The Community

I go to new places very often. I enjoy traveling and getting to see new things, eat new foods, and meet new people. This is enjoyable for me. I go to new places pretty much every single time the opportunity presents itself to me. Whether it is with friends or family I like the feeling of new experiences. 

I have lived in various communities throughout the years, and I feel as if I know them all fairly well. For starters I know the bay area, I was born in San Francisco, my mother then moved to Marin and my father to Oakland with the majority of my friends still living in the city I know the entire Bay Area very well. Then I moved to New England to attend boarding school, during which I became very familiar with the majority of New England while spending considerable amounts of time in Manhattan and Boston. Now I am in Santa Barbara, one of many communities I have lived in. This one is the one I am least familiar with of all. After living here for several months I still find it hard to venture past the party atmosphere of Isla Vista or the downtown atmosphere of state street. I admittedly know very little about this community other than the fact that the rent is considered too high, people find the homeless population to be a problem, and there is a newly elected mayor. I only know all of this from attending the mayoral debates this past fall quarter. It is not that there is not much to know about this place, or that it is not interesting. I just have simply not had the motivation or time to go out and experience the greater Santa Barbara area for all its worth. That is until this assignment.

There is a lot to learn about this place. It is beautiful, the temperature is fairly moderate, and there are a lot of tourists. For this excursion I enlisted several of my friends. We drove downtown and decided to check out the pier and see what was there. We walked onto the pier and looked at the beach. There were a lot of sand sculptures in the sand that an artist was making. Behind us I heard someone riding a skateboard. Right as I turned around to check it out he wiped out a couple feet ahead of me. It was a boy who looked about 12. He got up immediately and scoped the place out to see how many people had seen him fall, he looked relieved when it appeared that no one had payed him any attention. After stopping for a moment to admire the works in the sand we worked our way further down the pier. We passed by a plethora of seafood restaurants and I can remember very distinctly wanting to eat fish and chips. Imagine, beer battered fish, crispy french fries, maybe some crab dip and homemade chips as an appetizer. Okay, now that you have pictured this, we are on the same page. The most noticeable kind of group on the pier were families. There were families everywhere. Families with young kids that looked happy to be there, grandparents spending time with grandchildren, moody teenagers that looked like they would rather be anywhere else because god forbid anyone see them out with their family. We continued to walk further down the pier passing little shops selling trinkets and cute items that tourists by when they go on vacation. When we go to the end of the pier it was more families. But these families were different then the others. These families were fishing. By the time we go to the end of the pier you could really smell the ocean. The sunlight was just about to hit the golden hour and sailboats were making their way in. The seagulls were chirping and flying above our heads keeping watchful eyes on the fishermen, and more importantly their catch. The wooden pier below us was speckled with bird shit, further adding to the atmosphere. We sat on one of the long wooden benches on the pier and talked for a while until the sun was just about to set. After that we decided it was getting too cold and that we better head back to campus if we wanted to make it to dinner on time. It wasn't about to be the luxury fish and chips I had been fantasizing about for the previous hour, but food is food and it was going to have to do. 

This experience reminded me of going to Pier 39 in San Francisco when I was a kid with my grandparents. We would go to the pier, look at the sea lions, go to Ghirardelli square to pick up some chocolate before heading out to Dim Sum in downtown. Being out there made me miss my grandparents and good Dim Sum. It also reminded me about how they said they would come down to visit me this year and check out Santa Barbara, well let me tell you that never happened, but there is always next year. It also reminded me of the waterfront in Boston and sitting by the Charles River watching regattas with my friends. I wish I could have shared that experience with them as well. All and all though it was a lovely outing, and one that I probably would have done much later in my time here had it not been assigned to me. 

Brunch

I went to brunch this past weekend on state street. When deciding on where to eat brunch my friends all looked to me to choose the place. My friends here DO NOT brunch. It is not something they do voluntarily as a social thing. I however, brunch hard. I have been brunching since my freshman year of boarding school when it was normal for us to go stay a long weekend in a hotel in Boston or Manhattan unsupervised, and how did we start everyday while we were there? Brunch. Crepes, Eggs Benedict, a cheeseburger, whatever looked good was paired with champagne or a mimosa and we brunched. But now I am back home in California and have brunched with my friends from the bay when I’m home because they love it like I do, but had never until this point attempted to get my UCSB friends into one of my favorite activities. Although it is not one of the big cities I am used to brunching in, downtown Santa Barbara seemed like a decent place to give it a try. 

I had been downtown a few times prior to this and during my trips had very consciously scoped out places I thought would be good for brunch and places I thought would be good for dinner. In most cases a good brunch place will also be a good place for dinner but in downtown this did not seem to be the case. All the places that looked like they would serve a good dinner did not look like they would serve a good brunch. Nevertheless, I settled on this little danish bakery and patio restaurant called The Andersen’s. 

We called ahead of time to make a reservation, as there were ten of us that needed to be seated. Upon arrival we were instantly greeted with kind service. The atmosphere of the restaurant was quaint and everyone seemed excited to see what brunch was like. First thing  we did was order drinks and everyone was handed two menus, one for lunch and one for breakfast, something I was not accustomed to seeing for a restaurant that serves brunch (usually restaurants will have a separate 4th menu for brunch specifically especially on a Saturday or Sunday). Everyone browsed the menus for a bit and we all debated on what everyone should get. The waiter came back with our drinks and asked if we were ready to order. He got mixed reviews, so I told everyone what to do. Since the left side of the table was ready to order and the right was almost there I told him to start on the end with everyone who knew what they wanted and to work his way down to the undecided. I then told the undecideds to read faster and make up their minds. I was hungry. Everyone was hungry. Our reservation was for 1:15pm and no one had eaten a thing all morning. 

