Road Trip to Santa Barbara

There are two things I'll never say no to: waffles and road trips. Okay, we all know that's a lie. There are many things I'll never say no to. Like free airplane tickets. Or a job offer after graduation. But anyway, I digress.

Going on a road trip along the coast of California was one of the things I definitely wanted to do during my time at USC, and since I'm here all summer with more free time than I need, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to fulfill my dreams (lol). My original idea was to drive up to San Francisco or Big Sur and stop at different locations along the way, but my best friend Emily wasn't crazy about the 5 to 7-hour drive, so we settled on the quaint little town of Santa Barbara instead.

After consulting several reputable travel guides a blog post titled "The Top Instagram Spots in Santa Barbara," we compiled a comprehensive and detailed schedule vague list of things to do in my Notes app and off we went, just like that. That is, after stopping by at Starbucks. It was 6 am, people, I needed to get my white chocolate mocha 💁 (Starbucks count: 1).

We ended up taking the scenic route along the Pacific Coast Highway, which allowed for multiple stops along the coast and plenty of occasions for us to irresponsibly run across the highway to take pictures.

Our next stop was IHOP, which, for some reason, I had previously believed was a gas station. My bad. But yeah, IHOP is the classic road trip breakfast place and since I had never been there before, I was excited. Which is exactly why I was so disappointed to find that they served me fake Nutella. I mean, seriously IHOP, did you really think that I wouldn't notice? 

That Nutella does not look right.

After that letdown, we headed directly to a hiking trail called Lizard's Mouth, named after a rock formation that is shaped like -- wait for it -- a lizard's mouth. Or at least that's what they say, since we notably did not find this aforementioned rock, and settled on seeing, y'know actual lizards. The trail also had rattle snakes and was very unfortunately situated next to a gun club, so, to be completely honest, I just wanted to gtfo asap. It was pretty, though. Also, fun story, the beginning of the trail is marked by a half-buried drainage pipe that we obviously missed and drove onto a dirt road instead that -- as it turns out -- was not open to traffic. Awkward.

(PC: Emily)

Not the lizard, but close enough?

Once that riveting adventure was over, we drove down to State St in Santa Barbara and walked around for a bit. And went to Starbucks (Starbucks count: 2). We also stopped by at Stearns Wharf and strolled the beach for a bit, but just as the Yelp reviews said, there's not much to do at either place, there are just some very expensive restaurants and people fishing. That is why we then headed to a place we knew we would love: the mall. Or, more precisely, Paseo Nuevo, an outdoor mall thing with a bunch of stores and food places.

I didn't know which photo to post so I posted all the good ones okay don't judge me bye. (PC: Emily)

After sharing a somewhat mediocre pizza and taking about 10 million photos on the famous Paseo Nuevo steps, we drove to the Chromatic Gate rainbow arch to take even more photos (surprise surprise), because why not? The arch itself was a little smaller than expected and about six more people arrived at the same time as us, with the exact same goal as us, so we stuck around there for a while, waiting for the crowd to dissolve. It took a while, but hey, it was worth it! I got a new Facebook profile picture out of it! (Note: you don't have to take every shallow thing I say at face value. You know that I'm a big fun of sarcasm.)

Success is when you manage to pull off looking effortless in a photo that took two hours to take. (PC: Emily)

 It was at this point, however, standing underneath this gorgeous rainbow-hued geometric metal rectangle, that we realized something. Since, as it turns out, as pretty as it is, there's not much to actually do in Santa Barbara. Especially when you don't really want to pay for anything and it's too cold to go to for a swim. That is why we ended up driving around for a little bit and ultimately going to Butterfly Beach, where we were supposed to watch the sunset. Except it was only 4 pm, it was way too windy to hang out there for four hours, and I desperately needed to use the restroom (tmi), which is how...we ended up at Coffee Bean, for a change (Starbucks count: 2, Coffee Bean count: 1). There, I had an iced lemon pound cake and made the decision to head back home and stop for dinner in Malibu.

I don't see any butterflies but w/e.

So off we went, once again, stopping along the way to take more photos, and eventually ending up at a fancy restaurant in Malibu that seemed a lot cheaper on Yelp. There, we had dinner, Emily mistook sun-dried tomatoes for shrimp, we kinda celebrated my birthday, and I realized that I had gotten really, really sunburned. But that's never really a surprise.

FOOD.

And that was that.

Late June Update: Birthday Fail, Finishing High School and Weekend Getaway

It has come to my attention that there are people who actually read this blog. Real people, living and breathing human beings. People who actually care to read about my boring life or maybe have nothing better to do, but it doesn't matter either way. Because when there are people willing to read, I'll have to give them (or, well, YOU) something to read, meaning that I have a good excuse to write a new post! So here goes...

Where did we leave it? Oh yes...

