My experience in the States.

Two years ago, I went to New Jersey. The reason for it was a student exchange. I went with some people of my high school (called IES Cid Campeador, in Valencia) that were younger than me.
We travelled by plane with the company Air France and then with Air Europe.
First, we went to Madrid by bus. It took 8 hours and was completely horrible and long. We had to got up at 2.00 o'clock in the morning but I decided to not to sleep because it is worse for me sleep three hours than not to sleep (I would have enough time in the bus and also in the plane).
When we arrived to Madrid's airport it was full of busy people. When we were looking for the plane's gates, we realized that we were so late so then we had to run a lot.
We flew from Madrid to Munich and the from Munich to the airport of Newark. The flight had a duration of 8 hours and was also long.
When we were there, in American floor, an unfriendly man asked us for our passports. Then a typical, yellow school bus was waiting for us. It was so cool.
It took us to the high school, it was called Saddle River. A group of people, formed by our hosts, their family and teachers, were with banners welcoming us.
Each one went with his American family in order to spend the weekend together. When I was in the car with the American girl, called Jackie, and her family, I was really scared.
Finally it was not so bad. At arriving home, I went to sleep because I was so tired and I did not want to think about problems, in fact only one problem. It is that my baggage was lost by the wonderful and nice airport workers...