Last week our class went to San Fransico for our school trip. Most schools go to a camp in the wilderness for a week but we decided to go on an urban adventure. We have done wilderness camps in the past, and some of us liked them. But a few people do not enjoy them very much.
I liked the fact that we decided not to go to a camp where your whole day is planned out for you. I think it was good that we got to plan out our whole day and if something didn’t work out we could be flexible and change our schedule. We did that a lot. There was one day that we completely flipped our whole schedule because of where dinner was.
We flew up to San Fransico instead of driving to save time. This made a decent dent in our buget though. Right after we landed at SF0 we took three church vans to our hostel. We stayed in the Fisherman’s Warf International Hostel. We had three rooms. One for boys, one for girls, and one for the people that didn’t want to sleep near lots of other people. Then every morning we gathered in the common room at around 8:30 for a morning meeting. During morning meeting we usually went over what our plans were for the day then agreed on what time dinner was and were it was. Then we got our backpacks, and water bottles and headed out to our first destination. After we all had dinner together we headed back for the hostel were we had nightly meetings. These meeting took place in the boys room. We went over what happened that day and thought of what we could make better.
This year we split into groups and planned every day for ourselves. This year we compiled a Google doc with lots of topics that we could do in San Fransico. Then we put our names next to the topics that we were interested in. Next, based on who was interested in the same topics that you were and create a group with them. This year in our groups we planned out every day except full group days. And I liked when the other groups chose were dinner was so we got a surprise. Usually it was a pleasant one, but there were times when some people did not enjoy the food. Then we walked around with our small groups too. I think the small groups were better because it was easier to find a restaurant that could take six people not twenty, and, we could get on busses that were closer to full instead of just walking or having to wait for the next one. Last year we divided into random groups and just planned one day for the whole group then lead them around town. Last year it was easier to be a piggy backer and just be along for the ride. This year some people did piggy back on one or two of their group members but they were found out very quickly.
Before our trip my group and I planned activities to do and locations to visit for the whole day. We explored most of the city and did a lot of walking. We walked so far that some of us got tired. During the day I think that everything went fine but I did not enjoy the hostel too much and I think some other people felt the same. Also I did not like it when we were walking home from dinner at 9:00 then getting to bed at 12:00. Especially when we had to get up at six in the morning to get ready. I really liked that we got Muni passes for this trip because they gave us almost like a VIP access to all the public transportation in the whole city. We could get on the bus fast and nobody ever even asked me to open my pass. We were in San Fransico for a long time, I was having a good time but I think that we should have flown in on Friday instead of Saturday for some more recovery time.
This is a link to a map showing what my group, TGTDASAIBTY, did in SF.