1) My Birthday

My mom and I decided to start the day with English breakfast - yes, I miss living in England that much - at my favorite restaurant. As it usually is, however, they'd run out of sausages and the rest of my sausageless breakfast was ice cold and my toast had fossilized in the making, so it didn't quite live up to my expectations, and you guys, I'd been dreaming of that breakfast for years. And although it might not seem that bad as of now, this was just a foreshadowing of the impending disaster.

Me and da food.

I don't know when taking photos of food became my thing, but at least it looked good.

After subtly wrapping my toast into a napkin, we took off to see the Sziget Eye, a rip-off of the London Eye in central Budapest and a best alternative I found to a theme park, since the theme park in this city has been notoriously closed down, with all its rides taken to the wasteland and melted into tramway tracks (I'm not even kidding, Budapest looks like a bombing site because of all the tramway extensions). Though based on my experience the last time I was there, it was all for the best. We bought two overpriced tickets, politely smiled when they mistook us for tourists, and living up to that, took photos we will never look at again, of the city we see every single day. After that, we had overpriced ice cream, my mom went home, I met up with one of my friends, and we went to Starbucks to study for our finals.

Moi.

I guess since I won't look at the photos, you guys could. Sorry for the bad colors, taken through glass and I couldn't bother with editing...

Boring Ferris wheel.

And thank goodness we did, because while we were peacefully sipping our vanilla frappuccinos on the leather couches, a F%*!@&G HUGE hailstorm had hit Budapest. And it hit it hard. There was pebble-sized ice everywhere. The streets were flooded. The wind was tearing out umbrellas from people's hands. Everyone was frantically searching for shelter. It was the apocalypse. After waiting half an hour in the tram stop for the storm to die down, however, I decided that I was either walking home or freezing on the spot, so I took off my platform sandals and walked (swam?) home barefoot. Yay.  (and this is where I plug in a Skins reference) 

And that's it for my 19th birthday.

2. Finishing High School

Part 1 - Finals: Ugh. If you didn't know already, in Hungary, school leaving exams have two parts: one written and one speaking test. Our class had three days to do the speaking tests, with thirteen people - including me - on the first one. And since with a very faulty reasoning they declared that the best come last, I was the very last person taking the exam that day, meaning that I was in school from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., frantically trying to revise everything I'd learnt in five years and thus probably annoying the poor parents who volunteered to make sandwiches. Soz mom.

When it was finally my turn, I had to draw two envelopes, and both of them ended up being the number 14, which is my lucky number so I thought I was all set. And, I mean, partly I was right, but although I did do well in Literature and History - my analysis of post-modernism in contemporary Hungarian short stories and my explanation of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was spot-on - I completely bombed Grammar and Linguistics, as I could not say a word on the types of compound words. My teacher kept saying that "I must be tired" because "I knew it on the test". Just for the record, we were never tested on compound words.

But I guess her confusion with what she had and hadn't taught only worked for my advantage here, as I got almost maximum points. As I found out, the lowest percentage I got for a leaving exams is 90% (History writing was a b*tch), which is a crazy good percentage, especially since our marvelous government (notice the irony) made leaving tests extremely difficult this year, so that no one will get into university and everyone will have to do horrible menial tasks allowing them no time to think and thus creating a mob so easily influenced by demagogic promises, political rant over.

Fraaaahndz after we got our certificates (high school diplomas?) and an unsolicited copy of the Constitution of Hungary.

More fraaaahndz.

Me leaving the school building for the last time ever, holding my 6" 

shoes that I couldn't walk home in.

Part 2 - Senior banquet: Basically a huge and fancy dinner, which marked the last time we spent together as a high school class. That's it really, there's not much to say about it. It was held at an all-you-can-eat cafeteria. Some people were overdressed (ahem, me), some people were underdressed (ahem, Zsolt and his Bermuda shorts). I wish it had been more memorable, but it just wasn't. It was the last couple of hours we ever spent together as a class - and of course I cried, but as we all know I always cry - and it was quite underwhelming and anticlimactic.

I had no good photos of the banquet, so here's a rare selfie you guys never wanted to see. And yes, that's my bra strap.

3. Weekend Getaway

My dad decided that for the last time before I leave to the US of A, we should spend some quality time together with his family, and determined that the best place for that would be Győr, a city northwest Hungary. It was meant to be two days of water parks and hot tubs, but yet again - as it always is - that didn't happen. Instead, we spent our time walking around town, eating bad pizza wrapped in blankets, playing squash without knowing the rules or how to even use the equipment, and taking photos of potato bug statues in the middle of nowhere. And midst all that, even a random dog started following us around. FUNFUNFUN

This is how you abuse the "Exaggerated colors" filter on your camera.

That moon there is why I should have taken my tripod with me.

Potato bug statue. #sointeresting

My dad, verbatim: "Lilla already wasted an entire roll of film on the storks."

A church and power lines and the "Exaggerated colors' filter.