My Visit to Santa Cruz

A few weeks ago I drove to Santa Cruz. I always wanted to go to Santa Cruz and was finally able to do so then.

The first place we went to when going to Santa Cruz was Cafe Brasil. I looked over yelp reviews and it seemed really good, so I knew we had to check it out.

When I got there I ordered guava juice and Liz ordered a guava smoothie.

I dont remember the exact name of what I ordered, but its a delicious chicken sandwich with a small salad.

When we first arrived in University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), we saw some deer right away. I thought it was pretty neat since in Davis we would always see squirrels instead.

There were deers all over campus. I think they were used to seeing people all the time because when me and my friends went to take a picture of them, they just stood their ground.

I was surprised that UCSC was so forestry. That campus is a hiking campus. Even their campus maps include the extra time it would take to go to places because of the hills.

The student community center area.

We visited a lecture hall!

We also visited UCSC's main library, which was called McHenry Library. One place I have to go at every university is their library. I love comparing libraries to UC Davis library. McHenry library was very student oriented and was very new inside, despite looking very out from outside. I feel that McHenry library served students needs well since there was an inside restaurant, comfy sofa seats all around, and many places for group and individual study. At UC Davis, you would have to walk out of the library to grab something to eat at a restaurant or whatnot, which is inconvenient.

We are still on campus, but check out those hills!

At the hills, looking at the UCSC campus.

After touring some parts of UCSC, we headed to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  We parked in the parking lot, which was free!

A view of the beach. Since it was winter and night time, there were less people around when we arrived.

The sun is about to set at the beach!

Most of the rides were closing since there wasnt many people around. But, I was just primarily interested in playing around on the beach :).

I can cross of Santa Cruz from my bucket list now :).

Christmas Lights in Sacramento

For Christmas eve, me and a few friends decided to go see Christmas lights. There isn't many places that are decorated during Christmas. Janet sent me a list of places to go see Christmas lights and we went to those place, plus another place.

We went to the State capitol first to take a picture with the tree. We wanted to go inside too, but it was closed.

Next, we went to see lights at Land Park. A lot of the house had decoration, but it was quite a walk. Then, I remember the place my mom took me and my siblings one Christmas season and decided to go there.

So, we arrived at T street. My friends really like the decorations in this street. I liked that such a small neighborhood decorates every year and it looks really nice.

As we were walking around the houses, this truck came by that was decorated in lights. It was pretty cool.

Next, we headed to River Park. There were some decorations, but not all in the same area, so I just drove by some houses.

So, we went to Fab 40s as our last stop. We heard many good things about the neighborhood and that it was a good place to look at Christmas lights.

The long line of cars at the Fab 40s. There were some streets with just cars driving by slowly in traffic. I managed to go to one of the street with less traffic, parked, and walked around to see the lights.

 
I didn't know Santa could play the piano!

It's a Christmas Story!

Christmas Future!

Got to love that Flying car.

 Someone fell while setting up Christmas lights! haha. I love this decoration.

I saw many peace Christmas decorations in the Fab 40s, but this was the biggest one I saw.

So,  that pretty much concluded our tour. We started around 6pm and ended around 9pm. We went to 5 neighborhoods in Sacramento.

Santa Slam 2013

About a few weeks ago, me and my friend attended Santa Slam 2013, which featured Backstreet Boys and The Fray in Aces of Spades in Downtown Sacramento. The Aces of Spades has got the be the smallest venue ever for a concert, especially for the Backstreet Boys and The Fray. I came to the venue early because I knew there was going to be a line. I probably arrived sometime before 6. However, the venue was scheduled to start at 7pm. As I went to the line, I noticed that at least 90% or more of the people standing in line were females. The line was pretty long. I think the venue didn't have the most accommodating way of letting people in. That being said, me and my friend didn't get to go inside the venue until much later after 7pm and there was still a lot of people behind us. After we got inside the venue, we noticed that it was very small inside with lots of people already in. Since all the tickets were floor, we just had to stand there without much room. The people in front us was very tall, so since I was short I had only mere glimpses of the stage and anyone else on the stage, which was why I didn't post any pictures for this blog post.

There wasn't anyone opening up for the Fray and the Backstreet Boys. So, The Fray came out and gave a great performance. The Fray's performance was about an hour long or so. They played all their popular songs and some new ones. After The Fray, it was about 30-45 minutes for the Backstreet Boys to finally come out. By that time, the venue was very crowded and my friend wanted to leave before the Backstreet Boys came out, but I wanted to see the performance. Before the Backstreet Boys came out, I agreed to go in the back of the crowd since it was very crowded in front and didn't want to be squished much. Nonetheless, during Backstreet Boys performance so people were leaving and I was squished and pushed as they made there way out. Backstreet Boys played a few of their popular songs and some new ones. The Backstreet Boys played "Quit playing games with my heart," "I want it that way", etc, and they ended with "Everybody Backstreets Boy Back," which was really the best part of the whole night. I was hoping there performance be longer than The Fray's performance, but it wasn't.