St Giles San Francisco Student Review – Tour of LA and Santa Barbara

Students who study English at our school in San Francisco can enjoy many fun activities outside of their English classes. This gives them a chance to practice English with their new friends from all over the world, and also experience the USA and all it has to offer!

Fabienne from Switzerland, one of our students at St Giles San Francisco, recently went on a 3 Day Tour of LA and Santa Barbara Tour. She sent us this following review of her experience on the tour:

I was in LA from Saturday until Monday. The tour was organized by California Tours. The tour guide’s name was Virginia and she told us a lot about the tour, sometimes too much. But she was great!

The tour started on Saturday in the early morning and after a few hours, the first stop was in Beverley Hills. It was great to see this very rich place and to people watch. Then the tour continued into Hollywood. WOW! I didn’t expect it to be like this. We walked on the Walk of Fame and felt like real tourists. Of course, I took lots of pictures. There were plenty of people and some were wearing outfits like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Spiderman, etc. It was funny and very spectacular.

After this stop in Hollywood, the bus brought us to our hotel. The hotel was next to Disneyland. We had a very nice room and the beds were comfortable. Naturally, we couldn’t go to sleep because the hotel was next to Disneyland and we wanted to go to Downtown Disney. In Downtown Disney there were a lot of shops and restaurants and it was very crowded. We were tired so we went back to the hotel early and I fell asleep in the comfortable bed.

The next day, we had to get up early and the next destination on the tour was Venice Beach and Santa Monica. I expected a lot and thought about the pictures and films I’ve seen. But Venice Beach was kind of dirty and grimy. There were contests everywhere. For example, I saw a lot of bodybuilding competitions. It was fun to watch. Unfortunately, there was a very cold wind so we couldn’t go on the beach.

Our visit to Venice Beach came to an end and we continued to Santa Monica. This town was very pretty and there was a pedestrian area with lots of shops and restaurants. Also in Santa Monica there were plenty of people and there was a big spectacular white body painting and lots of other things.

Then we returned to our hotel and the next day we went back to San Francisco. On our way back, we made a short stop to Santa Barbara.

The LA tour was very interesting and I have seen a lot of different things. I will definitely go back there because I liked it a lot!

If you would also like to study English at our St Giles San Francisco school, please do contact us for more information or to ask any questions. We will look forward to seeing you in California!