Santa Cruz and Monterey

So I’m about to finish my second week of work, and go on my next mini-vacation for the weekend, so I figured I should probably talk about what I did last weekend. I met my friend, Erin, and her husband, Adam, in San Francisco for dinner. I picked them up and we went to the Mission District to go find somewhere to eat. We initially wanted to eat at one of the million Taquerias as the Mission is a predominantly Latino part of town (Latinos and hipsters) but they all had waits of something like an hour and a half. Ridiculous. So we found this Ethiopian restaurant instead. I had never eaten Ethiopian food, but it was quite good. I had beef and chicken and lentils. They serve your meal on big round plate along with the other people at your table and there are just little piles of food. Using your fingers, you pinch off a little “bread” called Injara which is more like a spongy pancake and pick up your food in that manner. It was quite an experience and the food was actually really good. We also each got a different Ethiopian beer which were also pretty good though the lager and the stout tasted almost identical, which is just not right. After dinner we found a cute little bar that was indoors/outdoors but as we started looking around, we noticed that there were all these huge poster-sized photos of Mexicans camping out at the border. It was some sort of art exhibit illustrating the injustices of US border policies and judging by the A/star symbol, it was anarchist sponsored. Welcome to San Francisco.

The next day, Jon and I took a drive down south. Not too far south though. Our first stop was Santa Cruz so from Mountain View, we took highway 17 to Santa Cruz. We drove through campus, which neither of us were impressed by. Pretty trees and such, but the buildings were god-awful ugly. Overall, Santa Cruz seemed very much like a beach town. Everyone seemed to wear shorts and zip-up hoodies. We went out to the boardwalk which was something like an amusement park complete with roller coasters, other various rides, an arcade, and carnival food. From the boardwalk, you could walk right onto the beach. I think we’re too far north to get any sort of decent temperature in the water, or perhaps it was because it was the end of May, but it was just cold. After taking a stroll on the beach, we walked over to the adjacent pier which included a few shops and restaurants and a few fishermen, but mainly just a lot of walkers. We ate lunch overlooking the water and watched as some surfers sat in the water waiting fruitlessly for any waves. I didn’t see a single one in the entire time we sat there and there had to have been over 20 surfers. Give up already! When the one wave comes, you can’t all surf on it anyway. Oh, there were also seals that were swimming around. They were cool. And loud.

After lunch, we headed further south along Highway 1 (the famous highway that goes down California’s coast.) where we could only see the ocean occasionally, well really it was the Monterey Bay. It was a pretty drive nonetheless. We arrived in Monterey which is right on the Bay and proceeded to find our destination: The 17 Mile Drive. It’s through this mostly wooded, yet somewhat coastal area that has 3 amazing golf courses and some of the biggest houses I’ve ever seen. There are tons of places to stop and get out and take pictures, so we did all that, just to get our $9 worth. One of the houses even had deer in its fenced in yard. I’m sure that’s not legal, especially not in California. One of the golf courses there is Pebble Beach which is one of the most famous courses in the country. It was gorgeous and we got out at the Pro Shop so Jon could buy some way overpriced golf balls with the logo on them. We also walked down to the 18^th green where some famous football players were playing golf.

After finishing the 17 mile drive, we went to go to see the Indiana Jones movie. I’ve heard a lot of bad reviews, but my take on the movie is this: I wasn’t bored, so that’s good. I thought it was a little cheesy at times and some of the one liners were pretty dumb, but then again, the old IJ films had some dumb one liners too. That’s what happens when you let Harrison Ford ad lib. Anyway, it got kind of weird at the end, but overall I thought it was decent.

On our way back to the Bay Area, we stopped in a little (and I do mean little) town called Moss Landing. There’s only one little turnoff and if you follow the road to behind where the boats are, there’s a restaurant called Phil’s Fish Market. It has fabulous seafood and is very, very cute. I highly recommend it if you’re ever on Highway 1 between Monterey and Santa Cruz.

So that was the weekend. It was really nice to see part of California and I look forward to going to see Point Reyes National Seashore this weekend and doing some hiking. Professor Motomura recommended it to me and I’ve seen some amazing pictures, so I’m stoked.