continue our 7 hour trip to Louisiana. We spent one more night at a campsite somewhere between Houston and New Orleans, and hung out in the laundry room until it was time for bed which was almost a set routine by now. Why the laundry room you ask? Well, it had air conditioning and after a while, us poor Europeans craved some isolation from the Texas heat.

The first thing we did in in Louisiana was visiting the swamp and do a little boat tour to see alligators. We found some very quickly and the guide started feeding them with marshmallows. He demonstrated how strong the gator’s tails are by making them swim out of the water and jump to reach the food. We went deeper into the woods with the boat and saw wild hogs, which we also fed with marshmallows. (We didn’t understand why marshmallows, but basically it’s because they’re inexpensive and it’s just sugar so they actually come out toe at them). After two hours of exploring the swamp we went back and took the van to New Orleans. Once we arrived at the Big Easy, some of us wanted to see the Voodoo cemetery, but we had no guide to visit it. We debated whether to wait until someone would be available, but it was really hot and we knew our (long wished for) hotel was only 5 minutes away. On top of the heat, we were all extremely tired from the past days, so a nap in a real bed sounded amazing at the time.

We decided to meet up at 5 pm in the lobby of the hotel and walk around the French quarter so we get more familiar with the city and find a place to eat dinner. So off we went, taking naps and reorganizing our suitcases. After some delicious Cajun food in a cute little restaurant, we were free to explore the town by ourself until 11. We figured it would be funny if we’d dye our hair in some crazy color… Eventually only Ingrid, Lea, and Nicola bought some bleach and blue hair dye. They were coloring their hair until late at night since it took about an hour for it to be ready to wash out and they had to dye it twice, so they were up until way past 2. Most of us kept them company until 2, but after that we all gladly went to bed, excited for our free day.

The second day in N’awlins started off with something we had all looked forward to for almost two weeks: sleeping in! (Sad, I know). A few of us set an alarm to meet up for brunch, but most of us decided to sleep in and meet downstairs at 1. I think all of us almost forgot what sleeping in a real bed felt like after all these nights of camping. The people I walked around with decided to get breakfast (more like lunch since it was only a little past 1) at IHOP. Now this isn’t the typical thing to do in New Orleans – or so our guide said – but most of us had never had it and our time in the U.S. was running out. I’ve had it a couple times already but I could never get enough of their pancakes.

We didn’t have a whole day left after our long lunch, and we went off without a real good plan. After walking for almost an hour in the heat, we stopped and looked at our surroundings. We’d left the city behind and without a plan, we could have expected this. So me and a few others turned around and made our way back to find the H&M and Urban outfitters. Personally, I had spent a few days in New Orleans during Thanksgiving already, so the last thing on my mind was searching for all the “important” stuff in the city, but I do feel like some of the group have a really different image of New Orleans than what it is.

Around 6 we got a little hungry so we went looking for another Cajun restaurant and settled on Corner Oyster House in the French Quarter. Before we got our food we even saw a live jazz band right outside the restaurant and during dinner we caught the first part of the US – Argentina soccer game (which made me very happy!). Afterwards we split up and most of us slowly made our way back to the hotel, since the lack of sleep we are all dealing with started to catch up on us, and the thought of a real, nice bed made us eager to go back.

At 8 in the morning we – well, most of us – were ready to leave for Memphis. Two of us didn’t set their alarm loud enough and the comfy beds made them sleep in on accident. We still managed to be on the road by 8:30 and the 6.5 hour drive could start!! Which, funnily, didn’t even look like much after being on the road all the time. If there was one thing for sure; we were never bored in our own little party-van!

After two great and interesting days in New Orleans, it was time to head up north to our next stop, the state of Tennessee! We got to camp pretty late and after having dinner we all went right to the pool. Even though it wasn’t as humid as in Texas, it’s still very warm all the time, but we shouldn’t complain! Heat over rain, at all times!

We decided to go to Sun Studios the next day, in downtown Memphis. This is the famous studio where a lot of celebrities recorded their music back in the days, both Elvis and Johnny Cash recorded their music here! The music adventure doesn’t stop here though, after Memphis it was time to head for Nashville, world capital of (country) music!

After setting up our tents at the campground in Nashville we headed into the city. It’s not only known for its music, but also the typical boots and hats that are common in the south. Me and two other girls decided to buy their own cowboys boots, a nice souvenir from our year here, since we all lived in Texas for the year. We spent the rest of the evening at the Wildhorse Saloon where we learned how to line dance! We listened to live country music and had a nice dinner. Getting back to camp, it started to rain and the girl I was sharing a tent with and I had decided we could sleep under the stars for once, so we never set up our tent. Since we were up and chilling in the laundry room already, we ran outside, gathered our suitcases, and ended up crashing in there. Most of the others decided to join us, since their tents were getting wet from the inside out, and so we ended up having our own little sleepover in the laundry room!

