Hi everyone!

This is going to be my last blogupdate since my exchange year is over in a few days. It has been an incredible year and such a good experience. I made friends and memories which I will never forget for the rest of my life. It is crazy for me to think about going home soon! I gained a second family here and friends from all over the world I know will always have their door open for me.
So I'm going to tell you about my last couple weeks.
I graduated from High School on May 23rd after I was done with all my finals. We had grad practice the day before where they showed us what we're supposed to do the following day. I was really nervous that I would trip walking the stage or something else would happen. But everything went just fine. I got my diploma and threw my hat in the air at the end of the ceremony. The ceremony was over after a little bit more than an hour. I skyped with my family after I got back because it was also my dad's birthday. That night I went to Project Grad. They have that every year to prevent the kids from drinking and driving. Project Grad was about an hour drive and they set up games for us to play and they had a rockclimbing wall and basketball courts and lots of other stuff. We stayed there until 5am and went back together. I was super tired when I finally got back and just fell into my bed and took a nap. Now we officially had summerbreak!
June 2nd I went on my second trip this year, the WestCoast trip. I was gone for two weeks. I took a flight from Kansas City to Phoenix at 12pm on monday. The first day was basically just arriving and having the rules explained. The following day we went to Phoenix Downtown and did a little sightseeing. There were HUGE cactuses everywhere! We left the next day for the Grand Canyon and arrived at our hotel in the evening. The bus rides weren't even that bad. The whole next day we spent at the Grand Canyon. We also hiked into the Canyon for about 1 1/2 hours. The hard part was going back up...I was exhausted but it was definitly worth it. My legs felt really sore the next day. After the hike we split up and went to different viewpoints of the Canyon. It just amazes you how big it is! We got back to the hotel around 9pm and everyone met outside to get in the hot tub or play volleyball or something. Apparently it wasn't hot at all. Nothing like Phoenix even though it was only about an 4 hours bus ride. Also the scenery changed so fast!
The next morning we left early in the morning to go to VEEGAAAS! Las Vegas was probably one of my favorite places during that trip. We arrived at about 12pm and they gave us some free time on the strip before the brought us back to the hotel to get ready for tonight. We all dressed up and got into a hummer limousine that drove us around Las Vegas. It was absolutely amazing! The next day we had free time on the strip again before we went to the Stratosphere Tower. It's the tallest building in Vegas and it has rides on top. We had tickets to ride all the rides and it was really cool. We were about 350 meters above ground! We went back to the strip after that and had some more time there. I bought tickets for the Cirque du Soleil this evening and I was really glad I went. The show was breathtaking! After the show was over we took a party bus back to the hotel. Next stop was Los Angeles. That was the longest bus rides with about 6 hours. When we got there we went straight to Universal Studios. My favorite part was the Studio Tour. We sat in a tram and drove around the different sets of famous movies or TV shows like Desperate Housewifes. The whole park was really cool and visualized after famous movies.
The following day we went to Madame Tussaud and the Walk of Fame where we had  free time to shop and do whatever we want. LA was really nice but nothing like I imagined. We left there at 1pm and went to the Huntington beach. It was a little bit windy and the waves were huge. We stayed there the whole afternoon and relaxed a bit.
The next day was really exciting. We went to Disneyland!! It was so much fun and the park was really big. There was no way we could see everything in one day. The only sad thing was that they didn't have firework that day because of bad weather conditions even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky!
Beverly Hills and the famous Rodeo Drive was on our plan for the next drive. Everything was super fancy! We went into some shops at the Rodeo Drive like Yves Saint Laurent which was kind of interesting. The prices were pretty insane. And I talked to a cashier at this store who told me that they keep the store open later for stars like Angelina Jolie. This afternoon the bus picked us up for our next stop. The yosemite national park.
We departed from our hotel early in the morning. We hiked for about 2 hours through the national park and then went back to the meeting point to grab lunch and get ready for rafting! Rafting was so much fun and the scenery was stunning! We rafted for probably around 3 hours and when we got back on land we had a little bit more free time before we went back to the hotel.
The next day we headed to our last stop, San Francisco! We got there around 2pm and went to a museum and a lookout first. After that they gave us some free time on Peer39 before we ate dinner together as a group at Bubba Gump. You might have heard from that restaurant form the movie Forrest Gump. The next day we finally rode the worldfamous cable cars and after that had time to explore the city. I saw Lebron James in San Francisco where he was playing basketball. He was just boarding the bus with his teammates. Later the bus brought us to the Twin Peaks but we weren't able to see much because of the fog. After that we had free time in China Town. San Francisco has the largest China Town in the world.
Next day was really interesting. We went to Alcatraz known as "The Rock". It was a high security prison until 1963 I believe. We walked through the prison with headsets on listening to an Audio Tour. After that we headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. We took a bunch of pictures and then walked across it. I even spotted a seal from the bridge. After walking the 1.9 miles across the bridge we went back to the hotel and dressed up for our last evening together. We were 49 students on that trip and we had an amazing time together.
Right now I'm down to my last two days with my host family and my friends here which makes me really sad. I can't believe how faster this year went by and I'm really sad to leave but at the same time really excited to finally see my family and my friends in Switzerland again.

Bye, Sandra

Graduation

Grand Canyon

Route 66

Vegas Baby!

Yosemite National Park 

THIS IS REAL! (not Madame Tussaud!)

San Francisco