Friday, 7 May 2010 - A Great Surfing Day

After school Sarah, Julia, Marcel, Gian-André, Thomas, Til and I went to Pacific Beach by bus.

First of all we all needed a surfboard. Therefore, we went to a surfboard store. Because none of us is eighteen years old we couldn't rent one. That's why we needed an adult. Sarah's mother was so kind that she rented the surfboard for us. Thank you again, Mrs. Fink.

The shop assistant had only four surfboards so always two of us got a board. We were so excited before we went surfing that we forgot to bring our swimming trunks and bathing suits. But that was no problem at all. We all got a wetsuit from the shop assistant.

When we finally arrived at the beach, the fun started. The boys went first into the water and tried to catch waves. Sarah and I stayed in the shallow water because we wanted to get a feeling on the board.

All of sudden a lifeguard car approached us and we were told that the waves were too dangerous for us. So we tried hard to surf in front of the lifeguard tower. Meanwhile the boys were already surfing the waves.

It was the very first time that I went surfing. And believe it or not: after two hours Sarah and I were able to stand on the board to surf the waves! What an awesome feeling!

Kim Hoan Luong, Talentklasse 3, Ibach

Monday, 3 May 2010 - Doomsday...

I woke up early in the morning. I was pretty crabby, because it was my first schoolday at the EC San Diego. To brighten up my day a bit I took a longish shower. I finally got dressed, had breakfast rushed back to my room to brush my teeth and then Michael and I were ready for school. We caught the bus at 7:48.

We met some of our friends on the bus. Silas and Salvatore were there and after a few minutes, Dominik and Remo B. boarded the bus. On the way to school we had a lot of fun, because there were just students in the bus. The weather was awesome and we enjoyed our first bustrip through San Diego.

After half an hour, we arrived at school. I had a coffee and then school started. We all had to take an entry test which I luckily finished within the time given. Later the director gave us some information. Then the teachers checked our passports, the I-20 forms and our health insurance cards. And then Paolo, a Swiss-American EC staff member, took us on a walking tour around La Jolla.

I was pretty hungry and ready for lunch. The school offered sandwiches and drinks. After lunch we got our passports and cards back. I put the documents in Salvatore's bag, and this was the beginning of our doom.

We wanted to go to Pacific beach, so we took the bus at 1 p.m. After a few minutes we left the bus. We were totally excited to see the beach for the first time and ready to jump into the Pacific Ocean. All of a sudden, Salvatore screamed: 'MY BAG!!!. My bag's gone!'

He speeded back to the bus stop and when he came back he was in black dispair. He didn't know what to do now. He took my cellphone and called the bus company. My only thought was: 'Luckily not me...' But this thought was crushed when Salvatore told me, that my passport was also in his bag. I couldn't believe it. I began to shout 'F***.'

Without passports, we both were lost. We asked each and every bus driver who came to the bus stop and checked every bus, but the bag and our documents were gone. We were waiting for three long hours in the sun of California. I got a great sunburn. At 6 o'clock we went home, knowing that we are in big doodoo.

The next morning, we went to Mr. Hediger, our English teacher and told him about our mishap. He seemed quite shocked but tried to calm us and promised to find a solution. He went to Mrs. Delgadillo, the head of school, and she began to make a few phone calls. She first called the lost and found office which is downtown San Diego. There was no schoolbag and no passports. Then she called the Swiss Embassy in San Francisco. She was told that we would have to come to Los Angeles to get a temporary passport. I was relieved and really happy to have the chance to see Los Angeles. So far so good. But Salvatore is Italian and therefore, the Swiss Embassy couldn't do anything for him.

The Italian Embassy told Mrs. Delgadillo that it would take eight (!) weeks to get a new passport. Eight weeks!!! Unbelievable but somehow typical for Italy, innit?

After a few more phone calls she tried the lost and found office again. And hurray! There was Salvatore's bag. Mr. Hediger gave us a lift and we went downtown to get the bag and our documents. On top of that he offered us a free sightseeing tour around downtown San Diego.

Everyone was really relieved and that night I sleept very nicely.

Remo Kälin, Schwyz (PET course)

Saturday, 1 May 2010 - Nightmare at JFK International Airport, New York

After more than an eight-hour smooth and easy flight from Zurich to New York we safely landed at JFK. I was totally excited because it was my very first time that I entered the USA. Too bad we didn't have more time to go sightseeing in NYC. I don't want to complain, because it felt good anyway to finally be in the 'land of endless opportunities'.

