Santa Cruz

[mischka]

it's kind of funny, since Fraternity Life is here everyone's worried about the nation stereotyping Santa Cruz, and yet they're perfectly willing to stereotype fraternity members.

i just moved here, and i don't really know anyone yet, which has given me a lot of time to explore the town and find out the good and bad points about it. the best parts about santa cruz are the music and the burritos. there's a lot of different kinds of music at the Catalyst club downtown. i've seen two reggae shows there, which was lucky because i'm not quite 21. the burritos, you can always find a good one here.
the campus is where i spend a lot of my time and there is a little hill somewhere by the performing arts complex that is a perfect place to spend a clear night. you can see all the way across monterey bay, and since campus is pretty far from town you can do some good stargazing or whatever you're into doing when you're sitting in a quiet, dark, secluded place. also, there's a lot of trails on campus and it's nice to be able to go on a hike through the woods on the way to your classes.
you can hear the seals barking at night or whenever it's quiet. there's a long winding road along the coast that's called West Cliff Drive. anyway, that's where the seals are the loudest, and the pullouts along the road are good places to sit and enjoy some solo time with a good view.
sometimes i like just talking to people on the street. there's a lot of interesting things you can learn and stories you can hear from people who don't really have anything better to do at the moment than talk to a complete stranger. there's this awesome old theater downtown called the Del Mar that plays relatively independent movies and every friday and saturday night they have the midnight movie, which lets you get a chance to see some older movies you may have missed on the big screen. there's also another neat little independent theater called the Nickelodeon.

anyway, that's my bit about santa cruz...

--m