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."