We had to go through customs. The officer was really serious and thoroughly checked all of my documents: the passport, the Visa and the I-20. I had to give my fingerprints and my eyes were scanned. I was a little bit nervous but at the end everything was fine. Some of my classmates had to wait and wait and wait until they finally entered the US. We had to get our luggage and continue to the check-in desk because our final destination was San Diego in California.

Then I had a brilliant idea. To make sure that I did not lose my travel documents, I put all of them into my suitcase: flight ticket, passport with the Visa, the I-20, and, being an Italian citizen, the residence permit for Switzerland (= Ausländerausweis). I was proud that I didn't have to carry around anything anymore.

After the check-in we had to go through security again. Our teacher, Mr. Hediger, was behind me. I looked at him and wondered why he had his passport and his flight ticket in his hand. Then the security officer called me. I went to him but I did not understand what he wanted. Fortunately, Mr. Hediger came and helped me. When I learned that I have to show my passport and my flight ticket I knew that I was in big trouble.

Mr. Hediger and I had to walk all the way across Terminal 1 at JFK to some agent. It's about half a mile and it took us quite some time to get there. Mr. Hediger described my 'problem'. The agent was listening and then asked me for 'any kind of ID-documents'. But I didn't have one. All of my ID-documents were in the suitcase which I checked-in a little while ago. He said that without any ID-documents I could not continue my journey. Great!

Mr. Hediger showed him all of his documents where my name was listed several times. But since a written paper without picture doesn't prove anything she refused to let me pass. Mr. Hediger insisted to speak to a supervisor. After some time a big tall guy arrived. He asked me how old I am. Luckily, I was only 15, a minor. Minors are not aloud to travel on their own. So he couldn't send me back to Switzerland. He then told me that I should go back the security officer, pay 30 Dollars for an extra ticket and everything would be fine and I could go through security. Was I ever lucky and happy at the same time! But Mr. Hediger was not conviced at all that everything was fine. He actually didn't believe the supervisor. But I did...

We went all the way back to the security officer. He looked at me and asked for the flight ticket. But of course I didn't have one. He got angry and said that he wouldn't care about what the supervisor has told me since it was him who was in charge of this security gate. Without any kind of ID-prove he would not let me pass. Basta! Mr. Hediger tried hard but there was no way that this man would let me pass the gate. After some minutes of discussions we had to return to the supervisor. For the third time the two of us went across Terminal 1 - half a mile again.

Of course the supervisor was gone and nobody was there who seemed to be in charge. Mr. Hediger spoke to several agents but no one could help. After an eternity and endless discussions, Mr. Hediger was able to convince a nice elderly woman and she had pitty with me and printed a replacement flight ticket free of charge. What a nice lady!

Another half mile later we met the same security officer for the third time. He looked at Mr. Hediger and at me with a grimm face. Mr. Hediger smirked at him and showed him my brand new flight ticket. The agent was surprised but let me pass. Finally, I was together again with all my other classmates who had to wait for a full hour. I was so glad and relieved that everything was fine now.

Without any other delay we got in the plane on time and after six and a half more hours we safely landed in San Diego.

If you want to follow my story, read Remo K's blog. It's big time!

Salvatore Viola, Talentklasse 3, Ibach

Saturday, 8 May 2010 - Shopaholics in SD

Saturday morning, my second weekend in San Diego. I woke up a little bit earlier than usual. I didn't know why but I just couldn't sleep anymore. I got up and had a shower. I was too stressed to even have breakfast.

At 7:45 a.m., Salvatore and I walked to the busstation. But we had to wait, because the buses weren't arriving as frequently as during the week. We finally drove to the Old Town via the so called Hotel Circle. It was great fun because we met some funny guys. One of them told us some jokes, but they weren't funny at all, or maybe we just did not get the punch line. After all we didn't have to laugh about them...

At the Old Town station, Eliane, Melanie, Jackie and Sereina were already waiting for us. The day before we decided to go to 'Las Americas', an enormous premium outlet store near the Mexican boarder. To go there, we had to take the blue line trolley. On the way, we spottet gigantic US navy ships, amongst them the USS Midway, a carrier from WW II which is now a museum. And of course, we saw the Coronado Bay Bridge, a huge bridge which connects downtown San Diego with Coronado island. This five-lane brige is 11,179-foot-long (3,407 m) and ascends from Coronado at a 4.67 percent grade before curving 80 degrees toward San Diego. The span reaches a maximum height of 200 feet (61m), allowing the U.S. Navy ships which operate out of the nearby Naval Station San Diego to pass underneath it. It's quite an impressive bridge.

