10 Mar Santa Cruz

This past weekend I visited Santa Cruz with some other IEEC people. I’ve been in San Francisco for nearly 2 months now and this was my first time out of the city (besides visiting Berkeley!).

I got to go in Juan’s sports car. Upon arriving and checking in to our hotel, we went straight to the burger shops downtown. So many firsts in this trip: first huge american burger with ranch sauce and tacky music playing in the background and a beer and pop art americana on the walls. Then first cookie-icecream sandwich (two ginger cookies with a fat lump of coffee icecream in the middle).

I have a theory about food from the United States. To be truly innovative, it blends two traditional dishes in a new combo. Why have just a pie, or just a pizza, when you can have a pizza-pie!? Why have cake, or a milkshake, when you can have them both blended together!?

So the icecream sandwich is further proof of this theory. As was the deep fried cheesecake-in-a-tortilla, and deep fried (battered) oreos we saw at the boardwalk amusement park next to Santa Cruz beach the next day.

More on this later.

Best of Santa Cruz: dreadlocked buskers playing gong instruments, the make-your-own tie-dye shop, and playing pictionary at a bar named 99 bottles of beer (yes really, with 99 types of beer available!).