The orders were finally in and everyone was excited in anticipation of the first food of the day. I ordered the chicken in basil curry with a side of garlic mashed potatoes. Other than my order thinly other order I cared about was what Alex got. He asked the waiter for a recommendation upon ordering. He told the waiter that he eats a lot, and needs food options to feed his massive appetite. The waiter looked at Alex and said, "I know just the dish, but you are gonna have to trust me." Alex looked skeptical, but after I called for a vote on whether or not Alex should order the food not knowing what was to come, it was a unanimous yes. Eventually the food came and we were all in shock when Alex's plate finally arrived, last of course. 

Everyone stared as the waiter came around and placed Alex's plate of food in front of him. It was two halves of a giant Belgian waffle, forming a half sandwich with giant pieces of fried chicken in the center. On the sides were strawberries, eggs, and bacon, and hash browns. Syrup was then drizzled over the entire thing. It was magnificent. Alex looked up at the waiter, "Wow man, you really came through for me. You are a real homie." The waiter looked back, "I know." 

Going to the Movies

Going to the movies was is a rare experience for me. I, like many other people my age am used to streaming things at home as opposed to going out to see a film. Before this assignment it had been months before I had last gone out to see a movie. I remember the last time I saw a fim was in wine country with my grandmother. It was a rainy day so we decided to cancel our plans to go to San Francisco and stay local to have lunch in Napa before seeing a film. We decided on seeing Beauty and the Beast, a film both of us were looking forward to. That was months ago and I had not seen a film outside of my room since.

When I asked my friend last week if she would like to see the new Avengers movie with me she jumped at the offer. After her short burst of excitement she settled down and told me she was not sure if she could go. I questioned her, asking her why. She told me her boyfrined was visiting memorial day weekend and she did not think it was possible. I told her not to worry about it. I could find someone else. I went back to my room to return to my rigorous Netflx watching. Within five minutes she walks through my door with her boyfrind on facetime and hands me the phone, “Alex wants to talk to you.” Alex and I talk for a few moments saying hello before he goes, “So I hear we are all going to see Avengers this weekend.” To which I replied, “Yes Alex you do know how much I love being a third wheel.” Right then my friend Hannah chimed in, “What if we got all the couples and Emma to go to the movie? You could be a 9th wheel!” Now at this point Hannah was smiling because she thought she was funny. I looked Hannah directly in the eye before saying, “I would sooner jump off the Golden Gate Bridge then 9th wheel with our dumbass friends.” But before I knew it Hannah had prosed the idea in our group chat and everyone agreed it would be fun. I now had eight assistants about to help me do my writing assignment.

Before seeing the lastest installment of this film franchise I had fully intended on watching all the
 Marvel movies leading up to this point. Unfortunately since this was a suprise, I was not able to do the full recap that I had wanted to. When we arrived at the theater we decided to not get any snacks
because we did not want to risk the possibility of needing to get up duirng the film to use the restroom causing us to miss crucial parts of the film. We all bought our tickets, wathced them be torn, and headed into the theater. The lighting was dim, we had arrived a few minutes after the movie was scheduled to begin so we missed seeing all the previews for other new films debuting soon, but arrived just in time for the last of the “turn off your phone” messages to be playing. Looking up that the rows of seats I lead the way and chose a good viweing area where my friends and I could all sit. Once seated we all talked for a few minutes making our final predictions about what we were about to see. The lights dimmed futher until they were off completely. The movie was beginning.

The movie was amazing, angering, and amazing again. It began with Thor and Loki battling Thanos, the galaxies biggest asshole pretty much ever. The opening scene involves shots of the incredible amounts of death that follows Thanos wherever he goes, as well as our first official introduction to him as a chacter in this franchise. He has been mentioned in the Gardians of the Galaxy films before as the father of Gamora, the person both her and her sister hate most. The last time we had heard of Thanos before this, was when Gamora’s sister set off at the end of the second Gardians of the Galaxy movie to kill him. Within the first scene a lot happens. Loki and Thor look defeated, before Hulk comes into the picture. Hulk offers the audience. A slight glimmer of hope at first before Thanos imposes his massive amount of power onto Hulk. Hulk looks defeated and is quickly sent back to earth via super dope space tech to warn the others of what is coming. Thor, Loki, and Thor’s friend stay behind unable to beat Thanos or escape. Thanos then preceded to kill Thor’s friend and his brother Loki in that order, before throwing Loki’s lifeless body down in front of him. He leaves Thor trapped there as he exists, setting the space thing on fire and leaving Thor to die in it. Thor does not die, and the movie begins.

The film was amazing after this point. It incorporated all the major Marvel characters seen thus far in the franchise with the exception of AntMan. All the stories somehow found a way to intertwine and create one amazing mashup of all the characters fans have spent a decade loving and following. Then ending of the movie was the most frustrating part. Thanos gets what he wants and the audience is forced to witness half of their favorite marvel characters turn to dust. While extremely sad, it sets up the franchise to produce a whole other avengers film to fix everything that went wrong at the end of this one.

After the film was over all nine of us walked outside talking about how great the movie was. We then proceeded to make plans to see the next marvel film all together. That will be Antman and the Wasp. Altogether this movie going experience was a lot of fun and the movie was very much enjoyable.