A lot of different outlet shops are in 'Las Americas'. We really liked all the brand shops, Nike, Billabong, Etnies and houndreds more. It is heaven for people who like shopping and you could easily turn into a shopaholic. So I absolutely enjoyed this trip. But guess what? I am NOT a shopaholic (yet)...

At one o'clock we were ready for food. So we search a place to eat. Of course we choose the mighty McDonald's. I had a delicious Cheeseburger, a Chickenwrap with honey-mustard sauce, a Big-Mac, French fries, and last but not least a litre of Coke. To complete my meal, I needed a dessert. And it had to be a McFlurry. What else! The whole meal was fine and very cheap, not like in Switzerland. But after this meal I was full.

Back to our shopping tour, I bought tonz of different clothes. I was a little bit concerned whether my suitcase might be too heavy or not. But who cares?

After our shopping tour, we went back to the Old Town. There we took the bus to Fashion Valley, another huge shopping area and then we continued our tour to UTC center, which is at least as big as Fashion Valley. There too are lots and lots of stores. I visited the Apple store, Macy's and a few others. At the Apple store we discovered and tested the brand new and worldfamous iPad with its revolutionary, 9.7 inch touch screen, and amazing new apps.

Later we went to another shopping mall. There's an artificial ice rink inside the mall. Since I'm an ice-hockey player myself, it was fascinating for me. It's the home of the one and only 'La Jolla Jaguars'. I never heard of them before but they have a cool ice rink to train on. A lot of fast food restaurants and take-aways are placed around this ice rink. I was acutally quite hungry again but since I spent all of my money on clothes I could only afford a plate of French-fries. I totally digged in.

Later in the evening, we went back to our hostfamily's place. Salvatore and I were pretty worn out from all the shopping and so we decided to relax in our hostfamily's whirlpool. Before we went to bed, we watched the daily baseball games and American football on TV.

That was my kind of day.

Silas Holdener, Talentklasse 3, Ibach

Monday, 10 May 2010 - Coronado Island, Corvette Diner and Carriers

Today I got up early at 7 o’clock, I took a shower and ate breakfast. After that we got ready for school and we went to the bus station. When we arrived at school, we checked our class timetable, because some students had to change classes. My morning class was about a man, who builds huge works of art. It was really impressive.

As soon as the morning classes were finished, we went for lunch at our favorite burger's lounge. It was delicious as usual. After lunch, we had to go to our afternoon classes. Because the baby of one of the teachers was sick, there were a lot of changes between the other teachers, and that's why we had another teacher than usually.

After school, Mr. Hediger drove us with his car to Coronado island. There we visited the world famous five star Hotel del Coronado with its superb beaches. Despite the fact that this is a five star hotel, it’s free to visit and the beaches are public spots. We went to one of the restaurants and had a drink – with free refill. That's something (amongst a lot of other things) that I love about the US.

With its iconic red turrets piercing the taut horizontal lines of an azure California skyline, the Hotel del Coronado radiates with a confidence of gracious Victorian splendor that is without equal.

Built in 1888, this classic beachfront respite has long been heralded as one of America’s most beautiful beach resorts. A pronouncement underscored by its designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

Today, The Del offers guests a unique combination of modern luxury touched with the charm and grace of this fairytale castle. Include its stunning beachfront locale and it’s easy to see why The Del has been called 'one of the top ten resorts in the world' by USA Today.

After Coronado island, we crossed the Coronado Bay Bridge to see the aircraft-carriers. They are huge, you couldn’t imagine it without a picture. One of them, the USS Midway, is a museum, but we didn’t have enough time to do this.

When we finished taking photos it was already time to go home. Our hostmother took us to a special restaurant called 'The Corvette Diner', a neon-lighted and vinyl-boothed retro 1950s diner complete with tart-tongued waitresses with beehive hairdos and poodle skirts. It has continuous oldies music playing, and you can request songs. The waitresses and waiters are all ridiculously nice and dressed up in fun costumes. They also go dancing at random times. Anyway, this is a high energy and very fun place to eat.

Now the food. Since it has a 50s era theme, the food it is best known for are the burgers and shakes. They have some cool sounding burgers, but their well-known one is called the Rory burger, which has bacon and peanut butter on a patty; it’s unique and delicious. I had a hamburger with French fries. I drank a cherry-coke, with free refill of course, that was really sweet and delicious. And of course the waitress didn’t know Switzerland, and she thought we were from Sweden. After eating and having a lot of fun there, we went home again for doing our homework.

