Student Review: A day out in California

As part of its varied and exciting social programme for students, our St Giles San Francisco English school offers excursions and tours to some great places throughout California.

On the 14th of May, some of our students went on an excursion to Monterey and Carmel in California. Besnik Mani, a student from Switzerland studying at the English school in San Francisco wrote this review for us of the tour:

We started our tour in San Francisco. There were 9 people – I was the only male. We had two very funny tour guides. We stopped at several different places along the way. The first stop was an hour from San Francisco. It was a beautiful beach in Davenport, California. The second stop was the Pigeon Point Station. Next was Santa Cruz which is a lovely town with an amusement park. Santa Cruz is famous for its surfers and also has beautiful Victorian houses.

In Monterey we stopped for 1 ½ hours. This gave us enough time for lunch and shopping. Some of us went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is the largest and most famous aquarium on the West coast. We went to a Mexican restaurant which had a great view of the Pacific Ocean.

After Monterey, we went to another beach which had a lot of birds and squirrels and a big rock that sat in the ocean with seals all over it. The seals were really loud.

The next checkpoint was the Lone Cypress Tree which is really famous in California. It’s the only Cypress on top of the cliff.

We drove along the scenic 17-mile Drive in Carmel which I think is the cleanest place in America. We saw a lot of big and expensive houses along the way. Everyone on the tour said they’d like to buy a house there. I love Carmel because it’s very charming, romantic and clean. The beach was awesome! It was so quiet – not busy at all. I’ve never been to a beach with white sand. I had an awesome day with new friends and it gave me a lot of good impressions about California. I love this State!

He also sent us these great photos of the trip below. Excursions like this are a great way for our international students to make new friends, practise their English outside of the classroom, and really experience the life in the USA!

If you want to know more about our St Giles San Francisco English school, please do email us with any questions: sanfrancisco@sgiles-usa.com.