Day 21 - Sunny Santa Barbara!

---

Today, we woke up early at around 7am, as we needed to be ready to catch our train to Santa Barbara this morning. We got washed and changed, before going down for some breakfast. The usual cereals, pastries, toast, coffee and juice were available, and Emma went for a bowl of cereal whilst Craig went for a solitary donut.

We went to Walgreen's around the corner for some water and a postcard for Craig's aunty (he had said that he would get her one from every main city that we went to, as she collects them - so there you go Bec, you've got a Hollywood postcard!) then went back to our room to grab our bags/cases and check out.

We walked the short distance back up the road to the metro station, where we caught the red line towards Union Station (where the Amtrak joins the metrorail). Once there, we went up the escalators and over to the Amtrak ticketing area, where we just had to scan a printed barcode on a Quiktrak machine, and it printed out our tickets for us.

We sat in the lobby area for around 10 minutes, watching the board to find out which track number our train was departing from. Craig found an American newspaper, which was completely disproportionate to regular newspapers, being about 2 foot tall and 1 foot wide (we think this is so commuters on trains/buses can read it so that they don't have to spread it across the lap of the person sitting next to them).

Eventually, the screen showed that our train was departing from track 10, so we dragged our cases down the slope (noticing a man walking next to us pushing a tiny bag on a huge metal trolley - similar to the ones used at the airport to carry several suitcases - lazy!) and went to the platform to board our double decker train!

We got on the train, put our cases downstairs in the luggage hold, and found our seats upstairs (which had huuuge legroom, Craig could literally lie pretty much fully stretched out - see picture!). The conductor came around and checked our tickets, and the train departed on time at 10:20 with barely any people on it! A guy came and moved us forward shortly after to the next carriage, so that passengers could be bundled together in the same carriage rather than have them spread out randomly all over the train.

On the way to Santa Barbara (which took around 2 and a half hours) we passed through various different types of landscapes, ranging from industrial, to rocky (where apparently a few old Western films were made), to miles and miles of farmland, before finally reaching the coast. Here, the train literally hugs the shore for a good 30 miles (the train moves quite slow so you get to really take in the beautiful scenery) and we watched surfers on the water and people pulling up in huge RV's (basically massive campervans) on certain sections of the coast, specifically designated to them.

We reached Santa Barbara at around 1pm, got off the train at the station, took a few minutes to get our bearings, before setting off towards the downtown shuttle bus stop. When it arrived, it was less of a bus and more of a quirky little electric cart with no windows or doors! Thankfully, there weren't many people on it, so we could easily fit our cases on, the bonus being it was only 25 cents each, which is a bargain for the 2 miles or so that it took us up the road!

We got off at the shuttle's final stop, which we knew from google maps wasn't quite as far up State Street as we needed to go to. However, we weren't sure exactly how much further it actually was to reach our hotel, and the original plan was to catch the local number 11 bus, which would drop us right outside but would cost us $1.75 each. We looked at the information on the bus stop, which said the stop that we needed was only 2 minutes away, so we decided that we would just walk to the hotel and save that little bit of money!

We ended up walking around half a mile (which seems like a million miles when you are lugging a heavy case and bag with you!) and eventually reached the Orange Tree Inn, where we would be staying for 3 nights. We checked in (thankfully our room was ready earlier than the stated check-in time) and went up to our room on the second floor.

We were a little bit tired from the trek, so decided to take a rest in our room before going out to find some food and see the sights of Santa Barbara. Our room is exactly what you would expect from an area so beautiful, with white washed walls, a wooden beamed ceiling and great views of the surrounding hills and mountains (also overlooking the hotel pool). It's all generally very cute and quaint and we really like it here!

Once we were rested and ready to go, we went back out onto State Street (this is the main 'high street' of Santa Barbara, with tons of shops, bars and restaurants, leading all the way down to the beach). What we didn't pay much attention to whilst dragging our heavy cases through the street, was the simply stunning setting this town is in. It is almost like a Spanish village, full of white-walled buildings with red brick roofs, with every street lined front to back with palm trees, rolling hills as the backdrop, sea views, lots of sunshine, and super friendly people! Almost everywhere you look, you will see some sort of church spire in the background, it really is the most beautiful place that we have ever been to, and we would seriously recommend it to anyone who is looking to go on holiday to the USA!