We got to Hartford, Tennessee, quite early since our drive for the day wasn’t too long. Some of us even complained it was too short to catch up on sleep… Oh well! After arriving at the camp site and having done our normal routine of setting up camp, we hung out by the river right next to camp. Me and four others went swimming in the clear water, enjoying the flowing river and the nature around us. After having a swim, the Swedes among us decided that we all should celebrate Swedish midsummer, one of the biggest festivities there is in Sweden. We built our own little ‘May pole’ and had to do these typical Swedish dances around it… It was a little weird, but the students from Sweden seemed to have the time of their lives, so we went with it.

After having some make-do hotdogs for dinner, we decided to celebrate 4th of July in advance, since we’d be flying home the 30th of June. Our driver had bought fireworks and fired them off right by the river in the dark. A great ending of a great day, again!

Before we would get to Washington D.C., we had one more day and night at camp. We started out the day packing our stuff and gathering to a place close to our camp in Hartford to go rafting! This was one of the things a lot of us looked forward to the most, and it was an amazing experience! I think everyone had a great time on the river. After this, we travelled even further up north and had a Swiss meal at camp in the complete dark. Our tents had been set up though, and laundry was being done by then, but it was still a late dinner. The plan was to go to a real American drive in movie this night, but our driver came back from our neighbors at camp with a new proposal. He told us the group next to us was going off-roading with jeeps and had asked all of us to come. The drive in movie was long forgotten as soon as he proposed this and we all quickly divided us and got into the different jeeps. This must have been one of the most unforgettable nights we had this entire trip, and it was indescribably amazing! I could see the stars clear as they could be and the whole trip at night was incredible.

We were all happy that we got to visit Washington D.C during the trip, since it’s not very common going there, but what would our trip be without a stop in this historic capital? Almost way too quickly we got to this fascinating city, as this meant our camping days were almost over and the trip would soon come to an end.

The first evening we went into The Mall to see some of the monuments lit up in the dark. Some of us were a little bit confused of the name ”The Mall”, we thought it was an actual shopping mall although it is a huge park with monuments, museums and galleries. We had time to go to the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veteran Memorial and even more.. Afterwards we went to the White House to have a look before we went to camp for some rest for the coming free day in D.C.

After breakfast the next day we drove into D.C again. Our day started out at the Smithsonian castle, where we could get some more information about the different museums and attractions the city had to offer, which really is a lot! We spilt up in groups and got to see the White House, US Capitol, Museum of Natural History and much more. In the afternoon some of us wanted to rent bikes to get across the city, but time was running out and we found out they would probably decline some of our cards since they weren’t from America. So we walked back to the museums and from there we headed on to The Martin Lither King Memorial and The Jefferson Memorial before having to go back to the van, since it started to rain.

We headed out from Washington D.C. to the Big Apple, New York City! Our camping days had officially come to an end and the soft hotel beds in Queens, New York, were waiting for us. Everybody was exited for the city that never sleeps, but also sad about the fact that it would be the end of our road trip and exchange year here. In the evening we went to a Portuguese restaurant and we sung loud and clear for Roosanne’s 18th birthday.

The next morning, we drowsily went into New York with the metro. Our first stop was the Time Square, which is always exciting! After that we split up and went shopping in all the different stores that we don’t have in our home countries. In the evening, we had to leave the busy streets of New York and went to the beautiful quarters of SOHO. The last dinner with the C2C (coast to coast) family was in a cute, little Italian restaurant with good food. Despite our aching feet we made it back to the hotel, but the night was still not over because our messy rooms were waiting to be cleaned and bags begging to be packed with clothes scattered everywhere. I don’t know about the others, but the room I shared with my two close friends Nadja and Nima was a complete mess! Oops…

The next day was our very last day. We met in the lobby to eat breakfast and fill out feedback forms for our tour guide. After that we split up in two groups, one group we went to Soho and the other group stayed at the hotel to sleep some more. I decided tos pent my time in New York wisely and went to Soho. We walked on the High Line – this park high above the streets of New York, filled with art and an amazing view on the city. We ate lunch at Chelsea Market and went to Washington Square Park. After that, we went back to the hotel to make sure everyone had enough time to say goodbye to the two that left to the airport first. I and most of the others stayed at the hotel until six and took the shuttle bus to the airport then. Having to say goodbye to the first two was hard enough, but getting to the airport was way harder. It finally hit me that I was actually leaving the U.S..

I can honestly say that I am ready to leave America but at the same time I am not. It’s not even just about my exchange anymore, because this trip has done something wonderful. I’ve seen so much and still can’t comprehend how lucky I am to have done this. The people on this trip are little rays of sunshine that even break through the cloudy and rainy days with a bright smile. I love each and every one of these guys and girls, and I hope that we stay in touch!

It hasn’t fully hit me yet, that I am leaving and that I’ll never come back to this adventure. Because even if I visit, it will never be the same. I’m so lucky to have all these wonderful memories, and of course I hope to meet up with American and European friends soon!

Thanks to STS for making this the best year of my life, I will never be able to repay you for what you have done but I am forever grateful.

If you’ve read this entire post, thank you for bearing with me through my adventure! I hope everyone enjoyed reading this, since it took a long time writing it. But I am always happy to share my adventures with my friends and family!

A big thanks to all my American friends, and European C2C friends, for making this the best year of my life (so far). I’ve had the time of my life! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

With love,

Myrthe