Marcel Holdener, PET course, Ibach

Monday, 10 May 2010 - An Ordinary Day

I had to get up at 6:45 a.m. to be at school on time. I did the same things like every weekday: I took a shower, ate breakfast, brushed my teeths and then I ran to the bus stop to catch the 7:54 bus. The first part of the bus ride lasted for about 20 minutes and then I had to change at the Medical Center to continue with bus number 30 to our school. I arrived there at 8:45.

Today was an ordinary day at EC English School. Class started at 9 a.m. Keith was our teacher on Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning and every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. He tried to teach us how to form one sentence out of two without changing the meaning. It was quite difficult but interesting.

We ate lunch at the burger's lounge, a restaurant only two blocks away from the EC English language school. It was my second time that I ate there and the food was so well prepared that we decided to go again.

In the afternoon Brian was my teacher and the topic we were talking about was Hollywood. That was by far the more interesting part of the school day. To finish the afternoon we played a game called Tabu.

EC San Diego, La Jolla is a great international school. Here you meet people from all over the world and it’s fascinating to get to know them.

After school, Mr. Hediger gave us a lift to Downtown San Diego. From there we crossed the Coronado Bay Bridge which crosses the San Diego harbor over to Colorado island. It's not really an island but rather a peninsula. As you can read in Marcel's blog you will find the luxurious, outstanding five-star Hotel Del Coronado where back in 1959 the movie 'Some like it hot' was shot. Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon played the main characters. In this hotel you will also find one of the oldest elevators in San Diego.

To finish our downtown sightseeing tour, we drove along the harbor where we admired the 'Star of India'. This beautiful sailship was built in 1863 as Euterpe, a full-rigged iron windjammer ship in Ramsey, Isle of Man. After a full career sailing from Great Britain to India then to New Zealand, she became a salmon hauler on the Alaska then to California route. After retirement in 1926, she was restored between 1962 and 1963 and is now a seaworthy museum ship ported at the San Diego Maritime Museum in San Diego. She is the oldest ship that still sails regularly and the oldest iron hulled merchant ship still floating. The ship is both a California and United States National Historic Landmark.

We also had a look at the amazing USS Midway, an aiplane carrier from World War II, one of America’s longest-serving aircraft carriers. Visitors to the USS Midway Museum enter a floating city at sea and walk in the footsteps of 225,000 Midway sailors who served the United States of America and upheld the American ideals of strength, freedom and peace.

After our tour we went home to our hostfamily. Our host mum took us to a rather unusual restaurant, the 'Corvette Diner'. If you feel like reading more about this restaurant, check out Marcel's blog.

Late in the evening we had to finish our homework for the next day and then I was totally ready to hit the sack. Believe it or not, it was only 10 p.m.

Thomas Gämperle, PET course, Ibach

Sunday - 9 May 2010 - Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mothers Day!

Today, on Mother's Day, I woke up at 9:30 a.m. It was Sunday and I couldn’t sleep long. Don't ask me why. Maybe because I wanted to see San Diego, or maybe I was not as tired as in Switzerland. Or maybe I was longing for my mother who was so far away back home.

So I decided to get up and have breakfast. Kiki, our host mother, boilt some eggs. They were very tasty. I usually don’t have eggs for breakfast, so I had difficulties to finish them all.

However, after breakfast I wanted to go out and buy something for my mum. I cruised quite a few shops, but I couldn't find anything. Finally I discovered a Mother’s Day card but my mother doesn’t speak English, so I did not buy it.

Then Ivana and I went to the 'Smashbruger' to have lunch. After lunch we drove to the Medical Center by bus. No, we were not sick at all. But since we did not really know what we could do, we drove a little bit around. Later, we went home and did our homework. It was not a lot, only a few exercises.

After finishing our homework, we decided to go for a walk on the La Jolla Shores. First we walked down along a street only to realize that we got lost. This was definitely not the way to the beach. We turned around and asked for help.

We were tempted to go swimming but it was too cloudy and too cold and windy. So we just continued strolling along the beach. We noticed that the sand on this beach had a very strange color. It was some kind of brownish but also blackish. In the evening, we asked our host-family, but they couldn't give us any reason for this rather unusual color of the sand.

After this walk, we both felt a lustful desire for a milk shake. Once again we returned to our favorite place called 'Smashburger' and ordered two milk shakes. Ivana took the chocolate one and I prefered the one with vanilla flavor. It tasted out of this world but it was a little bit too much.

In the evening had a Pizza at our hostfamily's place. This evening we talked a lot with our host-family. It was good, because we noticed that we spoke way more than the day we arrived. And we liked to talk to them.

After eating we went to our bedroom and watched 'Another Cinderella Story'. It was a wonderful movie.

Denise Chiodi, PET Course, Ibach