Santa Barbara, You're Beautiful.

So I was in L.A. county and had finally, killed enough time to leave for Santa Barbara. The traffic was kinda bad, but not totally horrible-- not as bad as some other parts of this road trip have ended up being. I stayed with Ruby, Charlie's granddaughter, while in Santa Barbara. She tried to introduce me as her kind of cousin to her neighbor, but I was all, "No way, I'm totally your aunt if I'm anything!" (because what I actually am is awkward and kind of an ass, if anything. So yeah. Sorry about that, Ruby) and then we had to explain how her grandfather is dating my mother, which she maybe didn't want to get into but hey, it happened (again, sorry).

It turned out that weekend was Santa Barbara's annual "Old Spanish Says Fiesta" which is kinda like Old Hallowell Day, but it lasts for pretty much a whole week and also is a lot more Spanish, go figure. I guess it's a big deal, and it was pretty cool that I happened to be in the city for that. There's this whole thing where people sell painted eggs that have been emptied and filled with confetti and everyone buys them and cracks them over each other's heads so that there was confetti everywhere on the streets and sidewalks and many people were walking around with it in their hair.

That first night, Ruby and I walked down into town and got some Mexican food for dinner. It was delicious and I had such a wonderful time talking to her and catching up. After dinner we watched a movie on Netflix and headed off to bed. In the morning I accidentally woke up stupidly early (because I suck at sleeping in these days, it turns out) and made some coffee to take out onto the porch. Now, Ruby and Jamie (her boyfriend) live in a cute little apartment that has a balcony porch that looks out over pretty much all of Santa Barbara and out to sea. But the thing about Santa Barbara weather is that apparently every day starts off sort of misty and cool and then the fogginess burns off by late morning or early afternoon. So I couldn't actually see much of the view as I sat there that morning, but it was lovely all the same. I painted my fingernails. I enjoyed the luxury of quietness and restfulness and not having to be anywhere.

Jamie was out of town the whole time I was there and Ruby was headed down to L.A. Saturday night for a wedding, so she took off after breakfast and I headed downtown to check out the farmer's market. It was so great. I got there only like ten minutes before it ended, which was barely enough time to walk through everything, but it worked out perfectly for me to get some (delish!) strawberries and some cosmos.

After the market I met up with Maddie, a friend of mine from Gordon who lives in Santa Barbara too! We went to a cute coffee shop and then she walked me around a bit of the city and showed me some sights (Ruby had done a bit of this the night before, too, but it was dark then and with my already terrible sense of direction it was virtually impossible for me to retain any of it. Thank God for google maps and smart phones!). We headed over to a temporary mercado that had been set up just for the festivities and I got some tasty Mexican corn on the cob for lunch. Yum! Then we went to the beach and hung out with some of her friends. It's weird how much the temperature can change when you get close to water. I mean, all day I'd been fairly close to water already but it was so hot until we actually got to the beach and it was much cooler and nobody actually ended up going for a swim or anything. It was enough to just be down there and cool off like that. Maddie and her friends were making pizza and watching the Olympics for dinner, so I joined them for that. We stopped at Traer Joe's for supplies on the way, and because I've never lived very near one it's always sort of a treat for me to go to one. I get really excited about it. Anyway, the pizza was delicious. I wasn't really involved with the pizza making process so I can't take any of the credit, but they did a fantastic job.

I headed back up the hill to Ruby's apartment and went straight to bed. I was exhausted! Watching Michael Phelps win a bunch of gold medals will really sap your energy, I tell ya!

On Sunday morning I stopped at a cafe type place called C'est Cheese (Pronounced like "Say Cheese" but in French it means "It's Cheese" because they're so punny. Actually the french for cheese is fromage, but I guess you have to make some sacrifices if you want to name your place something that cute.) on Maddie's recommendation. They had breakfast grilled cheese on the menu! I ordered that because duh, although I got it without the egg it was supposed to come with. It was so freaking good. Holy smokes. I wrote some postcards and headed north to drive up scenic route 1 towards the Bay Area.

Overall, my stay in Santa Barbara was wonderful. The city is so beautiful with all its Spanish architecture. Think red tile roofing and white buildings and palm trees and bright flowers everywhere. Seriously, so picturesque. One thing that kept bugging me though was that for such an iconic look, it didn't seem familiar from when I used to watch the show Psych, which is set there. Now, it's been years since I watched Psych and I don't remember any particularly distinct views of the city at all, so it's not like Santa Barbara looked wrong from the show, it was that it looked so distinctive and unfamiliar. I felt like if I watched that many seasons of a show set in such a beautiful place I shouldn't be so surprised by the look of the city when I visited. I mentioned it to Maddie and she said, "Oh, yeah, but it wasn't filmed here, right?" and of course I'd suspected as much but I was glad to have her confirm it for me so immediately. I'd always assumed that it was depicted accurately in the show, but after visiting it just kept confusing me that it all looked so new and different. I felt much better (although slightly disappointed) after learning that. (Also, for the record, I looked it up later and discovered that most of the filming took place in a few different places in Britsh Columbia including Vancouver which I also visited and it didn't look familiar to me either, so there you go. I just suck at that game, apparently.) So yeah, mystery solved.

Like I said, Santa Barbara was beautiful and I loved it there and I greatly enjoyed visiting with the people I got to see. Two thumbs up.