- Left Carlsbad on July 2nd and headed up to Solvang. Solvang is a great little town full of old-world charm and amazing pastry shops! It's the closest thing you'll get to being in Denmark (other than actually being in Denmark).
- On the 3rd we headed further up the coast taking Highway 1 to Carmel and Monterrey. It was an amazingly beautiful drive (long but beautiful).
- July 4th we arrived in Walnut Creek and went straight to Nick's house. We walked/rode bikes to a park about 2 miles away and enjoyed a concert by the Walnut Creek Concert Band. We listened to patriotic music under the trees and enjoyed the beautifully cool weather.
- July 5th we went to Berkley, walked around, and saw the movie Chef. GREAT movie! I can say that with confidece because both Nick and Cheech agreeded it was wonderful. I need the verification from others because
I am the world's worst movie reviewer (ask any of my friends)my tastes differ from the norm. - July 6th, we took a 6 hour BBQ class in San Francisco. It may take days and multiple showers for the smell of smoke to dissipate from my hair and clothes.
Whew!!! That was a lot to fit into 5 short bullets. So now let me elaborate a little about our two night's stay in the homes of strangers (AirBandB). This is the first time we have actually stayed in people's homes when they were truely there. Normally we rent the entire home while the people are away. The jury is still out on this vacationing system.
The first night we stayed in a little town a few miles outside of Solvang. We turned into a gorgeous neighborhood filled with huge, beautiful homes. Our My heart soared! Every home we passed was more beautiful than the next. As we carefully checked out addresses I started with my ever optomistic chatter, "Geez Cheech, we couldn't have picked a better area." "Look at these homes, I can't wait too see the mansion we'll be staying in!" On and on, and on... I went until we turned the corner and saw what closely resembled an abandoned home. Well not exactly abandoned but it had Amazon style foliage a slightly overgrown front yard puncuated with an old and battered a not so new truck. "Do we knock on the front door?", we ask each other. "Does anyone actually live here?" quieries Cheech. "Are you sure this is the correct address?", I whisper (under stress I always slip into denial... it's fabulous coping mechanism).
We gingerly approach the front door and find a note posted especially for us. "Welcome to our home. Please use the last 4 digits of your phone number to let yourselves in." We enter and there are sticky notes posted throughout the house leading down the hallway to our bedroom. At this point I'm feeling like Hansel and Gretel. (I'm bolting if she has candy in our bedroom!) This was weird... we were still not sure if anyone was currently living in the house.
In the process of unpacking our bags we were briefly greeted by our hostess who was currently living in the house. She was "doing yard work". "We like a more natural look to our environment", she states. I make a note to remember this line next time I don't want to do yard work for 6 months. Anyhow- the room and bathroom were spotless and they left us trail mix and granola bars in the morning for breakfast. We never saw our hostess again after the initial greeting - guess we didn't really need to worry about awkward conversation.
The next night we stayed just outside of Monterrey. As with all AirBandB arrangements, we called about an hour before our arrival just to give our hosts a heads up and get directions about getting in the house.
First call to our hosts: Cheech misdials (but doesn't know it was a misdial). No answer. So he leaves the following message, "Hi this is Cheech and Cindy. We are looking forward to spending the night with you this evening. Please call us back and let us know how we should let ourselves into your home."
We get a call back about an hour later from a predominantly Spanish-speaking woman who lets us know in no uncertain terms that we will NOT be spending the night with her and that we WILL be arrested should we try to let ourselves into her home. OOPS!
We try calling again. Cheech hands me the phone once it is answered. I say "Hello, this is Cindy and Cheech, we are scheduled to stay at your home this evening." The person on the other end of the line says, "Ah welcome, you here?" I quickly ascertain that I am not talking to a native English speaker.
I say, "No, we are in Monterey."
She says, "Ah, welcome, you here?"
I say, "No we are not in Marina, we are in Monterey. We should be there in about an hour."
She says, "Ah yes, welcome. You here?"
I say, "We will be there in about 30 minutes. Should we just knock on your front door?"
She says, "Ah, you here...welcome?"
I now realize we are getting nowhere and I keep talking louder and louder (as if this will help with our failure to communicate). So what do I do... I say, "Yes we are here." My motto: "In a pinch go with the course of least resistence." And off we head to the house.
We arrive at the house about 30 minutes later and an Asian man in his 50's greets us. "I was afraid you got lost", he says. My mother said you were here about 30 minutes ago!!!!! What happened?" (I refrained from banging my head against the front porch post).
His mother, an 80 year old Asian woman, was delightful. She greeted us with an enthusiastic "Ah, you here. Welcome." He was quite nice and the house was immaculate. We were asked to take our shoes off before entering the house and put on disposable, yet fashionable, slippers. We then proceeded to slip and slide (they don't call them slippers for nothing!) ourselves across the cleanest (and most highly polished) wood floors/stairs I've ever seen. We looked like elephants, with cargo, on ice skates. (I really wish I had a video of that scene).
As I said, the jury is till out on rent-a-room AirBandB.
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