Santa Cruzin'
A new season has come and that my friends is spring break season. Despite this season being only a week long, it requires a lot of preparation. School and work occupy a good amount of my time but when a kinda sorta spontaneous trip calls my name, I answer back with when and where?! As a college student all you want is a little spring break vacation, but as a college senior, you feel like you will die without one. My friend Sarah and I have spent the last 3 spring breaks together so we continued the tradition but this year we made it an all girls trip, so our cute little friend Bubba came too. Rather than the regular San Francisco trip, Sarah decided that we should switch it up and head a little more south to Santa Cruz.
We decided to do a quick 3 day trip so we booked our Air BnB, packed our most spring break appropriate clothes and hit the road. Although we were only there for 3 days we had a packed schedule full of running around the quirky city. On our first day there all we did was pretty much eat and shop, which for me is the ideal day. Santa Cruz has a super cute downtown with one of the best Urban Outfitters I've ever seen, and we all know how much I love Urban. We also had some pretty amazing Italian food that night as well, but what I didn't notice was 1. how expensive food was in California (most of our meals were about $16-$20 bucks including tip.) 2. They don't use straws! This is definitely the more economically friendly option but I hate drinking out of cups with no straws! Anyways, day two and our only real full day there we had a jam packed day full of fun... and more food. That morning we climbed down the ladder of small cozy loft in down town Santa Cruz and headed to the infamous Mystery Spot, but first... we got brunch. What can I say? You can't start the day without some avocado toast.
The Mystery Spot was a little wild if I do say so myself. The whole premise of this thing is there is a spot in the woods of Santa Cruz where gravity is all out of whack. There was a house built on the side of a mountain and there you stand at a total angle... which if we're going to honest the whole reason we're standing at a 30 degree angle is because WE'RE STANDING ON THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN! But thats neither here nor there. The tour was about a half hour with a lot of fun and interesting things and it was only $8 AND we got a free sticker!
From the Mystery Spot in the Red Wood Forest we headed to the Capitola gulf waters.... get it? like the song? Anyways, Capitola was only a 15 minute drive from where we were. Sarah thought this spot would be so cute for pictures with the vibrant and colorful houses on the beachfront. We picked the worst days to go down because the first two days were a little rainy. Right in the middle of our little beach photoshoot we got caught in a rain storm and as fun and romantic as it seems, it's not that fun when I'm holding an $800 camera and getting wet sand all over my feet with not even a cute boy in sight! Once the rain stopped, we finished our lunch, finished our photo shoot and headed back to good ole Santa Cruz.
Our tour guide at the Mystery Spot was a younger guy around our age. He asked if we were going out that night which in turn we said yes and he told us of some great places to go. We went back to our cozy loft ate some cup of noodles and got ready.... drinks are expensive and we had no kitchen to make food so noodles were as good as it was going to get! The one thing that I loved so much about Santa Cruz was how close everything was. Because our Air BnB was in the heart of downtown we only had to walk about 10 minutes to our first destination that our tour guide recommended. The Red Room was a cool place downtown that was exactly what it sounds like, a big Red Room. I was sad that I didn't find Christian Grey, but it was a cool spot to stop for our first drink. It wasn't quite the vibe we were looking for so we sucked down our Rum and pineapple juice, snapped some pics and headed closer to home to the Blue Lagoon. This bar was more our speed. It was 80's night so we let loose on the dance floor with some of the cool Santa Cruz locals where we saw our tour guide Rory and some boys they call the Spicy Boys Club. This bar was honestly the best bar I've ever been to. Great drinks, not too expensive. Nice bartenders, and although the people in Santa Cruz are a whole other breed of people (very VERY quirky bunch) it was one of the best nights out I've ever had. We danced the night away until we got kicked out at 2:30! Who knew bars actually closed that early?!
The next day was sad. It was time to head home. We woke up hungover and sad to end our Spring Break season, but isn't that how it always works? We cleaned our loft and packed up the Vag, Sarah has quite the interesting name for her car, and headed out. We decided to head a little more south around Monterey Bay to get some breakfast at my roommate Matt's restaurant. His family owns a breakfast and lunch spot that we couldn't resist going to. The hour drive was more than worth it.
Needless to say, when you have the option to take a few days off from your crazy, wonderful, hectic life, do it! You can make new friends and make new experiences. You can even make better memories with your already friends! I hope your spring break season was amazing and if it hasn't started yet... well do something different!
XO,
Ryann