i think the Warf made the trip much better than if we hadn't gone there. I'm most happiest about takin a tour of the Alcatraz. i went inside the prison cells and heard real accounts from former prisoners through an audio tour. after takin a tour of the prison, i went to meet one of the former prisoners and shook his hand. he looked like a gangster, but he was a bank robber. a sign said that the Alcatraz used to be a military prison until Hoover made it become a prison for the most dangerous and notorious criminals. there were more than three hundred cells in that prison, and it had the highest security during the time of the Spanish-American War. but as many cells as there were, the prison was never completely filled up. okay, i'll stop tallkin bout that for now.
let's see..what else did i see...Ghiradelli square: just walked over and took a couple of pics. drove over Golden Gate Bridge and took some pics there too. went to the biggest and oldeset Chinatown in San Francisco, one out of four, i think is what my cousin said. went to Ripley's Believe it or Not, and that was interesting. there was this machine was supposed to prove that the two sides of your face aren't the same or something like that. anyway, it took the image in front of the machine, split it in half, and distorted it in certain ways. i had some fun with that. well, my whole family was just standing in front of it for a good amount of time, trying to make funny images to freeze in frame. it was silly, but a good laugh when we got some funny lookin images. it's funny if you're there, cause my explanation isn't good. uuummmmmmm. i'm trying to think of other places we went. we did a good amount of walking, but i liked how we rented a car, cause i would see more things that way than if we were just walking. the streets in San Francisco are sOOo steep. there was this winding road on Lombard St./Blvd., and although the houses on it were gogeous, that road was scary to be on. nobody could drive fast on it, cause it's really sttep, and the turns don't seem too wide...well, i don't know, i wasn't driving. the houses in california were just a beautiful sight..the hills...you know when you're on a highway in MA that's ever-long, and you see those mountains/hills in the far distance, but you never actually see them close up? well, i felt like i finally got close enough to those hills. well, not those hills, of course, cause the ones i was close to were in CA, y'know? anyway, that reminds me of the plane ride there. as we were flying tens of thousands of miles above the different states, i saw some intersting things. the puffy clouds, the extrEmely long and lonely roads of the Mid-West, as well as the perfectly circular shaped dirt lands. i was staring out the window almost the whole seven hours on the way to CA. even when it was just dirt or grassy lands. what i saw were snow-topped mountains in Colorado. i kept a live MapQuest map on my TV screen--despite the availability of digital TV--so i could monitor where in the States the plane was, how fast we were goin, and how far up into the skies we were. i just love the views from the plane! on the way to CA, we were riding toward the sun, so it would just stay light for us the whole time. on the way back to MA, we were riding away from the sun--well, it was rainy, but there was a hint of sun in another area--and it just got so dark outside. i saw the patterned dots of lights from different states. i was also able to see the outlines of Lake Ontario and another Lake.
i realize this stuff probably doesn't sound interesting at all, but oh well.
oh yea, i just membered that i finally saw what Jasmine looks like! some of you know that my middle name means jasmine in chinese. anyway, it's white, small flowers in bushes. and they smell so beautiful! my cousin has it growing outside of her front yard. and she has a holly tree growing outside her house, as well as some pretty rose bushes. yea, gorgeous neighborhood in Cupertino, CA. i was watching Cheech and Chong's Next Movie on the flight home from CA, and i'm just thinkin bout the weed. people should smoke jasmine instead of weed, cause weed doesn't smell good to me anymore. i liked it at first, when there was little of it, but smellin overwhelming amounts in Chestnut just disgusted me. oh, and when i found a lighter for my mom to buy for a friend (he collects lighters, and he wanted one from San Francisco), i noted the picture of a marijuana leaf on it. must be good stuff for the surfers.
okay, i signed up to re-take CHM II at my school from July 5 til August 3, so i'll be stayin there for five weeks. i'll get to live in the Dell, so my own room, yay! i hope i tan there, cause i sure as hell didn't get to tan in CA. it was just too cool and windy most of the time, so i had to cover up. i hope even more that i get a good grade in chem this time, cause i can't afford to fail it. i wanna raise my GPA, and if i don't pass chem, i can't move on to any of my Nursing classes. that blows. i'd be pushed back at least half a year, and i don't want that at all. i also don't wanna be takin classes when i have vacation time. it's just ridiculous. what a waste of money. i'm gonna drive down to my school tomorrow morning to apply for housing at the school for the five weeks i'll be re-taking the class there. that's right, i'll be driving on the highway for around an hour. i've never been on the highway for that long before. i believe i can manage by staying in the same lane for the most part. it'll probably be boring for whoever's gonna be in the car with me and my dad, but at least i'll get some more highway experience. it gets me a little nervous, but hopefully it'll work out fine. okay, i'm done now. bye.