Santa Cruz

Day 1 (29th July)

We spent today exploring the town, having said goodbye to Mum and Dad after a pancake breakfast. First we headed into the centre of town which was basically one long road with all the main shops on, but the shopping here was not great and the atmosphere not as laid back (relaxed) as we had hoped. There were a lot of homeless people which made it quite uncomfortable.
We also headed to Lighthouse Point and the famous surfing spot Steamer Lane just north of the main town, but there was not much surf today. We watched the surfers there anyway for a while before heading back to town.

That evening we had reservations for a performance of Romeo and Juliet in an outdoor theatre in the university campus. It was amazing, the stage (la scene) was in a redwood forest and everyone had picnics before the play. The acting was good and I think Florian managed to follow most of the story with occasional explanations from me!

Day 2 (30th July)
Today we hired mountain bikes and headed out on a pilgrimage (pelerinage) to Jack O'Neill's house at Pleasure Point, just south of Santa Cruz. We passed some beautiful coastline on the way and saw a lot of surfers! This time the surf was pretty good and we watched for a while. We ended our bike tour in Capitola, which is a pretty town on the beach, much nicer than Santa Cruz! We really would have liked to stay longer but we had to get the bikes back so we headed home to finish our stay in Santa Cruz with a hot dog on the boardwalk! (a la fete foraine sur le front de mer)