AAVE Trip BLOG » 2007 » July

July 11, 2007
Hola!!! Bold Europe 1

Posted by Nate at AAVE in : Bold Europe, General AAVE Trip BLOG , 1 comment so far

We are in Barcelona- currently in the most amazing hostel known to mankind!! After spending about a week in some very nice camp sites, throughout France and Spain, the old mansion on the hill top, overlooking this amazing city, is very awesome!!!
After leaving Paris a week and a half ago, we drove about 10 hours in the pouring rain to beautiful Southern France. We all agreed that those 10 hours flew by due to the beautiful scenery and great conversations and music!

In Southern France we were surrounded by gorgeous fields and vineyards. Our first day was filled with excitement! We went river walking in spectacularly clear water, and then throughout that night we hiked (with out lights) up Mt. Ventoux. It was an amazing experience that built our individual character and ultimately created trust and true friendships within our group.

Once we entered Spain we immediately began our adventures. We canyoned this past Saturday, and rafted the whole next day.  Our competitive nature came through in both of these activities, which made the activities that much more exciting! In Barcelona we swam in the Mediterranean Sea and explored the beautiful city the next day. There is only more fun to come, and we cannot wait!!!

Genevieve, Henslie, Killian

July 10, 2007
Aloha from Hawaii 1C on the Big Island

Posted by Chris in : General AAVE Trip BLOG, Ultimate Hawaii , add a comment

We are writing to you from Kona where we are enjoying a brief pit stop to relax in the town after a great morning aboard a schooner named the Lynx. Sailing was just one of the adventures we have enjoyed here in Hawaii. Our group has been surfing the waves, sea kayaking with turtles, snorkeling with an octopus and creating a wonderful group of friends on this island in the sun.

The group is enjoying making our own music with Andrew and his ukulele and they are eager to sing more songs.  Some favorites have been “Hawaiian Superman” with help from Alex and Grady (Sea Kayaking Instructor), “2 Dollar Bill” with an island twist, and last night, “Puff the Magic Dragon”.

We are all becoming great friends! We have many great cooks on our team - including Mel and Jamie … yeah for “the Bears” (one of our cook groups) and their wonderful dinners!!! Gabe makes us laugh all day long and Cydney makes us all smile with her great “NUTS” song!! THANKS for that one Cydney!!! Jeremy is such a great young man who is friends to everyone … Vanessa and Taylor our NYC girls keep us all out of trouble and Gray keeps us rocking with his cool guitar playing. Scott … what a guy!! Makes us all laugh so much!! ASHLEY … our great West Palm Beach girl is always in the front of the group unless we are sea kayaking!!! Sarah and Kayla are always ready for fun and got us going on an awesome hack circle today.

We are really grateful that everyone is here and having a great time. You are going to love all our pictures and enjoy all our stories when we get back. Thanks for reading and for sending us all here to the Big Island. 

Our next stop is the Volcanoes National Park and then our incredible backpack into the Wapio and Waimanu Valleys. Maybe we will see them filming the new Indiana Jones movie there. We are ready to fill in as extras and stunt doubles!! LOL!!

ALOHA from Hawaii 1C!!

Chris, Andrew and Kate and the gang!


Todo esta tranquilo

Posted by Anna Kurtz in : Costa Rica Clasica, General AAVE Trip BLOG , add a comment

 

hola!

We are having a blast down here! We just finished our stay with the host families in Monteverde and it was such great experience!

 Now we are in Rincon de la Vieja National Park. Today we went mountain biking, swimming at the base of a waterfall, and rode horses to our tubing spot! It was quite a day in beautiful Costa Rica!! 

 

July 6, 2007
Returning from the Amazon!

Posted by tracy in : General AAVE Trip BLOG, Peru & Machu Picchu , add a comment

We had so much fun in the Amazon!  It was a wild start.  After the group arrived, we flew to the Amazon only a few hours later.  It was hot and sunny and fun.  WE have a whole list of wildlife that we saw, including cayman, monkeys, tarantulas, toucan, macaws, capabaira, agouti, and many more birds and insects.  There were lots of great hikes, including one in the dark, where we got to turn off our flashlights and listen to the sounds of the jungle.  The Fourth of July was spent learning jungle dances and celebrating with Peruvian chocolate - mmmm!  The whole group is doing really well.  Jeff got help with his fear of spiders, he even put one outside.  Becca and Paulina are doing an awesome job of entertaining the group with all their silliness.  All of them love the food and are having fun.

