Reconnaissance Mission: Santa Barbara

My trip to the Philippines last June was in one way a pleasure and in another, a disappointment. I always look forward to my trips back to the Philippines because I always think of it as "going home." Well, after all the excitement of seeing my family had worn off, I came to the sad realization that the place I considered "home" is no longer there. I had fond memories of this huge rice field right beside our residential subdivision that had this huge acacia tree right in the middle. It is now a restaurant and a motorcycle store, and I guess they built more houses over it. I had memories of sitting outside in our garden, munching on small aratilez we picked from our trees, with a cool breeze blowing. Or of waiting in greedy anticipation for when the coconuts would be ready to harvest from the 20-year old trees we had out front … and getting sick from eating too much when it was finally time. The trees are gone now, and my brother had built his house on the lot where the garden once was. I don't know – I guess I am romanticizing it all. I am sure it was not as idyllic as it is in my memory now. I am probably just wanting to return back to that time when I was young and things like mortgage payments, relationship issues, retirement plans and job security were still decades away. I suppose one of my goals in travel nursing now would be to find that new place to finally settle down and call "home."

Anyway, speaking of that quest… I have several places in Cali that I am eyeing for my next assignment. (So much for just staying in Cali for 3 months!) My next dream location is in the City of Santa Barbara, about 300 miles south of San Francisco and about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. (www.santabarbaraca.com) I had a 6 straight days off a few weeks ago so I decided I'd take the Amtrak train from San Jose to Santa Barbara for a "reconnaissance mission" haha. Of course, as Murphy's Law would have it, Cali was under a heat wave at the time, and we were notified that the train would be 5 hours late. I refused the option to take the bus (which would have arrived at SB at around 6pm that day) because I was a dooby-brain and wanted to try the Amtrak. The train was re-scheduled for 3:30pm, but I sat at that train station waiting for that train until it finally arrived at 7:45pm. I boarded, but my relief was short-lived as I realized that - crap! I am going to arrive at Santa Barbara at 3-friggin'-AM!

And so there I was, at the Santa Barbara train station at 3:30am. The train stayed there for about 10 minutes, and during that time I was working my way up to a major heart attack as I was walking up and down the street, trying to look for where the *&^%$ hostel was. The website said they were just across the train station, and from what I could see there was no hostel in sight. I told myself I would have to figure this one out fast, because the rest of the people who got off the train with me were already getting into their cars and driving off, and pretty soon I would be by myself on that platform. I saw a shuttle bus nearby and asked the guy there if he knew where the hostel was. He said he was sorry but he was from LA and didn't know. I thanked him and started walking away but then he started asking me questions and afterward said, "hey, can I give you my number so you can call me sometime?" He must have seen the "huh?" expression on my face so he added, "or maybe you can give me yours so I can call you…?" In my mind I thought, sh*t, I am gonna get myself murdered… Anyway I declined and he was totally gracious about it. Thinking back on it, I would have considered it charming – if it had been in the daylight hours. But when it's 3AM and I'm by myself in some strange city and I've got the deer-in-the-headlights look and I'm in fight-or-flight mode, I'm more inclined to give a guy a kick in the solar plexus than my phone number. Oh well. Anyway, long story short, when the train left the station, the hostel was just literally across the tracks. So I breathed a huge sigh of relief and checked myself in.

Santa Barbara is definitely a gorgeous city – they had reconstructed and restored the downtown area in its old Spanish and Mediterranean style. From afar you'd see buildings with adobe-like walls and tile roofs, but close up you'd see upscale shops and restaurants that would rival Beverly Hills. Their courthouse was also part-museum, and I had it in my list of "things to see." I entered expecting to just walk through but the building was so amazingly preserved with its tiled floors, huge murals and mosaic-lined walls - that I spent an entire afternoon inside, just taking in the sights.

Well, I'll have to see how it goes. SB will definitely be in my list of possible future assignments.