Writing about my last day in California makes me kind of sad that 1) I am done with writing about it, and 2) I am back in NC where it is rainy. I really had an amazing time in CA, and I can not wait to go back.
On Saturday, first we went to my cousin’s karate tournament. I was a bit skeptical at first, because I’ve been to anything like this, and I’ve never really found karate that interesting. However, I really enjoyed watching the karate. My cousin didn’t do sparing (the one-on-one fighting) but he did do kata which is more like a dancing karate. There are specific things that they have to do, like requirements to put into their routine but other than that, it seemed like it was pretty much up to you. There is a lot of screaming too. Not fan scream but like karate grunts.
I have to take a second here to brag on my cousin though. This kid has insane dedication. He is only seven years old, and is already a purple belt. Now, I’m not an expert in karate, but a purple belt is pretty far up there on the scale, only a few away from the black. And watching him do his kata made me think, “Woah! This kid is fierce! He looks like a true warrior!” In all seriousness, he is awesome! He won his first set, and then moved onto Grands, where he may not have won, but he did a heck of a good job.
After my cousin’s karate tournament, we all pilled into the car and headed up to Sonoma: wine country. While we were there, we visited two different wineries. One was more of a family winery and we took some pictures in the vineyard. The second one was more upscale, but it was absolutely gorgeous. Honestly, I never thought long stretches of relatively flat land could be so beautiful (I am definitely a mountain girl). There was just something about the lighting that day that made the grape plants glow. I really enjoyed the wineries, and while I could never really see myself being a member of one, it sure was fun to pretend that I could have the vineyard life.
After visiting those to vineyards, we all drowsily climbed back into the car (after I made a mad dash to find my phone that I had lost) and drove back to Sausalito. Now, I know that I’ve been saying that we went back and had a chill night, but the last night was definitely the most chill. After stopping by the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner, we came home, put on our pajamas, had dinner, and just chilled. My aunt showed us a slideshow (with an old school projector and slides) of pictures her father had taken while in Vietnam, some the aerial shots of the destruction of the Vietnam War were probably my favorites. I was history-nerding it out over those pictures (we had just learned about the Vietnam war in US History). After we looked at a bunch of Vietnam pictures, I hooked up my camera to the TV and we did a slideshow of all the pictures I had taken while I was there. It was fun to share them with everyone, as well as get compliments on some of my more artistic photos. It was like a quick recap of one amazing week in San Francisco.
So, that is that for the San Francisco series of my world travels. I have shared my memories, and even if no one reads this, I can come back a year, two years, even twenty years from now and remind myself of this trip. Thats the whole purpose of blogging anyway, right?! I hope you enjoyed these posts, and I should be getting back really soon with a prom re-cap post. I’ll put on a bunch of pictures, and share the wonderful adventures of pre-prom, prom, and post-prom. It surely was a night to remember!
CHASING BIG DREAMS 