Surfing

So in my efforts to do everything generically Californian, I have managed to head down to Santa Cruz on a weekend and try surfing. The drive was generally nice, we passed Pacifica early on but Christina's parents lived there so she wanted to get away. We drove for the next hour or so and went down the 1 and the 17 which both were actually quite beautiful and wound up meeting a surfing instructor (who i later found out we got off craigslist!) and he drove us to a secluded part of the beach so we could have some privacy when we were learning (and also for the well being of other surfers that would inevitably die from our out of control boards). Kyle and I pondered the night before as to what the hell you wear under a wetsuit when your surfing, that's when the instructor told us that guys go commando underneath and this not only made this a little uncomfortable but the wet suit was extremely hard to put on (just in general, had nothing to do with going commando). Then once we got all suited up we walked onto the beach and headed near the water. The instructor basically told us everything about how to surf on the beach (paddling, getting on the board, how to get out on the water without getting knocked back by the waves, etc.) and then expected us to pick up the rest as we got in the water.

When we actually went out there I had a little trouble keeping balance and paddling. This all changed after I got a little comfortable and then I was moving fine. The saltwater of the Pacific irritated my contacts but I was willing to put up with it. I was trying to surf my first wave and ended up crashing early on. The second wave was amazing because I actually got on the board and was riding it pretty comfortably and then I actually started to go sideways but then failed as I got too excited and just fell. This happened quite a bit but I was proud of myself nonetheless as I actually made it on the board on my first session out. Afterwards, Kyle and I actually didn't have money on us so the instructor had to follow us to a Safeway so that we could get money out for lesson. The Safeway ended up not having an ATM so we had to use cashback on our debit cards and I bought a thing of bugles (gotta love finger food) and pulled out $40. The lesson turned out being $60 so I had to have Kyle spot me . I think I might go surfing in Pacifica this weekend but I haven't made up my mind yet.

So after surfing we wanted to find somewhere to eat. We wanted to stay down in Santa Cruz so we thought we'd check out the boardwalk. It was a beautiful place, just an amusement park on the beach. The parking when we got there was ridiculous! We probably wasted about 20 minutes or so parking and then walked the boardwalk to find something to eat. There really wasn't anything but your usually carnival-like food and we were looking more for a meal so we walked off to the pier. We found a couple restaurants and we were in the seafood mood so we stopped at one place and got some beers and good food. Kyle is still impressed that he had shark. The place didnt' take credit cards so I had to withdraw money from an atm for the second time that day. I was frustrated so I ended up doing fast cash for $120 and just wanted to not go to an ATM again! Then I convinced everyone to get gelato and we walked the pier and had some delicious ice cream. Then we decided to head back to SF and stopped at a Target in Daly City. We were lacking in all sorts of Kitchenware and just normal stuff over at the house so we indulged in about $120 worth of necessities and hopefully that will be the last thing we'll have to buy for our place. Then once we got back it was time to just relax. Kelly just moved in which is really cool just to have more people around and she has a really cool dog named Kenya. The place and roommates are starting to come together and its really feeling homely now. Thats all for now but there are possible plans to get my scuba diving certification....more on that soon