So beautiful here.

The last couple of days have been really chill and nice. SB is 21 hours behind NZ which sounds like a lot but it actually just feels like we're 3 hours ahead. Despite the relative ease of time zone shift, I'm still getting used to it and catching up on the 20 or so hours of travelling during which I got minimal sleep. This basically means I go to sleep at 3 and sleep till 2.
Now this is mostly fine, I am on holiday after all. But even though it doesn't feel like it, it is winter here and so by the time I have got up, eaten and showered I am left with about half an hour of day light to use as I wish, it gets quite chilly here after dark too.
Yesterday I finally got down to the beach. We live about 5 minutes walk from the beautiful California coastline which is pretty awesome. The path down there is usually full of topless (male) college students trying to hold their surfboards and bike at the same time which can be quite comical. Some of the best surfing spots are around this area and if the water wasn't so freezing I might be inclined to get back into a bit of surfing, it looks amazing.
A lot of the beach is a protected wildlife habitat for a certain endangered bird so you have to be careful you aren't walking in the wrong place or one of the extremely vigilant locals will tell you off.
We sit up on a wee cliff so the trek down to the beach is kinda steep and actually fucking scary. But well worth it when you get down there. In my half hour of daylight I managed to have a wee explore and start my novel which was a novelty (ehe). I haven't hardly had time to read for pleasure this year and I really missed it.
So yeah, was quite lovely sitting on the sand watching the sun set and reading my book. Felt very lucky.




The day before that we went to an outlet mall, was so large we literally had to tackle it in blocks, put our shopping in the car and then drive round to the next section. Got some good stuff but still no closer to the illusive New York suitable winter coat that will ensure I don't literally freeze my butt (or any other necessary appendage) off. Not worrying yet. Thermal underwear will be my friend.

Went for another breif pre sunset wander today, walked down the main student party street in Santa Barbara, Del Playa Drive. Apparently student housing here is so expensive that they squeeze two or three people into a room. The houses are all old and totally battered by weather because they're totally exposed to the coast rain and wind and things. Santa Barbara is a really good school though and the campus is really nice and so most of the students are really wealthy. This means that you walk down the street and you see a tiny rundown bungalow overflowing with people and alcohol and just general stuff but then packed into their front yards and drive ways are Audis, BMWs, Volvos, Hummers, it's insane.
The other funny thing here is that there are sororities and fraternaties. Like proper culty Greek letter stereoype frat houses, it's so cliche.

Because it's a college town, or just because it's cool, the music scene here is quite good, Passion Pit are playing tomorrow night which will be great, and Tokyo Police Club on Friday. Not being 21 I have been forced back into the all ages scene but that's fine, when the bands are that good I don't need to drink.

Going to look into getting a bike tomorrow, it seems to be the predominant mode of transport here and it would be nice to cruise around in the sun building up my tan (LOL jk burn)

Night time now, jetlag + talking to Bridget meant no sleep last night.
Laters :)