Clam and Get It!

For a shorter week than normal (President's Day was on Monday so a day off to celebrate the birth of George Washington) the weekend has been a very long time coming. This week was a tough one for me for many reasons  be it work, annoying people, health and just general hormones. Facebook and Skype has been greatly appreciated this week as it is the best place to rant and rave to those people unlucky enough to be the ones you can dump your  baggage onto! Thank god for modern technology. I hate having a bad week while on the year abroad, it feels like a waste of time. But as one friend put it, doesn't matter where you are in the world, there are still going to be crappy days!

Pancake Day- definitely not a crappy day! For starters, pancakes are pretty much the best thing ever. They are the perfect vehicle for both sweet and savoury foods and we used them to their full potential on Tuesday. My roommate had a box of Bisquick ready made pancake mix where you just add water. I firmly put my foot down and said that there was no way I was making pancakes with that....it has to be done the proper way! Mine were better. We had the usual lemon and sugar ones, then we had blueberry and chocolate, cheese, sausage, bacon concoctions, nutella, peanut butter, the list is endless. We even had chicken ravioli ones where a ravioli was cooked into the batter (they were not nice).

Friday was a particularly crappy day but an improv comedy show at one of the theatre's on campus definitely put a smile on my face. Usually i'm not a fan of improv shows, there is too much room for error and extreme embarrassment on both the performer's and the audience's side. It is like watching live X Factor auditions in physical pain because of how shockingly awful they are! However there was hardly any of this (besides a few awkward moments from this one girl which both me and my friend inwardly cringed whenever she stepped forward to perform) The theatre is called 'The Barn' basically because it is a converted old barn! It is a lovely space and I kept thinking of my playwright friend at home who I could totally see doing something here!

That night some friends called us to come downtown to the bars but this time, my fake/real ID doesn't work. The bouncer on the door of this really seedy looking place was like "You know, I have never seen this before. I'm not saying that you made it at home, but you could have made it at home. It's just it's a Friday night you know..." I don't know what is so special about a Friday night but to him that was the deciding factor. I really wanted/needed a drink as well! We ended up across the street at a diner called The Saturn Cafe. It wasn't until we were inside that I was told that it was owned and run by a lesbian couple and that they only employee homosexuals to work there. Then it was obvious!  Not just that but in true Santa Cruz style, it was a vegetarian/vegan diner! I opted for the soy vanilla ice-cream which the guy was very sweet and brought free re-fills! Ice-cream is the perfect cure for anything.

Saturday was the annual Clam Chowder Cook Off at the boardwalk which was YUMMY! You pay $9 to get a tasting bowl and spoon and lots of companies and individuals had set up stands along the boardwalk, in amongst the rides and corn dog huts, where you give them a ticket and they ladel in a steaming hot pile of delicious, creamy, wholesome chowder which you slurp merrily away at with some saltine crackers or sourdough bread! You only get to sample 5 but they were all pretty damn good. Some of the teams had brilliant names; Clamma Lamma Ding Dongs, Four Men and a Clam, The Drunken Clam, We Clam Do It etc etc. My personal favourite:

The weather has been gorgeous this week. We even had a class outside on Wednesday because it was so friggin hot! I got sunburnt. Nos surprises there. It isn't supposed to last but it has been great having the sun shining, it makes it harder to be in a bad mood!

From the richest, to the tastiest, to the happiest places on earth

I have been putting off writing this post as so much has happened since I last updated!
I'm not sure whether to write pages and pages, because I probably could, or just quickly summarise the events...perhaps a bit of both.

