Going to L.A. for 3 months

Hello,

In september 2012 me and my friend Alice went to L.A. with E.F. to learn english, or to improve our english. Alice came with the idea a few months before and we did some research, went to meetings and decided to do it. It ended up to be the best time of my life. You can guess I have a lot to talk about so I will do this in a few blogs. In today's one I will talk about E.F.

E.F. or education first is for people who wanna learn a language in the country where the language is originated at. For english we could choose out of the UK, Australia or USA. We choose USA and more specifically Los Angeles. Then we could choose where to stay, in an apartment or with a family. We chose for the apartment, so we could do what we wanted when we wanted. The plane and pick up they arranged for us and so we left a few months later.

The first day we went to school we met the whole group of new people. First they showed us the building and the classes, then they let us know in which level we would be and with which other new peoples we would go in to it. We had to do a test to see at which level we would start before leaving. After that we all got in a bus and went to Venice Beach, there we could walk around and visit. Then we went to Santa Monica Beach where we had lunch and also visited. So far so good for the first day.

The rest of the 3 months we had our classes, who were nice and fun. For a homework we had to go to UCLA and interview some people. The teachers were very nice and cool. We only had half days of classes, so that was nice to. We stayed at Redondo Beach and the beach was a 15min walk from the apartment. In the morning and evenings you could go and spot dolphins, and I love dolphins so I did that a lot. We met new people, who we still keep in touch with, from all over the world.

The school was working with EA tours and you could book some trips and events with them.
We went to see the Dodgers with them, that was so nice, I didn't know a lot about the game, but people are so nice they explained it a bit to me. We also went to see the Lakers, we sat so high I was scared to fall down, I'm afraid of heights btw :) We also did a club night with them, it got out of hand (in a good way), thats all I will say about it.

After school we visited almost everything in and around L.A.  We did the Warner Bross studio tour, the O.C., Hollywood, Santa Monica, farmers market, the grove,... Whatever you can think of to do, we did. We even went to visit famous houses, from movies and so.

I also got something at my eye when up there and went to the doctor. Just saying it's so different than at home. I had a very nice doctor, but medication is so expensive there, omg. I had a really nice friend who went to the doctors with me and bought me some frozen yoghurt after it, one of my favorite things there along with the cheese cake factory.

E.F. made sure everything went smoothly and very good. I would recommend it to people who wanna learn a new language and have some adventure. This was the best experience of my life, the saddest thing about it was to go back home. We learned to know a lot of people from different places and I'll always remember them.

Hope you enjoyed this bit of that trip, I will talk about the bigger trips we did while it in another blog. See you next time.

Love,
Sarah

All roads lead to Rome

Hello,

I went twice in one year to Rome, but cause I did the same things I'll only make one blog about it. The only difference was that the first time I went with my mom around march and the second time I went for my birthday with my parents, sister and Stéphanie. Both time we had good weather even in december. The first time we went for 4 days and the second time for 3 days, with the holidays coming. Both times we flew with Alitalia, it was a short and good flight. Second time we flew with a thunderstorm a little further, beautiful but not everyone would share that feeling with me.

The first day we went to visit the Colosseum, this is an amazing historical building. We spent almost the rest of the day there. After that we went shopping a little and then for diner, of course, it was pizza for me.

The second day we went to the Vatican and the Castle of angels. With my mom we visited everything, the museum and the sixteenth chapel.  With the rest we only visited the vatican itself. The castle of angels I visited with my dad and Stéphanie, my mom and sister didn't want to do it. Both historical buildings were beautiful and so big. I love the architecture in Rome. On the way back we past the Spanish stairs and the Di Trevi fountain. Both also so beautiful. This day was also my birthday and for diner we went to a restaurant where I went with my mom on our other trip. My sister and Stéphanie went secretly to the kitchen and asked for a surprise for my birthday. The surprise was that my pizza was shaped in a heart and the cheese on it was in 23 like my age. Super surprise girls!

Rome is an awesome city and I just loved al the Italian pizza. If you haven't been yet you should really visit. I hope you liked my trip to Rome.

Love,
Sarah