School trip to NASA ( USA)

School has been regularly organising overseas educational trips for students. This summer 12 students accompanied by their teacher travelled to Orlando, Niagara Falls, Washington DC and New York. This outstanding 10 day educational programme covered the essentials of the US East Coast, giving students an overview of the nation and how it came to be what it is.

The trip was conducted from 3rd to 14th June 2018. The students who went on the trip were Aaryan Prothi, Aditya Verma, Chirag Singh, Devanshi Mehndiratta, Dhruv Kambiri, Karan Gupta, Lavanya Sharma, Prachee Gupta, Riya Sandhu, Tanisha Mehndiratta, Arsh Kapoor and the accompanying teacher was Ms. Jayanti Dwivedi.

Our first two days were spent visiting the Kennedy Space Centre. Next on the list was an informative bus tour around NASA. During the tour, we glimpsed the NASA headquarters, some of its launchpads, etc which are among the highly secured areas in the world. We also watched an amazing IMAX movie in 3D where we felt transported into the world of space -it felt a hands on experience!

Next we visited the Atlantis Museum where we sighted a Shuttle Launch. It was a tech savvy museum which taught us about the history of the successful US shuttle programme.

Next was lunch with an adept astronaut, John Blaha, who mesmerised us with tales from his extraordinary experiences of life in space. We also visited Cocoa Beach.

A short shopping shop had us picking up NASA memorabilia. This concluded our experience of NASA and we headed to see the theme parks of Orlando.

First in line was Disney's Magic Kingdom. Aside of the magical rides we thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of the Disney Parade, which brought to life our childhood fairytale characters! The sight was simply enchanting!

The next day at Universal Studios, we wore color coded clothes. Here we were fascinated by the rides. The studio blended the biggest blockbuster movie characters into rides and shows that left us spellbound. The same evening we boarded a flight to Buffalo.

From the airport we headed to the Niagara Falls and took a boat tour called the Maid of the Mist which transported us almost just under the Falls! The mist was profuse as the humungous falls fell to the floor of the river at the bottom of the great height! The sight and feeling is unforgettable.

Soon we headed to Washington DC and Hershey's Chocolate Factory. We stopped and took a look at the mind blowing assortment of hundreds of different types and flavours of chocolates and sweets.

The next morning we took off for Washington, where we undertook a bus tour which showed us the city. We saw Capitol Hill, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the White House among many other places before we boarded the bus for the long drive to New York city.

In NYC, our first stop was One World Observatory also known as Freedom Tower. At the observatory, we zipped up to the 102nd floor on an elevator in just 47 seconds.. phew! There we had an unbelievable 360 view of the city! We glimpsed the Liberty Lady, Brooklyn Bridge, the 9/11 Memorial, Empire State Building, among many others. We visited the 9/11 Memorial, which was overwhelming.

The next stop was Madame Tussaud's. We saw the most realistic wax statues ever made- they gave us goose bumps, feeling as we did like we were standing next to the whos who of the world! Expectedly we clicked many pictures.

Our next stop was the famous Times Square we were looked minuscule as we stood surrounded by the towering buildings and billboards. wheStanding at the center of Times Square, all we saw were beautiful tall buildings and huge screens. Everything there was perfect. We walked around a little did some shopping and enjoyed ourselves.

Next day, our first destination was the Statue Of Liberty. We took a ferry to the most iconic landmark of the country. While on the ferry we enjoyed the beautiful view of the New York City. When we got on land, we took a round around the enormous statue, took pictures, bought souvenirs and went back to our bus. Then our bus took us to the airport. There we thanked our Journey Mentor, Christine Messey, who had helped us and made the trip even more fun. At last we bid farewell to USA and boarded the plane with a ton of memories and experiences.