Today we flew to Cusco, where we are getting ready for the days to come.  Tomorrow we go mountain biking, and the following day we start our trek to Macchu Picchu.  Wish us lots of luck!

Tracy and PMP1A


Peru is SWEET

Posted by Skyeler in : General AAVE Trip BLOG, Peru & Machu Picchu , add a comment

What up Blog-reading Homies,

So far this trip has been off the chain!! The Amazon was SWEET, we saw all kinds of cool animals, including a cayman crocodile that we caught and passed around (okay, so it was baby cayman but it was still creepy and super-cool)! We saw some huge spiders, monkeys, and - well I´m not gonna list all the animals ’cause there were like 30 different ones, but all in all it was prrrreeettyyy rad! We went swimming in this cool jungle lake and that was super warm and even had piranha!! Apparently, piranhas aren´t as dangerous as all the hype, but it was still spooky and totally awesome!

Alright, thats enough from me, I gotta go pack for our mtn biking and trekking section we got coming up next. Stay tuned.

This trip has been sooo fun! This group is totally awesome, easily one of the best groups I´ve ever worked with! Too bad the trip leaders are such dorks…kidding!

Peace,

Cielito 


Costa Rica Intensive = Pura Vida!

Posted by nicoleg in : Costa Rica Spanish Intensive, General AAVE Trip BLOG , 1 comment so far

Hola!

This is Nicole writing, trip leader for CSI1.  I have to begin this blog by writing about how amazing this trip has been so far.  Because of the mature, layed-back, postitive, friendly, and respectful attitude of all the group members, our trip has been extremely fun and smooth.  Even though we had one camper without a bag for a day because it got stuck in Atlanta and some students were stuck in Dallas for 8 plus hours on their way out, we all made it and are enjoying the experience of the journey!  Our teens rock and our Spanish class first week rolls! Ronald is our guide and he is unbelievably fun, knowledgable and great!  We already don´t want to have to say goodbye to him on the 21st!

Dia 1: Pura Vida!

Experiencing Costa Rica for the first time is like an icecream cone or watermelon slice on a hot day!  We are here, we are engulfing ourselves in the culture, we are nervous about our placement exams (which were really painless and easy) and about meeting our tico host family!  In the morning we wake from a much needed sleep depending on how ontime or delayed our flights were, have some breakfast of cereal, bread, bananas, and jugo, and play some name games before our meeting about AAVE expectations and ways to have a successful trip!  Students got to spend class time with their first professor(a) and our confidence in our Spanish speaking skills began to rise.  We later met to reveiw the following day because our families picked us all up after class.  We said adios to our group before we headed to our host families for dinner. 

Dia 2: Pirates on a scavenger hunt in Heredia!

Heredia is a town outside of San Jose where we spend our first week.  As a group we took public transportation into town to first visit the market and taste some of the locally grown fruits and vegetables of Costa Rica and then to the plaza to split into 3 groups and conquer our scavenger hunts.  We finished our Heredia experience at a cafe for lunch where a famous futbol (soccer) player of Costa Rica agreed to take a picture with our group! Classes were longer this day and we are continuing to learn more.  The experiences we get with our host families teaches us a lot about conversational Spanish!  Leda was our first LOD, Leader of the Day, and she rocked!  I got to visit Sam´s family and his tico mama reminds me of my grandmother-friendly, smiley and sweet!  He was doing his homework with his tico sisters as she watched him in awe, que preciosias! Everyone says they are eating fantastic meals and we are getting use to using the word for full (lleno(a)) because our families want to make sure we are very well fed!

Dia 3: Cocodrilos, Monos y Aves oh my!

