Here is my recommended song for this post.

Two weeks ago I got back from a trip. We went to a place more magical than Disneyworld and a lot warmer than Oregon. We went to California.

 

Now when I think of the golden state I think of Disneyland and heat and palm trees. Not that this state has created a name for itself through this central theme. Disruption. Almost everywhere we went in California had caused some sort of disruption. Either with technology or new teaching innovations or even helping animals and the environment.

 

Now I will talk about disruption in a different blog post. But this blog post is going to be all about California and what we all got up to down there. (Hint: it’s a lot of running around and blasting music in giant suburbans)

 

We went to three cities/areas. San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. We went to all of the Big “San” cities. In San Diego we went to the Safari Park, USS Midway, Torrey pines reserve, a field by the ocean and High Tech High.

My favourite would either be the Safari Park or USS Midway.

At the Safari Park we did a tour where we got to learn about the zoo’s contribution to global conservation and endangered animal programs. We even got an encounter with elephants which those tours don’t usually get to do. Then we spent the rest of the day going around to some of the enclosures and checking out some of the more endangered species. We also went on a really cool safari ride. We hopped into a tram and went around this giant open area where tons of African animals were roaming around. Even some really endangered rhino species.

 

At the USS Midway we spent the entire day learning about aircraft carriers. Now I did a video with a partner about this ship but that’s for the disruption post. We did do a few interviews with the other groups that chose the Midway for their video as well. We did a tour of the bridge. Learned how the planes take off and land on the carrier. Then we wandered the ship.

We first spent a few a few hours finding interviews for everyone as well as filming one interview all together with a world war 2 veteran which was really awesome. Then after getting a bunch of interviews for everyone we wandered the front of the ship for a while. We chilled out in the super uncomfortable bunks, a lot similar to sleeping in the submarine in Oregon. We found the hugmongous anchor for the ship and saw the medbay and the briefing room. It was really cool to be able to explore a ship so large that it couldn’t pass through the Panama Canal.

 

Near the end of our stay in the city of San Diego we went to a school. High Tech High. It’s very much like the PLP program but it’s an entire school that uses only PBL to learn. We met up with a grade 9 class and buddied up I was with Tremel.

Then we toured the area and did various workshops and activities with them. They have a giant food area with Five Guys, Safeway/Vons and a bunch of other restaurants and shops. Down there we also had to do an interview with some of the students. We could aks them questions about anything so I decided to learn more about the school and how it helps students grow and learn.

After San Diego we took a short flight to San Jose. This was the city where got the Auxiliary Cord/Bluetooth connection. I was with Simon, Sam, Izzy, Isobel, Ethan and Will. It was awesome but also really small. One of the cars had a tiny backseat.

In San Jose we went to all of the big Silicon Valley places. Apple, Google, Stanford, Intel, the HP garage, Apple garage and the Computer History Museum.

My favourite was Stanford

I have always been kind of obsessed with going to University it’s always been something I have looked forward to doing and I finally got to check one out. We learned about the school, some of its history and what some of its unique traits are.  Something that really stood out for me was the fact that the school really looks for people who have followed their passions. Yes, it’s great to have good marks but they look at what you do in your extracurricular activities and how much you’ve been involved with them. It really made me think of what I need to focus on for the remainder of my time at high school. I also really liked the campus. It was really big and seemed like a community. They also had a giant field that looked like it could definetly be used to play a bunch of Ultimate on.

 

Then we packed everything up and hopped on a train to go to Oakland. Yep, the home of Raiders soon to be in Las Vegas. Then we went to San Francisco because that’s where Twitter and Undefeated is.

We dropped off our gear and headed out to go on a private tour of the Twitter headquarters. Twitter was definetly one of the highlights of San Fran. We got a full tour of the area. My favourite area of the building was the rooftop patio they have where people can go out there, chill out and work. It was a pretty cool workspace all in all but that was my favourite area.

We then went to Undeafted which is a hype brand store. They mostly sell shoes but they have various other merch. I bought some Converse/Vince Staples shoes same as Adam.

 

Then we hopped on a bus and headed out to the ever famous Golden Gate Bridge. It was iconic as all of the postcards. It was pretty cool just to take it all in. The bridge was something I always wanted to see and it was almost surreal when we go there. It was really cool to see such an iconic structure.

The next day we went on a tour to three of the most historic areas of San Fran. The Haight-Ashbury, The Castro and The Mission. We learned all about the hippy era, the gay rights movement and some of the crazy ideas that started in the area and has spread to the rest of the world. It was pretty cool to learn about the history of such an important town that has a deep history of changing the way things run in America and the world.

Then we spent we spent the night chilling out on the prison island. That’s right we went to the rock, Alcatraz. We got locked in a cell, walked around in the courtyard and sat down in the cafeteria. We even filmed a horror video there. It was pretty cool.

Then in the next day we began the journey home.

This trip was my favourite of the PLP trips. It was a lot of fun and I feel that I got a lot out of it. I learned one key thing down that going to the various companies and listening to different people. Follow your passions and do what you love. It’s the one thing that will make you do great things. If you believe in what your doing then it’s ment for you and you will do it well. That’s what I want to do with my life. I want to do what I want and follow my heart and passions and enjoy what I’m doing and do my best to do it well.