San Diego: Talent Show, Sea World, and Secret Santa!!!

On Sunday, we spent the whole day in the bus, driving from Williams to San Diego! Once we arrived to the hotel we ordered pizza before our talent show! Bus 2 has a lot of talent so it was a great night! Some groups danced to songs in their native languages while others played the piano and impressed us with magic tricks. Our chaperones even bought a bunch of prizes throughout the trip- a Mickey Mouse watch was the first place prize! 

Today (Monday), we went to Sea World!! We arrived around 9 am- right when the park opens! Debora suggested that we all go to the first ride, Manta, before exploring the rest of the park. This ride was so much fun and some of the guys posed for the cameras set up to capture your face as the ride begins. We went to a few more rides including Wild Artic (a helicopter simulation), Journey to Atlantis where the people in the front row got completely soaked, and Shipwreck Rapids-the ride that left us all drenched from head to toe. The whole group met at 4:30 to watch the One Ocean show at Shamu Stadium, showcasing the huge, magnificent orcas. We chose to sit in the ¨splash zone¨, leaving a bunch of our group sopping wet after the orcas slapped their tails against the water; It was an amazing show! Afterwards, we all went to watch the Blue Horizons show at the Dolphin stadium. This show had people and dolphins- super cool! After the two shows, we headed to dinner and back to the hotel. The last thing we did today was our Secret Santa gift exchange! Someone suggested the idea early on in the trip and everyone thought it was a great idea! Everyone participated: chaperones, coordinators, and students. We had so much fun guessing who each present was for and we each ended up with a really cool gift that will always remind us of this trip.

Tomorrow is the last day of the trip before everyone flies home. It has been a really wonderful two weeks!