Our group rode a bus for 2 hours through the second largest national forest in CR and made bracelets and played Uno until we got through the twisty rainforest roads to Sarapiqui!  We rode a boat and were quiet and lucky enough to see howler monkeys, many birds, a crocodile, 2 sloths, and poisonous red dart frogs!  It´s amazing that the rivers are the main form of transportation for many families here!  Class was longer today because we got up around 5:30, but we had our 4th of July celebration to look forward to!  Our pinata got demolished by Leda, Ariel, Margot, Natalie, Kaitlyn (who was our fearless LOD this day), and many other students!  The school we attend is called CPI and it is gorgeous!  We watch gorgeous sunsets from the lawn as we leave for our host families each night!  Our host families continue to learn more about us vica versa!  I got to visit Carolina´s family, who has an amazing cabin sort of house very close to mine and Natalie’s, who is also my sister for this week because we share host families.  Both families are very layed back.  We have a 6 month old child in our family and Carolina´s tico mother is from CPI.

 Dia 4: La Promesa (the promise)

Our bus left at 7:35ish this morning for a community of women and children called La Promesa where we spent the morning doing a service project.  Kaitlyn said this is her favorite day so far, she is sitting next to me because I am visiting her host family tonight. We were first introduced to the community with a very very special presentation portraying what these families went through.  They were all kicked out of their homes within the last 9 years and Gale, a lady from the US has helped build homes and create a community of love and growth for these outstanding and postitive women.  We all laughed hard at the presentation because some ladies dressed up as policia and did a great skit for us.  We were honored by this and by the typical Costa Rican dances they also performed for us. We had a little dance party and food after this and took many precious pictures.  We got to teach English to students from 2 to 70 years old! It was an amazing experience!  Classes were a blast today for most students.  Dancing and singing and conversing about life and the experiences of La Promesa were topics for class today.  I got to also visit Leda and laugh with her family who are more than welcoming and fantastic and had chocolate. When I was with Autumn and her family we got to laugh again about funny toungue twisters and mystery meat!  Erin led a great meeting where we attempted the human knot.

It has been such a blast and I can´t wait to get some sleep to have energy for another day with this group!  We are taking so many pictures it is a bit ridiculoco and awesome and everyone can´t wait to show them off!  We are headed to Volcano Paos tomorrow morning. 

Enjoy yourselves while we enjoy our experiences here in Pura Vida!  We´ll write more soon, but if you don´t hear from us remember that is a good thing!  Thanks to all the families! Hasta mas tarde!

Nicole, Ronald and the most amazing CSI trip ever!


Getting ready?

Posted by tracy in : General AAVE Trip BLOG, Peru & Machu Picchu , add a comment

Hello Peru #1! I hope you are all getting ready for an exciting, adventurous summer. Skyeler and I look forward to meeting you all. Is anyone interested in trying some local cuisine, such as guinea pig? You will be able to identify us in the airport by our crazy hats. Skyeler will be the wolf, and I will be the fox. Don’t forget to wear your Journeys That Matter t-shirts!

Hasta Domingo,
Tracy


Get Ready for Colorado Discovery!

Posted by Alice in : Colorado Discovery, General AAVE Trip BLOG , add a comment

Hi Friends,

Well, we just returned from a wonderful week of Staff Training and are extremely excited about our Colorado Disco Adventure trip this summer! I hope you are all getting pumped up and ready to explore this beautiful and magical state. We can’t wait to see your shining faces in Denver on the 4th of July. Woo hoo!

See you soon,

Alice, Jillian and Greg


Ultimate Alps is on deck!

Posted by aave in : General AAVE Trip BLOG , add a comment

I hope everyone is anxiously getting ready as we (your enthusiastic TL’s) are!!! Just wanted to put out a quick hello and looking forward to meeting you in the Geneva Airport in 3 sleeps! Bring lots of energy and enthusiasm cause we have plenty of fun activities lined up! Oh and we wanted to let you know that we have a CD player in the vans so if you have CD’s you would like to share for the road trips or an Itrip so people can play their  MP3s that would be great.

Can’t wait for all the memories we are about to create!

YOUR TL’s

SARAH

JUSTIN

CRYSTAL


2007 Bold West 1C

Posted by aave in : Bold West, General AAVE Trip BLOG , 1 comment so far

Howdi yall!  Welcome to the 2007 Bold West 1C blog.

Soooooo Excited….

Sheila and I are stoked to see you all at the airport within the next few days.  As you are thinking of stuff to bring my add some suggestions.

1) Swimsuit

2) Sunscreen

So Hot! Were driving from Colorado to Las Vegas and right now basically in the middle of the desert.  Were excited to meet all of you and look foward to spending the next few weeks together.

Get Excited!

Lawson & Sheila

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