A Leap Into the Unkown; America

by Willow Rees (Australia)

A leap into the unknown USA

A Leap Into the Unknown; America 2015 was a year filled with excitement and firsts. It was the year that I was graduating year 12, road trips with friends, moving from a house I had lived in for most of my life but more importantly the year my friends and I went to America. It all began back at the start of 2014 when my high school announced a trip to America, I had convinced my mum to let me go and I worked my little australian butt off to raise the money. The plane ride to LA from Sydney was what I expected, borderline inedible food, lots of noise and stuck between two friends for 14 hours where I had to replay one movie multiple times because both of them fell asleep on my arms. Our plan while in America was to start in LA check out knott's berry farm (our accommodation) peruse San Diego for the day. Come back to LA do a bunch of the tours. Dreaded Disneyland for new years eve and into the new year. Hopping over to San Francisco for a couple of days then a plane ride over to Seattle where the rest of our stay was with host families going to their schools and looking at what Seattle had to offer. Also a quick day trip up to canada just to add another country into the trip. Each city had its highlights and it's unknown disappointments. Usually I know you start at the beginning of the trip and write your way to the end but the beginning for me is the ending of the story. So bare with me. Seattle and Canada being the end of my trip I got bed ridden sick, my poor host family didn't know what to do. I missed out on seeing a lot of things, I did however get to go to canada and the one day I was feeling okay to go sightseeing I went to the space needle and the emp music building. San Francisco was my favourite, the culture and influence in that city is amazing and being the 17 year old that I was seeing Alcatraz was the highlight of my trip. I blame the murder mystery shows. The amount of walking was a bit of a struggle at that point for I had limp. I did something to my leg to the point where I limped across the golden gate bridge and down the famous winding road. San Diego for me was not my cup of tea, we went to a baseball field and that's it, not the zoo no a baseball field. (I'm still salty about that) Now back to the beginning LA; We saw the star walk of fame, although I did get yelled at by a stranger for taking a photo of one of the stars. Madame Tussauds wax museum was fun, I was particularly excited about all the spots pretty woman was filmed around the city. Knott's berry farm was great but Disneyland…. Disneyland was a nightmare. Now I know Disneyland is a place of happiness and dreams coming true but by god those 17 hours yes you heard right, longer then my plane ride. I spent most of it sleeping in the Mickey mouse theatre not going to lie. I did a few of the rides ate a meal with one of my friends. The teacher had set a place and time to meet around 10:30pm so we could all meet up and get ready for the new years fireworks. She had offered to take me and the two other friends I had with me to the cafe everyone else was at but my friend said she could find the group no problem. The teacher said okay look for the cafe with the umbrellas…. They all had umbrellas we ended up behind buildings far away, missed out on the fireworks cause we were freaking lost. We were found around 1am everything turned out okay. After that trip I figured out that you can be as prepared as you want but the unknown always comes packed in your suitcase ready for the ride.