7-20-2015
Santa Barbara, California
Day One

I wake up, and immediately feel back at home.  Santa Barbara – my alma mater and the place of so many wonderful memories.  The air here is warm and humid, following a welcome and unexpected storm from the night before.  It’s perfumed with the scent of tropical flowers and citrus, the offerings of restaurants galore, and the salt of the ocean.  My first thoughts are that it is fantastic to be back here.

I’m staying at a Marriott Hotel located close to my old freshman dorms at UCSB.  It is a fairly new addition to the community – definitely wasn’t there when I went to school.  In fact, there are many new additions here – everywhere I turn there is a building I have never seen before or a building in the progress of being built.  While the novelty takes away from my nostalgia for the area, overall my initial thoughts are that the additions are a good thing, and simply improve on an already beautiful area.

I start the day heading south on the 101, getting off at Mission and then turning down State Street.  My destination is Pacific Crepes, a quaint, bohemian French bistro on Anacapa.  Finding parking is a breeze.  There are garages tucked into the Santa Barbara downtown infrastructure everywhere, and prices are cheap.

My breakfast at Pacific Crepes is phenomenal, living up to my memories of the place which I made during my last visit back in 2008.  French music plays softly in the background, the staff converse in their native tongues, and you immediately feel yourself being transported to a more romantic place and time.  I drink my coffee black.  My breakfast crepe is filled with a symphony of bacon, ham, fresh leeks, and the type of melted, runny cheese that makes France…France.  Great experience.

Trust me.  You want this.

I’m not going to lie, I stay at this place for a good amount of time, gathering thoughts in the small, black Moleskine which I bought for my travels, and reflecting on past memories.  I could easily have killed an entire day at this establishment, stuffing my face with crepes and wine and capturing all of my thoughts in my journal, but that would have wasted the wealth of opportunity that Santa Barbara has to offer.  Before I leave, I shoot a text to a friend of mine named Lauren to let her know that (for now at least) this whole life thing isn’t half bad.  I thank the staff for their hospitality, and head back out into the sticky, humid air.

From Pacific Crepes, I return to the Tiguan and start slowly crawling my way back up State Street.  Windows down, sunroof open, I blare the Radio Department while the tourists slowly start filling the streets and main strip bistros.  Some of them look at me as though I’m someone important, and I smile.  It’s a powerful moment where I realize I have already conquered this city, years ago as a younger man.  I am definitely something above and beyond the casual tourist.

Perhaps by serendipity, as I reach the mall near State Street and the 154, my friend Anton texts me to let me know that he’s having lunch at a sandwich shop which we used to frequent and which is located within the mall.  Anton, his wife Hannah, and their friends were here camping for the weekend.  While their camping trip is an annual tradition (and one which I’m embarrassed to say I have yet to attend though invited every year), this year’s in particular constituted a sendoff of sorts before Anton moves to the midwest to start work on a PhD and a new chapter in his life.  I join them at the shop and buy a Coke, spending my time listening to their fresh-made camping stories.  Anton offers me some zen wisdom: when streaking out in the rain, take your shoes off first.  I have no idea what it means, but from the sound of it, they must have had a great trip.

Around noon I say my goodbyes and continue my way up State and to campus.  You see, the whole reason I’m in Santa Barbara is because my sister Lilly got into UCSB and it’s her orientation.  I’m here to offer wisdom and support…or something, having gone through UCSB already.  I don’t know, but I wasn’t about to turn down a trip to Santa Barbara.

I find parking (a much bigger pain on campus than it is downtown), and make a beeline to the University Center, where I grab a beer and enjoy it by the campus lagoon.  I make sure to send a photo of the event to my good college friend Guanglei, who I used to share beers with on campus back in the day after our math and econ lectures (yes, we were that nerdy).  My friend Jessica sees my photo share and chastises my beer choice (though in my defense, it was one of very few limited options).

Yes, I know, I know.  It’s Corona.

Once again I find myself drifting into a dreamlike state of nostalgia, as the kids on the UCen lawn play frisbee and the people at the table next to me start talking research and grant funding.  It’s a good moment, but by this point it’s starting to get incredibly hot and humid outside, and the air turns still.  An uneasy feeling starts invading the edges of my thoughts and sanity – a feeling that something about this moment, and this trip in general, isn’t quite right.  However, at this time, I can’t put my finger on what is bothering me, and I decide that I need to get up and walk around.

I head across the campus lagoon and to the ocean where I stand and stare at the waves for a while.  It provides me with a temporary relief.

At some point, my family gets a hold of me to let me know that my sister has a break.  I take the opportunity to show them around campus a bit – the UCen, Music Library, Ortega, DLG, and the marine bio lab.  It’s all we have time for before they are due back for some orientation lecture.  By the time we make it back to Manzanita Village, we’re all dripping in sweat from the freak humidity, and my uneasy feeling from earlier crescendoes to feverish proportions.  My family heads back to the orientation, and I decide to head back to the hotel to grab a drink at the hotel bar.

As cliche as they are, hotel bars are great.  The best way to recharge and catch a second wind before heading back out on the town.  Unfortunately…my trip to the hotel bar threw a curve ball my way: apparently, I’m staying at some nightmare, Orwellian, end-of-the-world hotel where the hotel bar does not start serving drinks until after 5 p.m.  So, miserable, defeated, stuck with some nagging thought at the back of my mind, and not recharged by the hotel bar, I head back to campus to walk the streets of Isla Vista like a bum and wait for my sister to finish her first day of orientation.

It’s here, walking these old streets from my college years, where I start to realize what is bothering me: this is not the place I knew as a college student.  There was no humidity in Santa Barbara during my college days, and the Isla Vista of today looks nothing like it did when I went to school.  It’s…developed and almost nice.  The streets feel calm and safe, offering no indication of the horrendous tragedy that occurred there a year ago.  What happened to the sprawling ghetto?  The delicious food hiding behind storefronts so disheveled you could guarantee that someone paid off the health inspector?  Where’s the reggae blaring from random bro homes?  Since when does Super Cuca’s look chic?  The modernness…the niceness of it all brought me to one terrible conclusion: my Isla Vista, the place I knew and loved and loved to hate is no more.  Students these days will never know it.  My sister will never know it.  Maybe I never really knew it.  As I finish my trip down Del Playa, I come to a spot that overlooks the ocean and realize that the life I lived here now feels like a dream – something ephemeral that happened long ago and will never be relived again.  The great sense of nostalgia from earlier today leaves me, and I am left standing in a place where I no longer feel a connection.  After my sister is free for the day, my family heads back down State Street for a delicious steak dinner at Holdren’s Steak and Seafood.  As good as it was, my thoughts are off in another place, and I’m left with an empty feeling by the end of the night.