We recently just came back from a huge trip to California! I met so many new people and overall had so much fun with everybody! Although I was excited for the trip, I wasn’t excited for the 3 am wake up to get to the airport. We had a flight to Seattle first, then to San Diego! Once the plane landed we hoped in the cars and went straight to Torrey pines state park!

Before I start getting into the trip I do want to mention that along the way we had to do a scrap book where each page would have instructions to take pictures of something or talk about a certain subject. Also at this point your probably wondering why we went on this trip? Well this unit we’ve been talking a lot about “disruption” in the world whether it be negative or positive. We focused the subject of disruption mostly on technology and how its effected the world. A major part of technologies history is Silicon Valley, so that’s where we went! Anyways, back to California now…

So, once we went to Torrey pines we headed off to a few major attractions in San Diego like, La Jolla Cove, and Coronado beach! We then went to diner at Miguel’s, there was a very long wait to get in but in the end I think it was worth it. This was definitely a super chill day which prepared us for the next few days to come.

The next day we went to the San Diego Safari Park. Before we left for California we also started a video project where we talked about the disruption of certain places, mine was the Safari park. Throughout the day I got lots of interviews, which was kind of a good thing because I got to talk to a lot of new people that where really passionate about their jobs. By far my favourite part of the Safari Park was the cheetah run. All the cheetahs that run have partners that are dogs, they do this because in the wild before a cheetah runs it needs to check its surroundings for predators. The cheetah ran 70 mph down a 330 foot track, and reached 40 mph in the first 3 strides! We also saw tons of rare animals like the California condor and white rhinoceros.

The next day after we had breakfast we went to the USS midway. The USS midway is basically this huge ship that aids in the take off of naval air crafts. Its amazing to actually stand on it, because its honestly way bigger in real life than it is in pictures. Every time the ship embarks on a journey it takes around 36 billion dollars! This includes water, food and clothes for the crew. A few crew members who where on this ship said its basically like a mini community filled with apartments, shops and even jails! We were at the USS midway for quite a while so after I had explored the ship I talked to a lot of the crew members that used to work on the ship. Just like the Safari park all of the volunteers where really passionate about where they worked so it was really interesting to talk to them!

The next two days where filled with us going to a charter school called High Tech High, I talked all about this awesome experience in a separate blog post, click here to read it!

After High Tech High (HTH) we caught a plane to San Jose! San Jose was where we were going to be exploring Silicon Valley. We started off with going to Googleplex! Googleplex was basically the workplace for google employees, they had everything there ranging from tennis courts and pools to refreshment carts within a 50 metres range!

Next on the list was apple park! The actual apple play park was this big loop in the middle of the visitors centre. The loop was actually restricted to visitors and only employees had access to it. We went to the visitors area which had an apple store and a sun deck where you could actually take the phones up and take pictures. In my opinion it was amazing how everything was so planned out and everything that was there was there for a reason. For example, the outside ring of the loop is made up of glass so the employees can feel like they are outside. All the trees outside are olive trees which 10 years ago Steve jobs had them planted at a reserve then shipped to the apple park! And all the parking lot roofs are made up of solar panels! Overall the park was an amazing experience and also showed how every single detail of the park was carefully thought out and planned for a certain reason.

We then went to the intel museum where we saw the company’s progress throughout time! After this we went to have diner with Scott and Brendan. Scott and Brendan are both technology enthusiasts so they came to talk to us about their experience with it, and some disruption aspects of technology. I think it’s safe to say that Scott and Brendan actually gave me more advice in life than I have ever gotten in the time period of an hour and a half. The main thing I took away from this conversation was that Silicon Valley was not at all what it seemed like. People are always talking about how Silicon Valley is the land of opportunities, and in some ways it is but in others it isn’t. If you think about it, you never really hear about the people who don’t succeed in silicon Valley, you always hear about the people who do succeed. It’s kind of like how you only hear about the planes that crash, and not the ones that take off safely everyday. Although there are many opportunities in Silicon Valley, sometimes the opportunities don’t work out and that’s the reality of the growing industry. Brendan and Scott also talked a lot about how they got to were they are today. Scott mentioned that when he was in the 10th grade he and his friends created a camera mount out of makeshift materials and tools. Scott later got invited to a conference because of what he had invented. The whole time he was talking about this, I was thinking about blue sky and how it resembled what we do on a daily basis. The idea of creating something from purely interest and passion I feel is what blue sky is about, which also resembled Scott’s project and what he was trying to create! Scott and Brendan also talked to us about the iPhone, and how it had disrupted their daily routine, which ties in perfectly to our unit! Overall the talk with Scott and Brendan was really enjoyable and also taught me a few things along the way!

The last day in San Jose was spent going to the computer history museum, HP garage and Stanford! In the end I learned a lot that I didn’t know about the school. Before I walked into Stanford I was imagining people dressed in sweater vests, and suits n’ ties. I was very surprised to see that half the school was wearing sweatpants or pyjamas! Another assumption I made about the school was that it was focused on grades alone when accepting applicants. I was very surprised to hear that they focused a lot on what you’ve done for the community and who your are as a person. Overall the day was filled with excitement and cool experiences!

The next day we hoped on a plane to San Francisco! The next two days were filled with learning all about San Fransisco, Alcatraz, twitter and being a tourist. The first day was pretty busy because our plane was delayed so we had to move our plans around, it all turned out in the end though! We first headed off to twitter headquarters where we got a tour of the whole place. We learned a lot about how twitter works, how they hire their employees and the daily life of an employee. We then went to the Golden Gate Bridge, which I had been waiting for the whole trip!

The last day we embarked on a three hour walking tour of San Fransisco! If you ever think about going to California you should definitely go on a walking tour because every single corner we turned was somehow historically important to SF. Every part of the tour was also very interesting so I took lots of notes! After the tour we went to Alcatraz. This was really exciting and kind of creepy at the same time, because everything was exactly were it was ever since Alcatraz had shut down. While we were there we got a very interesting interview from an employee at Alcatraz which will be in the book!

Sadly the next day we had to leave, so on the plane I started working on my scrap book that I mentioned before hand. The book was really long and sometimes very tedious to complete but in the end I was super happy with my outcome. I also really liked creating the book because I knew one day I would look back at it and remember the experiences I had on the trip.

The first draft I thought was pretty good but still had room for improvement. I ended up editing it again for a draft 2! I basically just changed some spelling errors, reconfigured some pages and added more explanations with each picture. Here is the final copy!

Overall this trip was a great experience and I learned a lot. Whenever people ask me the point of these trips or if we ever learn anything I always tell them that the experiences that we have teach us way more than we could ever learn in a classroom, I think that this trip proved my point perfectly. Throughout this trip we got so many unimaginable experiences and opportunity’s that I grew a lot as a learner. I honestly can’t wait for the next one!