was amazing. i haven't laughed that hard or that much in such a long time. what a beautiful city - i especially loved Haight Street, center of the free love movement - full of hippy shops and cool little vintage stores and tattoo parlors, i fit right in. staying in josh's hot little airless one bedroom apartment, sleeping on a blowup mattress that didn't really blow up all the way, watching movies like "a scanner darkly" and "kung fu panda" and having jon come over and play guitar and drink two dollar wine and making pasta and amazing cookie dough brownies and eating out and going to the Golden Gate Bridge and Hippie Hill and the bathouse ruins and the beach and touching the Pacific Ocean and riding Caltrain and BART and the bus - being totally self-sufficient - they have an AMAZING Borders in Palo Alto, where we stayed - it used to an old movie theater so it's got an old movie theater facade out front and a big closed courtyard and i bought too many books that i couldn't afford, and i got a freaking sweet hat in this little hat shop off the street in SF, and a gorgeous skirt on Haight Street, and lots and lots of pictures.
it's funny how we met jon and josh, the guys we stayed with, me, my sister, and our friend and neighbor alex. my family and i went down to New Orleans two years ago to help my uncle and the Vineyard Church down there gut houses with my cousins, and jon and josh were staying there too - they were hitchhiking across the country from California (jon was 19 and josh was 23) and they stopped there partly to help and partly for the free food. i don't think i've ever met anyone else in my entire life who i have trusted almost instantly like them. a month later they lived with us for two weeks and we skipped school one day to help them reach the Atlantic. we've stayed in contact ever since - my sister and alex visited them last summer and this summer was like another reunion. it's wonderful, having these friendships that are absolutely effortless to maintain, no matter how much time has passed. it's wonderful knowing that whenever i'm with them i'll have a good time. some people are just meant to be together, some people are just meant to be friends, and i am so freaking blessed to be a part of that.

best vacation in years.