Dear Friends,
Greetings from beautiful Hawaii!!!
My name is Raphael and together with our AFS Chaperone Sara, our monitors Carleigh, Makena and Megan are enjoying the beautiful island of Oahu - also know as the "gathering place".
We have reached the mid of the trip and we have an excellent group. The pictures below tell all about it.
It was really nice seeing them learning how to surf, enjoying the beautiful view on top of Diamond Head, Kayaking in beautiful clear water and having so much fun.
We have a group of 48 students from 20 different countries... The students are telling their impression of the trip on the blog that you can check daily and it will be a lot of fun if you also sent your message (commenting on the postings below). We will be happy to read the message during our bus rides to all of them.
Tomorrow we will visit Pearl Harbor... Arizona Memorial and we will be working on the battleship USS Missouri as part of our social activity.
Keep following us on the trip…
All the best,
Raphael DeMello
Alohaaaa everyone!
This morning we took the bus and went on a small city tour in Honolulu. We stopped at the state capital and took a lot of pictures. After that we continued our trip to the Dole pineapple plantation. This is one of the best and biggest pineapple plantations. We got the chance to try their delicious pineapple whip (ice cream)! Yummm!!
When our bellies were full we continued our trip to North Shore. This is a very famous surf spot where surfers from all over the world come to surf and compete. We had some free time to walk around in the small town. There were a ton of little shops and restaurants. One of the best burger restaurants is located in Haleiwa. The real daredevils could eat a 1 pound hamburger here! Unfortunately no one in our group was brave enough to take on this challenge. Whimps. They are most famous for the burger with pineapple on it! The students that tried it said it was delicious.
When all the shopping and eating was done we drove to see some of the best surf waves in the world. Here we got to see surfers, who actually know what they’re doing, in action. It was really cool to see this and in a few years we will return to compete with them! The water at these beaches was very rough so we weren’t allowed to touch it in case we would be dragged in and never to return. We don’t think our parents would appreciate this so we decided to obey this rule.
After seeing these insanely good surfers we drove to the Polynesian Cultural Center. There were 6 different cultures to discover here. We started out with Tahiti. Our brave Mohammed showed his dance skills on stage, and the poor audience had to sit through it. Haha J After that we went to the Islands of Tonga and people learned how to play the drums. Then we had our hula lessons! We got the chance to shake our hips and show our hot moves. The guys were thrilled about this. After that we went to the Islands of Samoa. A true Samoan man showed his abilities to create fire and climb coconut trees. In Samoa the men cook instead of the women, so women, move to Samoa if you have the chance. American men have a lot to learn.
A buffet followed after this. It started to rain but fortunately it stopped in time for the show. The show “ Ha: The Breath of Life” was very impressive. It was about a young man’s life and growing up. They showed this through all the Polynesian islands and their culture full of dances. The dances were amazing. When the show ended everyone was exhausted and happy to go back to the hotel. We ended our day with watching Lilo and Stitch on the bus J
SHOUT OUT TO HOLLANDDD!!!
Love, Fraukje Peeters and Kaja Kempenaars