Hardcore studying coupled with illness made finals week anything but fun. I was ready to leave by the time the week was over, I love Santa Cruz, but I needed a break! Before flying to my sister and brother-in-law's home in Seattle, I flew down to Orange County to stay with a friend. First I should describe my journey from UCSC to the airport. Looking back on it, I am annoyed with myself for doing it this way. There is a website called 'Zimride' where you post the journey you want to take (in my case UCSC to San Jose airport on Dec 10th) and anyone driving that way will post how many seats they have in their car and how much they want you to pay. I could've taken a number of buses to get to the airport but with 2 suitcases and not feeling 100% I thought I would do it this way. I found a guy who was going past the airport and onto Oakland so I 'booked a seat' in his car. I spoke to him on the phone and he sounded a little weird but I had seen his facebook page and he seemed better than some other options. I barely slept that night because I was worrying he was going to be a rapist of murderer! He turned up in an old beaten up, smelly, messy car with a bag of weed on the dashboard. After a bit of struggle getting my suitcases into his car amongst the duvets, walking boots and other random items, and against my better judgement, I got into his car. I spent the whole journey completely on edge. He was giving me his life story and telling me how his sister is a manic depressive, his mum is ill etc, I nodded and awwed in the right places. When he told me he was actually not going to Oakland as he never told his mum he was going to visit and just going to drop me off and turn back that is when I started to panic! I was starting to feel like I was about to live a real life episode of CSI. It all turned out fine though. It is amazing how your mind will work overtime! I am well aware that I shouldn't have gotten in the car if I didn't feel comfortable. Next time I won't!

I had a great 5 days in the OC! My friend lives in a really nice gated community with views over Irvine. On the first day we went down to Crystal Cove and Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach was not how I imagined it at all. I thought it was going to be a really big area, really touristy and a bit scabby to be honest. It was actually pretty small, really cute with little boutiques and art galleries, and not scabby at all:) We also went to a restaurant called 'The Boiling Crab' where they give you bibs, you order seafood by the lb and it is brought to you in a bag with a sauce and you just sit there and dig in with your hands! It was delicious!

LA was just a whirlwind. We managed to fit in A LOT! It is about an hour drive from my friends house in Irvine. We hit Rodeo Drive first and gawked at all the expensive, posh shops that we couldn't even afford to breathe the air in! I mean, a dress made exclusively of diamonds, really? The funniest thing was that we had barely been in LA for 5 minutes when I was stopped by a woman wanting me to be a hair model! Apparently it would be the best haircut I had ever had, I politely declined after hearing it was going to take 2 hours and I thought that they would probably cut my hair like Emma Watson or something else as equally as ridiculous (don't get me wrong, she rocks short hair, but NOT me!). We also went to The Grove, a famous shopping mall, and saw Mario Lopez doing some filming!

We also hit the Walk of Fame and the Chinese theatre. It was really cool seeing all the stars on the floor and the handprints of celebs in the cement. Hugh Jackman has MASSIVE feet by the way...;) We also went up to Unviersal City Walk which is all the shops outside of Universal Studios. It got me all excited for Disneyland the following day!

Before we left we headed up to the Griffith Observatory to get the view of the whole of LA and the Hollywood sign. It was pretty dark by this time so the picture's of the sign aren't great but seeing LA all lit up was just beautiful, even if it was a bit cold!

Disneyland....I don't know what to say. I felt like a little kid. Well, almost. It made me look forward to taking my own children and seeing their faces light up when Belle glides down the street:) I had my picture taken with Woody, Mickey and Minnie and the parade and firework show was just MAGICAL! We were there for close to 13hours. 13 hours of Disney magic! I could write a whole other blog post on Disneyland and all the rides, and the food, and the experience but this I will keep to tell people:)/ I can't be bothered to type it all out! I took a few videos....

I was sad to leave the OC. I had eaten a lot of good food, including Korean food which my friends family thought was so funny that I liked! But I was really looking forward to getting up to Seattle and starting the Christmas celebrations! After a round-the-houses flight which included a trip to Las Vegas (the airport is right next to the strip so I got to see the pyramid, the hotels and the Sphinx etc), I arrived in Seattle pretty tired after a crazy week. I greet my sister at the baggage claim, she says "I have a surprise for you", I feel a tap on the shoulder, turn round and my parents are standing there! SURPRISE! I was in complete shock, i just burst into tears (of course!) and was also aware of my dad with his camera though thankfully he didn't manage to get any good photos of my face! I had been downhearted that whenever I had spoken to them they were not enthusiastic about coming out to visit at some point but it was all a lie! They had this planned for 6 weeks! My sister didn't know they were coming either! It was all my brother-in-laws doing....isn't he so sweet! After re-starting my heart, and dried my tears, we got in the car and drove home. We opened the door to the apartment and sitting there is my brother!!! He had lied to me too and my parents and my sister! He had said he wasn't coming and then turned up at the doorstep a few days before me! So it is going to be a nice family Christmas in Seattle:)