2019 Trip to New York, Philly, D.C.

Hey! I’m Carla Carbonell. I'm an exchange student from León, Gto, Mexico. I'm currently studying a year abroad in Marblehead, MASS. I recently went on the Belo trip to NY, Philly, and D.C. Honestly, I was really nervous since I didn't know anybody that was going, and of getting lost in the airport.

After Belo staff welcomed me and other exchange students at the airport, we arrived at the hotel where we were going to stay for 4 days. We stayed there for the whole days playing cards and talking while we waited for all the other exchange students to arrive. Then they give us our roommates and I was so excited to see with who I was going to be with. In the room, I was with an Italian girl, named Virginia, and a Japanese girl called Mizuki. At first, we were all shy cause we didn't know each other, but 10 minutes later we were talking, making jokes, and laughing.

In our days in New York, we went to the Empire State, Statue of Liberty, World Trade Center, Times Square, Wall Street, Rockefeller Center, the metropolitan museum of art, had lunch in Central Station, walked through Central Park, Brooklyn bridge and went to see the Phantom of the Opera, but what I thought It was very original from Belo was that they took to a Hip-Hop dance. I've never done Hip-Hop before so I was excited to try it. In the class, everyone was having fun because it was a way to start getting to know each other. At the end of the class, we where all death from all the walking and dancing.

When the New York part finished, some of the students left and everyone was so sad, especially me and Mizuki cause Virginia, our roommate was leaving. After saying our goodbye’s we drove to Philly. In Philly we saw the liberty bell, we walked around love park where we saw a wedding happening, we walked around Elfreth's Alley, independence hall, city hall, and ran up in the Rocky Steps.

At the end of the day, we drove to Washington D.C. to spend the night and the rest of our trip. The main thing we did in D.C. were memorials. We went to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington monuments, we entered to the Capitol, Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial. We also went to a lot of museums like the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go to the White House cause they closed it for security reasons or that’s what they told us. What really liked was that our hotel had a pool so almost every night we were there everyone was at the pool having fun, hearing music.

Now, every time I look back at it I feel extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to go in this amazing trip with all of these amazing exchange students, everyone was just so awesome and what I loved is that everyone bonded. I swear, this was one of the best weeks of my life.