The Depart

One of my best experience sinds now is my trip for one year in United States. One year far away from all my family, friends and habits will be hard but also so much rewarding. Before my departure, I was very stressed. That was the time to do my lugages, spend my last time with my friends, last parties, last time than I saw all my family. That was hard for everybody but we knew that this year was going to be short and we knew that in one year we would see us again. My big departure was the Augustus 24th and I was already late first plane because I said goodbye to my friends who's made me a surprise in going to see me for the last time (thank you guys). We received our first schedule to New-York and I was already excited to discover all the unfamous place that we were going to visit in this wonderful town. My FIRST travel in plane was very cool and during the trip I met a very kind girl. She came from Namur in Belgium and we talked about our experience that we were going to live. That was very reassurant to see all the others students who were also afraid about that. We could see one the plane all the country below us and I saw the Greenland and the Canada, that was fascinating. After a long stop in Washington for the VISA (or simply because that was cheaper and the organization did not want to pay a direct fly to New-York), we left for the Universe center: NEW-YORK.

NEW YORK

I had already seen New York on pictures and in a lot of movie so I knew what I was going to see but to see this town in reality was so much better. The first time that I saw it was on the plane and New York sinds a plane is really amazing. We spend three days in New York and we visited all the most famous places like Time Square, Central park, the 5th avenue or the Empire State Building and of courses... the World Trade Center. We took upstairs of the World Trade Center and we could see all the town. I remember that when I was on the bottom of the twin towers I said to myself "WAW, this towers are probably the biggest thing that I have ever seen, they seems indestructible". I feel extremly lucky to had the opportunity to visit the World Trade Center before they collapsed. This tragedy was so horrible and that even harder to live this attack in the United States because my host family was very affect by this incident. That was totally incredible to see the twin towers collapsed just two weeks after that I visited them. I will keep forever the remembering of this horroble tragedy which if it would have happened two weeks before, it could have killed me. I remember also that the day of the terrorist attack, all the TV in my school were on with NBC which broadcasted all the images of the accident. That was like... a Action movie but in real life, that was scary. Exept of this incident, my trip in NEW YORK was wonderful. We stayed only three days in the town and we didn't have have enough time to visit deeply all the spot. For an example, I had only three hours to visit all the 5th avenue, Central Park and Rockefeller center. That was defently too less and I was sad to leave Central Park in the middle of my visit. I really liked the town and I think that is the center of the Universe, everything goes faster and even sometimes it's too much but that's why I like it. I got lost 2 times in 3 days in spite of the very simple geography of New York. The result was that I made all the others students (200) wait for an half hour ! I appreciated the atmosphere of Chinatown and Little Italy, and felt like I was walking in another country. But one more time, I had to hurry because our schedule was really busy. I wish to come back one day and maybe spend a lot more time because everything is so fascinating. I keep some wonderfull rememberings of the lights of Time Square, the quietness of Central Park or the hugeness of all the skytracers. But one of my best place that I remember was Greenwich Village, that was so quiet and so beautiful. If I could, I would live a part of life in this neighborhood.

Another story was one of the bedroom. After that we had arrived to the airport, we visited Time Square and a part of New York in the bus. All the students were extremly tired, it was 10:30 PM and we had 9 hours of jet-lag. We had to unload all of our lugages to the hotel. I was happy: finally I was going to sleep. But when I went to my bedroom, it was already four people (for a 4 people's bedroom) with a girl in. The story is that one of the girl wanted to stay with her boyfriend and she did not want to come back in her girl's bedroom. I didn't want to annoy everybody and I decided, in spite that the people in charge of the organization were completly against this idea, to go in the girl's bedroom. The result was that I passed three days in a bedroom with three girls... I went to the bed at 1 o'clock in the morning and I was so tired with the Jet-lag!!!

During our visit of the Statue of Liberty, a very strange event is happened. We were supposed to visit the Statue the thursday morning but we could not because a French parachutist had tryed to land on the Statue of Liberty torch. I don't know why but we told me that was a guy who liked all the extreme activities. Anyways, he missed his landing and he was hanged up by his parahute and he could not move anymore. When we left, because off course all the visit were closed, I saw 6 or 7 helicopters which go around the Statue. They certainly came from all the TV channels of New York. We had to come back the afternoon and thanks to this bad acrobat we visited the Statue of Liberty in the rain. But that was funny.

The last day came very quickly and the date to leave was already there. Fortunately, my plane was later in the afternoon, so I slept a little bit more that the others exchange students who had to wake up at 6 or 3 o'clock in the morning. So I left New York the august 28th and I flew to San Francisco.

Visit the Carillo Campus with the panorama
made in Digital Photography

The Theater (click on the image to visit the campus)
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The Quad (click on the image to visit the campus)
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