Thursday 23 February 2012

Santy Barbarararara...

Woke up in the dodgy motel anyway and the fog around the place had cleared! So we left Santa Barbara city itself and headed towards Isla Vista to check out the college campus and see what all the fuss about IV was.
We headed towards the university and parked up to have a look around. The campus itself is phenomenal, literally located right on a beach you can see why a party atmosphere is firmly attached to the college. I mean imagine spending 4 odd years of your life studying here...


Be kind of hard not to enjoy yourself. Surfing at lunch time and beach parties every night! We parked up and had a quick stroll around the campus just for the sake of it. Jamie got offered a modelling contract in the meantime and things seemed pretty quiet about the place. All of the Irish in IV had moved on and the college wasn't due back for another week and a half so we did what we do best and went to the pub! 

Here's some snaps of the campus to give ya a taste of what it was like..




We were contemplating heading south that day but the one or two pints promised turned into 6 or 7 so I said I would park up the car and join the festivities! I took the car from outside the pub and parked it up somewhere I felt was safe and strolled back to the pub and the lads! They grilled me whether it was in an ok spot or not but I assured them that I had it safely tucked away. So the drinking commenced again in the pub and the very nice bartender pointed us in the right direction for all of the house parties when the evening started to get a bit darker. Wanders were had however as previously mentioned the place was fairly dead! We happened across some parties on our wanders and associated banter was had... Everyone split up but somehow six of the seven of us managed to make it back to the van for some form of a sleep! The mystery of where Jamie disappeared to was solved in the wee hours of the morning. Just as it was getting bright someone noticed a body falling out of the tree next to the car and ambling towards us wearing a soggy blanket. We let Jamie in and decided a few more hours kip was in order.

About an hour later there was a rap on the window which woke us all fairly abruptly. It was a traffic warden lady in her little traffic warden buggy telling us we were parked in a red zone and needed to move the car. Turns out my parking wasn't as "safe" as I had assured everybody else! We rolled down the window to talk to her however the whiff of drink out of the car nearly knocked her sideways. Jamie mumbled something about us moving the car "no bother" and she waddled away looking pretty shocked. As soon as the window went up however we passed out again. Not paying much mind to her warning to be honest! About half an hour later though we were awoken to two state police knocking at the window equipped with sherrif badges, sunglasses and tashes... the whole shebang really! Jamie rolled down the window to greet them and the smell of drink hit the first guy instantly. Between trying to tell us we were parked in a red zone and that we had to move, telling us not to drive because we were probably still over the limit and finding out we were mostly underage he got very aggravated and told us in no uncertain terms to get the F*** out of Santa Barabara and never to F***ing come back. Warning enough for us. Blakey tore into a coffee and a powerade, we all had a bit of a stroll and further south we went again... Malibu ahoy. The land of charlie sheen, tiger blood and winning..... Which is what we kind of needed the state we were in. 2 weeks of road tripping down and copious amounts of burgers was really starting to leave its mark!

12 comments:

  1. UCSB looks unreal! Have heard from a lot of people that SB has a very bad rep over the last year or two for hating Irish folk though!

    Ps. How did Jamie end up in a tree can I ask?

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    1. Yeah I'd say a full summer there would be tough going with the cops and all. Heard a few stories of J1ers getting arrested!

      Emmmm.... he climbed? :P

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  2. UCSB Looks so nice!! Love all the pictures!! Haha the poor traffic warden definately didnt expect ye to be stinking of drink!! Ahhh wich I could go on a J1 this summer your stories make me so jealous!!!

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    1. Yeah its a pity this college lifestyle/summers off thing is coming to a close! wouldnt mind 3 months off every year to go travel :(

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  3. What I would give to be an American mustachioed cop....

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    1. http://www.flavorsaversmusic.com/fs-wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/04112010b5uNyuSnI.jpg

      Only 8 months away... ur call!

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  4. Funny story about the cops, I'd say they were sick of the Irish at that stage of the summer. That would be some college life there, a bit different from good old UCC. What was Jamie up to? HA

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    1. Era I think he couldnt find the car and decided to sleep in the tree... im not too sure it was a fairly hazy night!

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  5. I was in Santa Barbera aswell when their was a blackout, and i was staying in the dodgyest hotel ever, so i know what your talking about. Love the story about the cops, no wonder they are worried about us.

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    1. Yeah its a shame they hate the irish over there because theres good scope for some serious parties if everyone got along!

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  6. Spent a summer in santa barbara myself! Its mental over there alright. The cops were pretty tough n the irish tho.

    Did you make it to the beach at any stage?

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    1. We were there during the day alright! We didnt make it to any beach parties if thats what your implying??

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