CA Days 14 & 15 – Santa Cruz

The whole day-count-confusion had a simple reason: My powerbook refuses to switch to the local timezone, so when I’m online anytime between 3pm and midnight it shows me “tomorrow’s” date, therefore confusing me with it’s date-being-wrong-ness. Before I came down here to Santa Cruz everybody kept telling me that it’s a “special place” to stay. I usually gave them a nod or a “aha!” because when you travel basically everyone will keep telling you about “special places” you have to visit and then you’re there and realise it’s just another place and you’re all “mhm, ok”.

Not so for Santa Cruz. On my second day here I chatted with Jeremiah, one of Joe’s housemates, and he said this: “If I think of leaving Santa Cruz it feels like going back to reality. This place is like a black hole.” After running around and absorbing the local spirit I am 100% with him. It’s weird, but things are different here. First of all it’s a place where you can go play beachvolleyball in shorts the whole year. It’s a place where you can go to the beach and look out to the horizon every single day. It’s a place full of skater, biker, surfer and it’s got a cafe called “Bad Ass Coffee”.

But it’s also a young town, with the University Campus making for a significant part of the population. And life is relaxed out here. People are just enjoying their surroundings, or whatever. I can’t explain what’s going on and why it is, but I can tell you that it’s a damn good feeling. I spent the first day sitting at the beach, watching waves roll in, sea lions doing stuff and seagulls flying around. I spent yesterday on the 2nd floor of a restaurant way out on the wharf, reading a book, ordering nothing but a coffee which I got two refills (which are free) for, plus a bowl of tortilla chips with probably the best salsa dip ever made by a human being.

Staying in Santa Cruz means to enjoy yourself. I will go see the campus today, it’s a huge area with deer-filled woods and just a couple buildings in the center, people keep telling me it’s one of the most beautiful campus in the whole states. Then I will go to the beach again.

Finally the travel-spirit kicks in. I realized that San Francisco is probably the perfect city for europeans to start travelling in the states, because it does have a bit of an european spirit, plus most the time I spent there was cold and windy, so not very different from back home. By going south and visiting Oakland and now Santa Cruz, with the weather being amazingly clear sunshine, things change. It’s a different feeling, a whole different experience. Watching people walking around the beach, kicking around their skate- and surfboards and realizing that these people grow up in probably one of the most relaxed places on earth starts to get to me and I feel that I start to question different ways of living, and am strongly considering living in another place than Vienna.

Two days at the beach were more of a relaxation and inspiration than I’ve had the whole last year. Walking around with a t-shirt, in january, barefoot on the beach was the moment when I realized that I’m far from home and that things are working way different here.

I advise everyone visiting Santa Cruz to go have a coffee or lunch or dinner or beer or whatever on the 2nd floor of Olitas at the end of the wharf. Ask for the Salsa. Tip high.

I love you all.