8 June 2008: Isla Vista, California

Woke up early, got dropped off at the Santa Monica Pier, and took a 45-minute bus ride to downtown Los Angeles to catch the 1:15 Greyhound to Santa Barbara.

As per always, the station was packed, and I waited in the ticket line for about 45 minutes of the hour I had given myself to arrive early. There was a cute girl standing a little ways ahead of me in line, and after I bought my ticket I went over to where she was standing in line for her bus.

I told her I was going to Santa Barbara and she told me she was going to Mexico. We talked for a little while I told her that she should come to Santa Barbara with me, because it would be more fun and Mexico isn't exactly going anywhere.

So this girl, Kerri, went to the ticket counter to try to exchange her ticket, and the woman at the counter said that they don't give refounds. Which I know to be absolutely and positively a lie. But when I told the woman this she said, again, that they don't give refunds. And so that was the end of the dream, and Kerri was on her way south.

I soon found out that might not have been such a terrible thing because when I got back to the line for the north-bound bus there were four Irish girls-- two of whom were very cute, one of whom was a butter face and one of whom was a butter body. (But-her?) I asked them if they were going to Santa Barbara, and blessedly enough they were.

The guy in line behind me told me I was in like Flynn, but I thought he was getting ahead of himself. So I walked up to the girls and started talking to them, and at the appropriate time I decided to do the what-are-your-names-now-let-me-repeat-them number. Always a solid move because it shows you really care.

Unfortunately, what I hadn't accounted for was that their accents would be a problem. And, more than that, that they would have odd names. So no less than four times I had them repeat their names, and no more than zero times did I get even half of them right. My best guess right now would be that they are Dara (butter face), Traleesa (butter body), Clareen (cutie) and Urne (cutie). Needless to say, the move back-fired on me.

Now, as it turned out, the bus was over two hours late. Which happens more often than not when riding the Greyhound, and which would have been annoying. Had I not been talking to these four girls. Or, rather, to ?Urne? the cute redhead. We were talking for just about the entire time that we were waiting for the bus. I convinced her to come to Isla Vista for the night and we were already half-way into making plans to meet in France to go snowboarding in December.

Something to understand about Greyhound girls: just like the men who ride the bus-- and who 5 times out of 6 are either homeless, unemployed, or on parole-- the women who ride the bus are not exactly the cream of the crop. Case in point, the second-hottest woman I've ever seen on a Greyhound, on a bus from New Orleans to Oxford, Ms., was missing her two front teeth. And when the girl is actually truly attractive, it usually ends in disastrous disappointment. Case in point, the absolute hottest girl I've ever seen on a Greyhoud, on an overnight from Seattle to Missoula, Mt., who was sitting by herself and whom the guy DIRECTLY in front of me in the aisle sat down next to first. And who proceeded to snuggle the entire ride. I could have killed myself.

Case in point, also, for that matter: Kerri.

Anyway, given the less-than-desirable track record of Greyhound romances, ?Urne? was looking good.

So when I got on the bus, there was a chick who would've given Missoula and definitely Oxford a run for their money, and I quickly walked right past her because I didn't want to jinx my karma. This was a bad move for one particular reason, and not because of her sheer hotness.

It was because the seat I took was in the second-to-last row and the seat ?Urne? took was in the third-to-last row. At the first stop after Los Angeles, an English dude came on the bus and sat directly behind me and began to talk to the guy he was sitting next to.

Now, whenever this English dude spoke, my Irish cutie would look at her friends and smile. And so, clearly, whenever this English dude spoke, a little piece of me died inside. And little pieces of me continued to die inside of me until, with 10 minutes to go, he said "I'm on my way to Santa Barbara." Fuck me.

Finally we got to Santa Barbara, and ?Urne? said that the girls were going to stay in Santa Barbara so they could get set up and start looking for jobs immediately. Which was the bad news. But the good news was that the English dude was gone. At least.

So I hopped on a bus and went to Isla Vista, which is where UCSB is located. Me being broke and California being expensive, I bought a nasty beef tamale out of a supermarket fridge for $1.37 and tried my best to not throw up while I ate it.

