California!

Hello!  I just recently got back from a week visiting my Aunt and Uncle and cousins in California!

I had a lovely time.  We went to San Francisco, Petaluma, Stanford, Berkeley, and all sorts of fun places!  The weather was probably one of my favorite parts.  It was a lovely 70 degrees, 60 or 50 if you were in San Francisco.  Compared to the 90 degrees and humid weather around here, it was simply heavenly.

I took this while we were walking the dog.  The views around there are wonderful.

On Wednesday, we went to Petaluma to go antique shopping, something I adore.  There are a ton of antique stores there.  My favorite was Summer Cottage Antiques, which had a truly delightful selection of items.  I nearly bought the entire store, but I did manage to restrain myself.

 I ended up with several vintage postcards that had been written on and sent. Three of them were postmarked from the 50s, and two were from 1909!  I also got a lovely handkerchief with a beautiful pastel design of French courtiers dancing, and some adorable vintage buttons.

Vintage Bank Antiques was another awesome store that was in a beautiful old bank.  The original architecture was all still there and it was packed floor to ceiling with odds and ends and furniture and what not.

 

As I'm about to start applying to colleges, we decided to visit a few, starting with Stanford.  It was quite lovely, but very large.  If I did end up going there, I would most definitely need to learn to ride a bike, especially how to ride a bike in poufy skirts!

 It was quite lovely in its own way, but it's not really the type of architecture I prefer.  I like something a bit more castle-esque.

We also visited UC Berkeley.  One of my Uncle's old neighbors currently attends Berkeley, so she came with us and showed us around.  It turns out we're really similar, so her info and insight into the college was very helpful.  I really liked Berkeley.  It's moved up to near the top of my college list.

I also loved the architecture of Berkeley.  This library was one of my favorite buildings.  There's a bust of Athena over the front door.  When you enter, Athena bestows her wisdom on you, but you can't leave through the same door, or she'll take it away.

After we toured Berkeley, we headed to San Francisco to explore and be all tourist-y.  It was completely swamped with tourists, so we didn't get to do some stuff like the cable cars, but it was fun all the same.  We went to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf and looked at the seals and stuff.

Two of my lovely cousins, the twins.

 

We also went to the Ghirardelli factory, which was pretty cool.  Then we were going to walk the Golden Gate Bridge, but all the parking lots were full, so we went down to a beach where we could get pictures of it. 

We also drove up a mountain to get another view of the bridge.  There was an old, abandoned building that we explored, and we found a path leading away from it.  We had no clue where it led, so of course we followed it.  We had a lovely spontaneous mountain hike along the cliffs and around other abandoned military buildings.

It was actually kind of freezing and windy, but still lots of fun.

We also attended Coast Guard day (My Uncle's in the Coast Guard) which was great fun.  There was rock-climbing, archery, fishing, ice cream, and loads of other interesting stuff.

Unfortunately, now I'm back home and facing the start of a new school year next week.  The problem is finishing all my summer homework before then and all that.  Well, I hope everyone else is having a wonderful summer!