Monday, Tuesday, happy days!

On Monday, after a morning of more organising our lives and trip, we went out to find the Castro, a neighbourhood of San Francisco made famous by Harvey Milk and his camera shop in the 70s, the building of which is now a centre of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activism and events. The Castro as an area had a nice vibe about it, some interesting shops and cafes and many a rainbow flag! We went to a Mediterranean cafe and had an excellent lunch which included a halloumi salad, a chicken and caramelised onion sandwich and some epic garlic fries.

From there we headed to our sneaky cinema we found on Van Ness to go and watch Magic Mike, a film which is basically about male strippers. Now, those who know me will know that I am not a fan of girly girl films like Kitty is (and most of the female population are...) However, Magic Mike is definitely a film worth seeing. Alex Pettyfer is a total babe, I literally didn't even realise it was him the entire way through (probably because he is no longer twelve). Now, I don't get this whole Channing Tatum thing, to me he kind of looks like he's been punched in the face, but there was enough of his body on show that this wasn't too much of an issue!! And, finally, there are no words for how genius Matthew Mcconaughey's character is. I just generally recommend you watch Magic Mike for some light entertainment!

Tuesday was quite a productive morning involving more finalising of plans. Eventually, we set off on a mission to walk to the neighbourhood of Haight Ashbury, famous for its hippy past and quirky boutique and vintage shops. It certainly was a cool place. The vintage shops were amazing! Predictably, the people were very interesting too, it was one of those places you could spend hours at just wandering around and watching people. We overheard snatches of some great conversations whilst we walked along too, my personal favourite being, "Well, we don't have to have lasagne tonight!"

From Haight, we walked up the edge of Golden Gate Park (the edge where all the homeless people of the world seemed to congregate) towards Fulton, where we got the bus all the way out to Ocean Beach for the rest of the afternoon.

It was perfect weather for being on the beach, i.e. we weren't freezing to death like we were in San Diego! Instead we had an ice cream, read, took some jumping pictures and wrote a 'You're Free' message in the sand for Kitty to send to Papa Barthez, who is retiring this week!!!

On our return to Hellhouse, we decided to make a concoction of mashed potato, cheese and beans for dinner, which highly amused and confused Jeff and tasted very very good.