CA Days 16 & 17 – Santa Cruz to San Luis Obispo

There was one more thing on my tasklist for Santa Cruz: The University-Campus. So after I woke up I had breakfast in a Cafe called “Cafe Brazil”. The breakfast was amazing, delicious eggs florentine with a bowl of fresh fruit and some potatoes, plus the notorious morning coffee. The whole eating gave me some urgently needed power and I felt ready to head up to the campus. Almost all bus lines ride between the campus and the central metro station, so I just hopped on the next bus and waited until it spit me out in the very center of UCSC.

The campus doesn’t feel like a university, it’s like entering a small village in the mountains that developed up there and for some strange reason is inhabited only by young people. I’ve never seen anything like this and the inspiration that place emanates is simply astonishing. I imagined studying and living there, what would the usual day look like? Get up, for a little running in the woods (if I feel like, so probably not – but I could), then a few classes until noon, down to the dining area of my college and grab some food, then a short walk to a bench on top of a hill, from where I can overlook the whole monterey bay and see the skyline of santa cruz. In the evening I would hop on the next bus, which will take me to town free because I’m a student, and meet a few people in a nice bar.

I finished a good part of my book sitting on one of those benches and then decided to go home for dinner, since I cooked my classy Krautfleckerl yesterday and there was plenty left. The good thing about Krautfleckerl is that everybody seems to like them, they are easy to make and one hell of a cheap dish. Cooking is always appreciated and lucky enough Krautfleckerl also fit in with the whole Vegan & Vegetarian boom that seems to assimilate the west coast.

Finally I spent some more time at the beach, walking around at the wharf and watching the people playing volleyball, surfing or just walking around on the sand to get their feet touched by the waves rolling in every once in a while. The following evening was unexciting, we watched “I am legend”, which killed some time but on the other hand couldn’t really excite us, then everyone seemed to have plans and went to sleep. This house is a funny place to stay. There are five people living here and there’s always somebody at home and chances are someone will have friends with them, so basically it is a in-and-out traffic zone where one gets to meet new people every couple days.

It’s a very different way of making a living than back home. People don’t care for space or luxury, in means of living that is. One guy lives in a former office-room, sleeps with a mattress and sleeping bag on a cabinet. Another two live upstairs, separated by curtains, one of them still sleeping with a sleeping bag and an air mattress since over a year now, because he just doesn’t bother organizing a bed. The rooms are small, functional, nothing special. When I was there actually somebody moved out and someone else moved in. The whole operation took no more than one day. Person A takes everything belonging to her, shoves it into a truck and drives off. In the meanwhile person B arrives with another truck, carries in stuff and that’s about it.

Person A took her couch, table and chairs, person B brought a projector and two couches, so by now there’s a chair-shortage, but a couch-overkill. But that’s just how it works. The living room was rearranged slightly to handle the new couch-situation and stairs aren’t really necessary anyways. Moving done.

Today I got up late, so I had quite some good sleep. I still wasn’t sure how to get south to San Luis Obispo, so I checked my postings on rideshare-sites, my emails and the greyhound-page. None were really promising. Greyhound was cheap again, but would have taken me somewhere along the 101, which basically is nothing but a highway, a big street, of which there are plenty all over. After some thinking I decided to do the most expensive thing. I rent a car. The lady at Avis was very nice, the whole thing took no more than 10minutes and off I went, in an automatic Jeep. Now I’m neither the automatic nor the Jeep type of person, but this was the car that was there and so I was about to ride famous highway 1 with this somewhat strange thing of a car.

After a couple hard break-happenings (this car seems to be made for breaking, not for driving) I had the monster figured out and was about to find my way to the other end of the monterey bay, where highway 1 starts to run along the coastline, all the way down to San Luis Obispo.

The ride was great and I am glad I made this decision. It costs money, especially if you’re not yet 25, but it’s worth every single cent. Lucky enough my timing was good, I started around 1pm in Santa Cruz and arrived in San Luis around 6pm, so went I first saw the ocean running along to my right it was almost high noon, clearest sunshine and hot, and when I came near San Luis I could see the sunset. Probably the five best driving hours of my life.

Now here I am, in a cafe in San Luis Obispo, trying to get in touch with my host who isn’t reachable on the phone. And as luck seems to like playing treats on me I seem to have forgotten my phone charger at Joe’s place in Santa Cruz, plus my battery is almost empty. Another one of those nights … at first I just put the whole trouble aside and said to myself “there you go, with the adventure you wanted”, but after some time it starts to annoy me. It’s unnecessary stress not to know where I’m going to spend the night, it’s not funny. So now I’m trying to organize my hosts until the end of my trip, to have things figured out before I arrive. And somewhen the whole “uhm, I forgot about you” and “oh, I’m not reachable” has to end, too.