Castro, Mission Dolores and Yosemite...

Hi Everyone,

I hope you guys are all good!

It was two weeks yesterday until we get home... its really really weird!!!

Yesterday we went to check out Castro. We headed up through China town and then got a cable car to Polk and Bush (to finally upload my pictures!!!), from there we walked through Civic Square and got the BART train to Castro.

We were going to go somewhere else but I really really don´t like the area at the bottom of Van Ness. Isn´t very nice!!! lol!

When we got to Castro, which is a well nice area, we headed up Noe Street towards Noe Hill to a place called Jumpin´ Java´s. This place was really cute. All the coffee shops have WiFi so everyone just seems to sit on laptops. 1) This annoys me cause of the lack of internet cafes!!! lol! 2) It seems to mean that the cafes loose any atmosphere because NOONE talks to each other, they just sit and surf the internet. Its kind of a really weird culture. It seems like friends don´t go for a coffee they just go to sit and surf the internet while sitting next to each other. Odd! lol!

After that we wandered around castro and walked down to Mission Dolores. This is a really lovely building. You can see it from Market and it seems to fit in really well with the neighborhoods that surround it.

After that we did a bit of a loop and ended up at the other end of Castro where we went to a bar called Mix. This was a really cool place, although we couldn´t work out why the garden was soooo cold. The sun is really warm but the wind is really cold and it channels its way down the San Franciscan streets, the bar was sheltered from the wind so we really couldn´t work it out! lol! We had a round there which was really cheap (3.50 pounds for a wine and beer!).

After that we just had a mosy around the shops and I brought my gossip magazines. We went and hung out in a place called Orphan Andy´s. This was a cute American diner. We just read and had a bite to eat.

After that we got the tram down market and had a wander around the mall. Some salesman tried to sell me straighteners by straightening only one side of my head, needless to say I then had to walk around looking very odd! lol!

We got back to the hostel around 10 and just chilled out.

This morning we got up at 5.30am OW YES I DID SAY 5.30AM!!!! So early! A bus picked us up at 6.40am!!! It took us about 4 hours to get to Yosemite National Park... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite

We passed the most ridiculous amount of SUVs, I really have never seen sooooo many people driving SUVs before. They all drive on these amazingly preserved highways as well... there is literally NO GOOD REASON FOR THEM TO OWN THEM AT ALL. We also went past a huge wind far which was really pretty (but won´t offset the SUVs!).

Yosemite is a HUGE national park in California. It is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING. Rob actually went as far as to say that it was prettier than Milford Sound!!! It is full of the biggest trees I´ve ever seen in my entire life and huge waterfalls, huge rocks etc.

We saw El Capitan, The half dome, the cathedral, Bridavell falls and soooooo much more. I don´t really even know how to describe it! Its totally immense!!! lol! I have pictures, I think we might just have to go with that!

We headed out of the park around 3.30pm and got back here at around 8pm!

We are now gonna get take out pizza! Tomorrow we are going to Coit Tower, the painted ladies and we have booked a night tour of ALCATRAZ!!! Which I´m very excited about! Last full day in San Fran tomorrow! Can´t believe it its gone soooooo quickly!!!

Lots of Love,

Sarah xxx