Isla Vista is essentially like going to school in Candy-Land. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the women are beautiful, and everyone is either surfing or running. Or riding their bikes with no hands. Fucking show-offs.

Unfortunately, however, while Isla Vista might be Candy-Land, I happened to arrive on the Sunday before the first day of finals. Or, as they call it, the Sunday before "dead week." Besides the people surfing or running and the d-bags riding their bikes with no hands, nearly everyone else was either studying or walking around with their backpacks and talking on phones. Not a good sign.

So I spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the weather and wishing I knew how to surf. Or, hell, how to ride my bike with no hands.

Finally, towards 8 or so, I began my couch search. Most of the people I met were friendly enough but, understandably, didn't want to have a squatter on the night before exams. I met two people, though, who were pretty stoked about letting me stay at their place. They seemed nice, but after a while they said that they live at the Jesus House. On second thought...

1) I feel like it's probably best to keep a low-profile in Jesus' eye while I'm on this trip, or at least while I'm in Isla Vista. Don't want two months of mistakes to override a lifetime of good deeds.

BUT

2) If Jesus already knows the hospitality was offered, I mean if he's that up to speed with things, than wouldn't turning down the hospitality be rather unwise?

In the end, I left. It just felt right.

And, as luck would have it, half a block down the street I met a dude and a chick carrying beer. This seemed pretty good, and the dude said he would run it by his roommates if I could crash for the night. He called a little while later and said that, again understandably, his roommates didn't want someone crashing on the night before finals, but that I could sleep in his van for the night.

Now, the closest I've ever come to sleeping in a car on my journeys has been in Gainesville, Fl., when I went to sleep outside with the students camping out for tickets to the UK basketball game and woke up in the flatbed of a pick-up truck. I still have no idea how I came to wake up in the flatbed of that pick-up truck, and it's likely that I'll never know. But I figured sleeping in one more motor vehicle wouldn't hurt.

So I grabbed a shower and headed to the bars, but as I quickly found out 1) everyone that goes to UCSB goes to downtown Santa Barbara for the bars, and 2) everyone at UCSB stays in Isla Vista for house parties. Now, as it was the day before "dead week," there were absolutely no parties in Isla Vista last night. The bus to Santa Barbara had stopped running, and a cab would have put me out $40. No fucking way.

So I hung out at one of the two bars in Isla Vista for a while, but it occured to me that the people at the Jesus House had mentioned something about a reggae concert. I walked back to the house, and the people I had spoken to recognized me and told me the concert was at a different bar in Isla Vista.

But when I got there the bar was already closed. Fucking typical.

At this point I had been having a bit of a back-and-forth with ?Urne?. She wanted to come out to Isla Vista but it didn't seem like such a great idea. If only she came out, the van probably wouldn't have been a very romantic option, and if all four of them had come out there wouldn't have been room. So that, unfortunately, was that.

I went back to one of the two bars, which was fun, but I got there at quarter of midnight and the bar was closing at midnight. So I had a beer, cut my losses, and went back to the van.

Along the way, though, I ran into two more Irish girls-- because apparently they flock to Santa Barbara. They were drunk and we had the following conversation:

Irish cuties: Where's Subway?
me: I don't know.
Irish cuties: Yes, you do.
me: No, seriously, I don't.

I could have killed myself. I walked about 10 feet away, stopped, turned around, and said "oh, Subway. Yeah, that's over here."

I had no clue about Subway but a basic idea of where the main part of town was, and after going in circles for quite some time we came upon a Subway. Unfortunately, although the Irish girls was cute, they were also incredibly annoying. I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying, and all I could definitely get out of the conversation was that they kept saying "flick your bean." As in, when I said that taking a cab to Isla Vista and back to Santa Barbara every night must be expensive, they said "we just flick our bean. You could flick your bean, too." I have no fucking clue what they were talking about.

Anyway, I decided to call it a night and went back to the cab. After all, the first night of these adventures are usually pretty underwhelming.