Downtown Santa Barbara (and Mexican)

Just woken up so I thought I'd blog about my day yesterday before heading out.
Mostly got rid of my jetlag and so we headed into downtown Santa Barbara to have a look around. We went to Whole Foods which was like I'd died and gone to food heaven. Every single possible thing you could think of in a vegan alternative. I bought vegan cheese and had cheese on toast for the first time in 3 years.
Ohmygod. So happy. After all my food excitement we got some lunch, the first of what I'm sure will be many many Mexican meals.
After we left Wholefoods we stopped at an intersection and there were two very depressed looking young backpackers with a sign that said "Travellin', run out of food." I scramble through our Wholefoods bag but all we had bought was vegan cheese and deodorant apparently. We gave them some money before the lights changed and as we drove off the guy said that they had been there for 2 hours and we were the first people to even stop. That dampened my day a bit.
All the homeless people here make me really really sad. Once we were downtown I saw a guy whose sign just said "Happy Holidays, no money for food" and I almost cried. Felt so guilty for just wandering around spending money as I pleased.
After that depressing note I feel a little guilty going on to talk about the shopping I did.
:/
My mum has this theory that you shouldn't buy clothes in New Zealand because they are expensive and poor quality and in general not as good as from the UK or the US. This means that getting her to buy me clothes when I need them in New Zealand is a challenge to say the least. It also means that when we go overseas she gets incredibly card-happy. So yeah Ima take advantage of that.
We went into a store called World Market which is basically a slightly more high end (slightly) warehouse. It was full of holiday stuff and I laughed for a full minute at this Jewish version of the candyland game- Kosherland. Also, the Star of David shaped pasta and Craft-a-Dreidel kits kinda made my day.

Santa Barbara is really beautiful, it's called the American Riviera and it's all gorgeous Spanish tiled rooves and buildings. State Street, the main street is all lined with trees that are lit up for Christmas. Mum told us yesterday that we're going to Mexico for Christmas which means no stockings, Christmas dinner will be Mexican (yum) and no presents because the trip is our present. Mum spent about 15 minutes making sure that we were ok with this. I'd rather eat Mexican than roast potatoes anyday but that's just me.

Speaking of Mexican (notice the running theme) we went to one of the local burrito places near our house for dinner. Yum. My "Mucho Mango" was fucking 23oz and I couldn't finish it. Most fastfood places have 40oz cups as standard. This scares me. My taco on the other hand was awesome. The cactus on the table really lent itself to an authentic Mexican-y feel too.
After dinner we went to the liquor store to get some beer and it was amahzing. I didn't take a photo because it was predictably full of college students buying alcohol and I didn't want to look like a stupid tourist in the liquor store with her parents taking photos. But I will. The shelves of alcohol went right up to the really high ceiling and they had every possible piece of drinking related paraphernalia possible. Alcohol is a lot cheaper here than in New Zealand, I guess we have higher taxes. Smirnoff was about $20, shame I'm not allowed to buy it.
The other hilarious thing about Isla Vista, the suburb where we're staying and where the university and dorms are, is that as you drive through it all you can smell is pot. For a solid 3 or 4km down the main road through the campus you drive through a kind of weed haze. I got half way through the sentence "Man it really smells...." before I realised I was with my parents and that kind of knowledge isn't ok.