Picking up some points from my previous journal first no my car did not have a sunroof, damn!, and second no my furniture still hasn't turned up yet, damn!,still only have stool and blow up bed.
Just had my first thanksgiving weekend, apparently it is the last Thursday in November every year, and has something to do with pilgrim fathers giving thanks for their crop, something like Harvest festival I guess but you get two days off. Friday they call 'Black Friday' I thought I heard somewhere that was something to do with the shops going into the black for the first time in the year, but that may not be true? anyway its apparently one of the biggest shopping days of the year and people sleep outside shops for the sales, down here in Santa Monica people generally sleep outside shops but I think they are tramps rather than bargain hunters.
I spent thanksgiving in the apartment sorting out bits and pieces, watching tv etc. and planning my trip to Santa Barbara the following day, as i wanted to avoid the shops and I now had 'wheels' it seemed a good plan. It takes about 2 hours to drive there North along the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu and then on to the 101, its about a quarter of the way to San Francisco. The Pacific Coast Highway was a great drive, sea one side and mountains the other, couldn't look round too much as I was concerned at either getting to close to the sea or mountains or car infront but it was good.
Malibu was a bit disappointing if it wasn't for the signs as I drove through I would have missed it, the road changes to houses or shacks on both sides and blocks out the view of the sea, apparently access to the beach is pretty difficult to spot and the houses seemed to cantilever over the beach again restricting access, the only clear spot seemed to be 200 feet or so where the pier was. As I was on a tight schedule there was no time to stop, but I think I'll reserve judgement on Malibu until I can go back and have look round.
I found Santa Barbara ok and its quite a nice place, there's a main drag about a mile long with nice shops, coffee shops, quite a few lively bars, couple of cinema's all under a tree lined thoroughfare. Apparently the 'quaintness' comes from the fact most of it was destroyed by the big earthquake in 1905, 1906? (somewhere around then) and they decided to rebuild it as a traditional mission village, ie. narrow streets, white plastered stucco walls etc. etc. even now the new shopping mall is in the same style.
The beach seems isolated from the town by the 101 freeway which seems an American thing, but you walk for 5 minutes pass under the freeway and then hit the beach. The beach is nothing special, not as big or as popular as Santa Monica's, there a marina down one end and an old wooden pier at the centre. I wandered down the pier and that was quite nice, usual sea food restaurants with live lobsters in glass tanks, novelty shops, fishing from the end. One good thing about the beach was there was flocks of herons, or they may have been pelicans, either way they had long beaks with big drupey necks.
The drive back wasn't so good, i forgot the fact it gets dark so early, about 5'ish, so I by the time i got back on the Pacific Coast Highway I couldn't see a thing and I could only remember the drop to the sea one side and the shear mountain face the other, which didn't seem so picturesque.
Saturday and today done a bit of shopping, had to carry out out some repairs to my jeep as it let me down last week and we failed our driving test, well the car failed not me as the brake light wasn't working they wouldn't let me take the test, but I am all up and running for our revised test tomorrow morning.
Not much else to note, saw some dolphins off Santa Monica beach the other day they must only have been 50ft off the beach, the sort of distance where you would be swimming, that was quite exciting never seen a dolphin in the wild before, especially off a busy beach, but then that made me think of sharks, not such a nice thought. Done some research, not sure I mentioned it but there is the odd shark attack along this stretch of coast, apparently surfers tend to get attacked more often, but swimmers have the highest fatalities. Its nice to know the facts.
Almost forgot I saw my first celebrity this week, Michael Jackson, I was at a breakfast meeting in some posh hotel, there was only 3 of us at the meeting in the hotel restaurant which was empty, and Michael Jackson walk past our table with his kids in tow. Now I am not great at spotting people but I couldn't understand why I couldn't see this guys face who was walking past, and then I realised he had a scarf over his head, even then I didn't twig until he called his kids and I recognised his voice. How's that for Hollywood Michael Jackson walking passed me and I almost forgot about it!
Hainault will seem a smaller place when I return! which by the way will be the 19th December but I will drop an e-mail separately to see if people are up for beers.
Got to go now its 12.10am and I need my sleep to mentally prepare for my driving test.
