GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY & UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

The view of the Hollywood sign from Griffith Observatory!

We tried, tried, and tried again.... This is our jumping picture with the Griffith Observatory in the background!!!

Pop, Hon, (Thailand) Yulia and Liza (Russia) enjoy the view of downtown LA!

Welcome to Universal Studios, Hollywood!!!

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION! Universal Studios, California!

The backlot of Universal Studios, where many famous Hollywood movies are filmed!

We got to see some pretty cool special effects!

Mona, David and Aysa met the Simpsons family after they rode the virtual roller coaster

...And got to meet characters from our favorite movies after riding some awesome rides- like the Mummy roller coaster! (Gaeun-South Korea)

Lena (France) and Nina (Germany) had fun posing in front of a backdrop!

Aysa, Mona, Lena, Chrisi, Lena, Nina and Laura with an actor from the Waterworld special effects show

We finished the day at the yummy Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.!

We woke up extra early today! Because we wanted to go to the Griffith Observatory before Universal Studios. The day started out beautiful and warm and stayed that way all day :) There, we had a great view of the city and of the Hollywood Sign, which looks pretty small, but it's actual really big! (107m/350ft tall!!!) The view was amazing because the sun was shining and the sky was pretty clear!

After some pictures at the Observatory, we left and went ot Universal Studios. We got a group picture at the Universal Studios revolving globe and then everyone went into the park, split up and went on to have one of the best days of our lives! There were rides like the Mummy roller coaster and the Simpson's Ride- a virtual ride that makes you think you're flying over Springfield! We also saw shows like Shrek 4D and Waterworld, and some of us dared to walk though the House of Horrors! Jurassic Park was a fun water ride, too.... Then after lunch, we all met up as a group and went on the famous Backstage Tour! We go to pass by Wisteria Lane while they were actually filming Desperate Housewives! The tour took us into a stage where we watched the new King Kong 360 3D film clip, which was pretty cool! The shuttle also took up to a scene from Jaws, we saw a Hollywood-style flash flood, and even experienced an "earthquake"... One cool set was War of the Worlds, which had a huge plane completely destroyed and housed without roofs! Something interesting was a lake with a huge blue screen behind it and they used this as an ocean set for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie! After the group tour, we went off on our own to ride more rides and see more shows. some people went to City Walk to shop before meeting the group when the park closed.

After we all left the park, we had a little bit of free time in City Walk (at Universal Studios) to go shopping and then we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. to eat whatever we wanted to eat. A lot of us ate shrimp! (Surprise!)

We then went back to the hotel and some people got in the hot tub :) Now we are tired and excited to go to Disneyland tomorrow!!!

Kathleen- Germany

Michal- Czech Republic

Habib- Oman