Santa Barbara

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Well I have been so busy after getting back from the states, I haven't even had the chance to complete my last two blog posts, HOW SLACK IS THAT!

I have decided it's better to have something than nothing at all, even though I might be a bit rusty on the details now.

Once we got to Santa Barbara, we moved straight in with Sunita's friends Tony and Dana - a lovely young married couple living in the "family" units some UCSB living quarters. UCSB stands for University of California, Santa Barbara - which is a pretty famous uni mainly known for it's crazy partying.

Other uni's around the place include UCLA, Berkeley, UCSF... One thing about the American universities is how proud the students are of them, it's a real image thing which uni you go to, and once you go to one you get right into it by wearing the university jersey, join the basketball team, become a cheerleader, whatever tickles your fancy.

We walked into UCSB one day from the units, and the first thing you notice is how EVERYONE gets around on bike - freakin bikes everywhere.
And they aren't the sort of mountain bikes you see here, they are the old school low rider ones with the big saddled cushion for a seat, high handle bars and a single gear.

But, there are so many bikes that they have dedicated bike roads with traffic lights as well as big bike roundabouts! Nuts!

The whole city is full of Santa Barbara is *full* of young people I thought, the uni obviously sucking them in from everywhere.

Up until the build up to reaching Santa Barbara (Sunita was looking forward to SB the most out of everywhere since she had lived there for a whole year) we had heard all about the famous "IV" or Isla Vista where the uni goers come out to play every weekend from Thursday onwards.

I was pretty keen to go check this so called IV out so we hit the road. For some reason it was almost as cold as the Grand Canyon was and I just about froze on the way there with my 6 layers and ski jacket. However, as we started to get closer, we started noticing young girls walking in front of us in the same direction with overly blond hair wearing nothing but open tops, rediculously short skirts.
It was about 2 degrees! I underestimate the power of alcohol.

We finally get to the stretch of road that is IV which runs along the beach, basically where all the "frat" boys live and have their parties.
We were there on a Thursday night and the road was packed full of people, awesome.

Unlike New Zealand where if you spot a gatecrasher you ask who the hell they are and call the cops, people in these frat parties would actually be encouraging people walking past to come up into their party - we got a few 'hey guys, come up here, woooooooo!'
Basically a complete free for all, you choose the best looking party you feel like going to and just walk through the door and start drinking their beer.


The next day we venture into the hills of Santa Barbara where Michael Jacksons ranch is apparently. We went wine tasting at a few places and had lunch at one place where we had our good ol' turkey sandwiches - polished off with a packet of oversized strawberries.

We went clubbing one night in SB to check out the night life, Shannon was doing his "rock rock sidestep" when a girl come up to him, started rubbing his shoulders and saying that he was looking tense.

Once she had gone we did the usual and told him he was IN! punched his shoulder, gave him the wink wink nudge nudge etc etc and he replied with, "well yes, I guess she wasn't terribly unnattractive".

Classic.

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