The plan was to walk down to the nearest shuttle stop and catch it towards the beach, however, we were enjoying the walk through the scenery so much, that we changed our minds and ended up walking the entire two and a half miles down to the beach, first stopping off for some food. As we didn't know what was on offer just yet, we popped in to eat at a McDonald's that we had seen earlier (we've promised ourselves that this is the last time we will be eating at McDonald's for quite some time - frankly, we are a bit sick of them after Vegas!).

After eating, we continued our walk down State Street towards the beach. On the way, we looked in a few of the different shops (including a doggy fashion shop - although we got told off for taking pictures!), checked out the prices for most of the eateries that we passed (most were slightly above our budget!) and walked around a shopping precinct. About halfway down State Street, we were a little confused, as there appeared to be a big, full on farmer's market pitched up slap bang in the middle of the road. The reason we were confused was that literally less than 2 hours before, the shuttle bus had passed directly through this area with no sign whatsoever of this market - damn those people work quick! We perused some of the stalls to see what they had to offer, which was mainly things grown in the fields that we had passed earlier on the train, such as fresh vegetable; fruits, nuts and berries; fresh meat and poultry; jars of honey; home made baked goods such as various fruit pies, cakes, bread and pastries. There were also some stalls offering hand-made arts and crafts. Although we didn't buy anything, we had a really nice time just walking through it all.

The shops continued after the market, so we did more of the same, popping in and out of any interesting shops, and checkinh the menu prices of anymore restaurants that we passed. All in all, we probably spent a couple of hours walking from our hotel to the beach, but finally arrived to take in the views of the sea, sand and to bask in the sun! We found a spot on a wall to sit and relax our feet after the long walk, and watched some people windsailing on the ocean. We also found a skate park, with signs posted all around to inform people that skating was not allowed in the area. We figured this warning was for the areas surrounding the skate park, but we did find it quite ironic that the signs were literally posted ON the walls of the skate park!

We watched the skaters for a minute or two, but they weren't quite of the same level of the ones that we saw at Venice Beach! At this point, it was about 5:30pm and we had seen earlier that the last shuttle bus to take us back up State Street was at 6pm, so we figured that it was best to head back now. The shuttle was pretty much waiting for us when we got there (perfectly timed!), we got on and it set off promptly to take us the majority of the way back to the hotel, which took around 10-15 minutes. We got off once again at the shuttle's final stop, and walked the remaining 15 minutes to the hotel.

We looked around the hotel for a little bit, checking out the drinks/snacks area in the reception (far too expensive!) and had a look at the pool, checking the temperature, which didn't seem too bad at all, so we may very well make use of this pool while we are here. We went back to the room and relaxed for an hour or two, before getting the familiar rumbles of hunger from our tummies. From what we had researched earlier, we noticed that was nowhere particularly near that would offer a reasonably priced meal (plus the fact that our feet were very tired from all the walking). Emma had the idea that rather than go to the food, why couldn't the food come to us?! From watching American TV recently, we were both aware of a service that Domino's Pizza offered, which allowed you to track your pizza online at every stage of it's creation to delivery (something that we had both laughed at American's for even needing in the first place - what's wrong with just being told that it would be 20 minutes?!). Competely disregarding our prior mockery, we ordered a large 3 topping pizza (with Philly steak, premium chicken and beef) to split between us, and avidly watched the Domino's tracker as it was updated at each stage, initially telling us that a member of staff called Raphael was preparing our pizza, had then put it in the oven at 6:57pm, was then quality checking our pizza for perfection, before personally handing it to the delivery driver Giavanno, who would bring it to our door at the hotel!

The whole process only took about 15 minutes, and Giavanno promptly turned up at our door to deliver the goods! We paid and thanked him, before sending him on his way so that we could devour our pizza (we have promised ourselves that this is the last fast food that we will be eating for a while!). Once we had finished, we settled down to watch TV for the night. There was a couple of season premiere's starting (e.g. 'Glee', 'Who's That Girl' and 'Raising Hope'😉, so we watched those, as well as a few YouTube videos, and one or two episodes of CSI/Law and Order, before eventually getting tired and dropping off to sleep at about midnight.

---