Hello again! This past Friday my sophomore class and I took a field trip to Universal Studios in Hollywood! We all gathered in the front of the school early Friday morning, and began the drive. This drive consisted of many games of Heads Up, many heads resting on shoulders, and everyone basically on the edge because we didn’t exactly know our layout for the day. In other words we didn’t know what to expect.

As we all filed out of the bus and onto the Universal grounds we started going through security, scanning tickets, and getting in groups. Personally, in the beginning I thought this day was going to be revolved around learning about technology and cameras but Aj put a twist on it! Before we got sent off as we please, Aj had us all download an app on our phones called GooseChase, which basically is an app that we could share pictures and write about what we are doing throughout the day. As we strolled around the park Aj would put challenges on the game to earn points. For example, one of the challenges was to go into KrustyLand and lay down under the car in front of the KrustyBurger and act as if you’ve been hit by a car and snap a picture of it and send it into the app. Many people enjoyed this app, but me and my friends decided to cruise around the park and find where the best ride was.

Universal Studios is mainly all simulations, you are in a cart or chair for example kind of like a roller coaster but instead of just that, there are screens in front of you acting as if you have entered a new world, we went to the Mummy ride first, and then headed over to Harry Potter World, although me or any of my friends are big on Harry Potter, this ride was everyone’s favorite. The simulation seemed so surreal we all got so into it immediately that we decided to keep doing this ride over and over again and then started to get dizzy after the 4th round…

We also went on the TRAM, personally this was my favorite because I was very interested by the amount of movies that have been shot on the Sets we got to past by, and some we even got to go into. For example, we entered a stage that felt like we were inside of King Kong, we put on our 3D glasses, the train started shaking and the top of the ceiling was rumbling as if King Kong was on top of us, and animals fighting and water slashing on us really put us in perspective of how they make these scenes in movies. As for King Kong, we got to go through the set of Fast and Furious, also a simulation. Therefore, aside from the simulations we got to go past the town where The Good Place is being shot which is a current show that is trending right now, we got to be in the middle of a Old Western Town where a flash flood came down on us and we got to see how they make floods and instant rain come on camera and look so natural. Lastly, we got to go to a plane crash set, WhooVille set, Physco set, Jaws set and got to see where The Voice is shot too. I enjoyed the Tram the most because we got to gain information that is relevant to our generation but also got to feel what its like to be on the other side of the creation of these films.

Walking into the park in the morning we all were uncertain of what to expect out of this day, but I think I can speak for almost everyone that it was a day well spent and not only did we learn about the background of this park in the heart of Hollywood but also had a good time.