Goodbye, camp mendocino!

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Well. I realise I haven't done very well with keeping up writing in this thing, but to my credit I just haven't had time! Camp is so ridiculously busy, I worked crazy hours for very little pay (some may say scandalously little pay, and draw parallels with slave labour, but that'd be very cynical, wouldn't it?) and even in my 'breaks' i would usually end up sorting out some mess or other, especially since in the last session Oonagh left to join Pomo tribe (oldest girls), after all summer she'd been Acting Tribe Chief when Sal had a day off, not to mention a brilliant cabin leader. So for the last session I got to be ATC which would have been better had it not been for the overwhelming EVILNESS of these kids! The kids in my cabin this session tried to steal Anne's food, and when my watch went missing, it mysteriously turned up on one girl's wrist! If the administration staff would actually take these things seriously and there were consequences for them it'd not be such a problem but as it is it just really bugged me. So yeah, final session was a write-off, I was just way too tired to be dealing with such evil kids.

Once the kids had gone we had a day to clean the camp (woohoo!) and relax a little - we went swimming behind horse corral and me and Nicola spent about half an hour trying to convince Charlene to jump off a tree we'd all climbed. She fell off in the end, it was hilarious. Then we had a "prom" in the evening, which IMHO was a completely crap theme, and could explain why lots of people just hung about in their tribes and didn't dance but whatever. It was still fun. We stole the electric buggy/golf cart thing for a while and drove really fast around camp, something i've been itching to do ALL SUMMER!

After we left camp the next morning, nearly all the staff stayed in the Ernest Ingold clubhouse in San Francisco, which is the Haight Ashbury area, so we went shopping and generally had a brilliant time with the FREEDOM of not being at camp! Me and Gina were going to get tattoos since it's such a weird hippie area and it just seemed fitting, but we ran out of time cause she had to catch a flight back to Long Beach. As Jose would say, "Betrayed!". I did find the most amazing vintage place ever though, I bought (amongst other things) vintage purple leather converse for $12! Clearly the buy of the summer! They're awesome even if they do clash with everything i own.

After staying at EI for one night, me, Oonagh, Nicola, Kyli, Sophie and Charlie stayed in a nice hostel somewhere between Chinatown and Tenderloin (ghetto central!) near Union Square. I had really wanted to book into the Green Tortoise after everyone raves about it, but it was all booked up and there were too many of us. We did some shopping (although after being spoilt by the Haight's vintage shops I didn't buy much) and faffed around loads trying to figure out what to do (just like last time - too many people, too many things to do, too few assertive decisions!). We hired bikes and cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge, which was brilliant, I had so much fun. It was uphill for a while and we had to get back pretty early to meet people at the hostel, which was less fun, and we didn't get the ferry back from Sausalito which was the original plan, but just turned around at the end of the bridge and cycled back - downhill this time! When I figure out how and the computer lets me, I'll upload a video Kyli took on her camera of us going over the bridge, it's awesome.

We also walked (for miles and over many many hills) through Upper Haight, Mission and Castro districts which was brilliant, I took loads of pictures (mainly of very pretty grafitti!) but it's with crappy disposable cameras as my digital one BROKE somehow. Which is a bit betrayed as I've gotten completely reliant on looking at my pictures when they're taken. I'm considering buying a new camera just for my travels, but really with the amount of money i'm spending travelling about I can't justifiy it at all. I'm sure you all needed to know that, I'm rambling again, sorry!

Anyway I should really go now. Still don't know exactly what my plans are... in fact i don't even know vaguely what my plans are! Me and Kyli are staying with Robert in Palo Alto at the moment, which is about halfway between San Jose and San Francisco. Robert's basically driving us around the whole area taking us to all the best places to visit. Oh I haven't written about our trip to Yosemite National Park! It was completely amazing. I will upload photos when I steal them from people with digital cameras. Anyway yeah more on that later when I have pictures.

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