Yesterday, began our 23rd home exchange, two hours from home, south of Santa Barbara. It was an easy trip, though half way there, my husband had this rotten feeling, he
had forgotten something,and indeed he had; we turned around, went home and picked up his reading glasses.
Even with the additional drive, it was an easy uncharacteristicly smooth ride north. We need hit a snag and arrived in SB around 6pm. We met our home exchanger, J, who showed us around her home, pointed out some features, and wished us a good holiday.

We're very close to Lazy Acres, a one of a kind, no chain middle size market, a cross between Whole Foods, a country market and Trader Joe's. Great location. We picked up an assortment of deli items, a bottle of wine and had a late dinner in our new home.

Our first full day, found us fumbling around with the transit system. We had hoped to take a bus into town or the very least a shuttle, but the local bus ran once an hour, and the shuttle was a 30 minute walk away, so we reluctantly got into our car, programmed our GPS and drove into downtown Santa Bararba, a 5-6 minute ride. Our game plan was to eat lunch, and take the 2:00 tour of the city hall, a two star Michelin suggestion, also seconded by our Ojai exchangers.

Parking was no easy feat. The parking lot said "full," but we followed the queue and waited behind three other cars. Each time one car exited the lot, another car was admitted. It took us about 15 minutes, and had we not been there at noon, there probably would not have been so much competition and we would have been able to have driven straight into the lot. The first 75 minutes is free and our afternoon parking fee was only $3, not terrible at all. I didn't see much on street parking, but I suppose locals are more savvy, and know where to park.

About 1 or 2 blocks from our public parking lot # 8 is the beautiful Santa Barbara Courthouse located at 1100 Anacapa St, tel 805.962. 6464 www.sbcourts.org/general_ino/cthouse_info.htm

The L shaped Moorish Courthouse was build in 1929. There was a wonderful docent tour led by a South African Woman who exclaimed several times about the unusually large number of people on the free tour. About 20 or so, I imagine the group is usually smaller, but it was fine and we could hear and see easily; it was a polite group of people and the tour was well-done.

There are several outstanding murals by Dan Sayre Groesbeck which according to our docent are not historically accurate , lots of free rein expressing the period, with some Hollywood fantsy thrown in. Nevertheless, very attractive. There's plenty of colorful Tunisian tile mosaics all over the bldg with beautiful carved wooden doors and staircases. It's a great way to spend an hour.

Prior to our 2:00 tour of the Courthouse, we had lunch at a mostly vegetarian restaurant called the Sojouner on Canyon Perdido. I had a very nice Mexican Tostada, very fresh and clean tasting for $8.75 (the smaller order, but N was not as pleased with his meal. He had a vegetarian ruben. The service is casual and friendly. The meal cost us $24 including tip. I would return, but I'm not sure I would have agreement on this.


After the CourtHouse tour, we walked a bit around the pretty downtown area. Everything is so beautifully maintained. Lots of lovely Spanish buildings, and everyone we met was very friendly and helped us get our bearings.

We were a bit tired, so we made our way back to our exchangers' home, walked over to Lazy Acres, and explored some of the shops nearby, and bought some easy things for dinner.

The weather as expected today was perfect, t-shirt weather, and everyone about us looked relaxed and summer comfortable, even those poor souls who were not off for the summer. A nice beginning for our first full day in Santa Barbara.

annetti:

We met our home exchanger J, who showed us around her home - how does it work when J gets to your home?

Envy your near perfect weather. Keep the report coming.

Sandy

Home Exchange is such a great way to travel whether in your own country or another. Enjoy your trip.

Regards

Brian Luckhurst

SandyB: We exchanged keys in SB so she'll have no problem getting into our home. I left her a house manual explaining how to use our appliances and any household quirks. House is clean and fresh sheets are on the bed. If she has any questions, she can either call me, e-mail me or ask our next door neighbor. Hopefully all will be clear and she won't have any problems.

Brain, you are rt, when all goes well, home exchange is a great way to travel.

We are feeling very leisurely this morning; it's almost 10:00 am, I have not breakfasted and we're still an hour or so short of leaving the house. The weather looks wonderful again. Because, this is not our first trip to SB, I did not make this clear in our opening paragraph, I suppose we are more leisurely than first timers, though it has been yrs since we have visited SB, so though there's a feeling that we have been here before, a lot feels very new to us.

Tuesday in SB. We took the self-guided walking tour, paper guide available free at the SB Courthouse. It was not as interesting as we had hoped and we fatigued about half way through.

The SB Library (built in the mid to late 1920s) is a pretty building, but rightfully much of it has been renovated, so there's little to interest the sightseer. The reference librarian on the second floor has a little booklet with some history of the building. There are some pretty murals in the lobby and whimsical animal pastels by Leo Politi in the children's library.

Some of the buildings as you wander the streets are pretty, but detail and information is sketchy. The weather again was perfect, so it was no hardship wandering the attractive streets, looking into some of the upscale shops and just casually spending our day doing not much more than wandering about. We will save the pretty SB Museum of Art for another day.

We had lunch around 2 pm athe Natural Cafe, suggested to us by one of the locals. It turns out that the Natural Cafe is one of 7 restaurants in the SB metropolitan area. Very casual and friendly and inexpensive, too. You order up front and the food is prepared and delivered to your table. I ordered the brown rice soy/ginger veggie dish and N had a Cesar salad with avodacos. I was not impressed, but N enjoyed his salad. We continued to wander the streets, found a crepe place a friend had recommended, but no longer hungry, however near by was www.backyarbowls.com a popular acai/fruit/cereal place that N enjoyed. BTW lunch set us back $23 and the bowl was $6.

Our Michelin guide recommends the Lotus Land. Anyone familiar with it. Admission is pretty steep - $70 for the two of us. Any thoughts on it?

In my next life, I'll live in Santa Barbara...

I haven't been to Lotus Land in years, but it is an amazing place. Only you can decide if $70 is worth it to see a private botanical garden. (I know it didn't cost that much when I went.) I do think it might be more impressive in the spring to early summer with more things, especially the lotus, in bloom. You might want to read the yelp reviews to help you decide.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/lotusland-santa-barbara-3

I really love Santa Barbara and would love a home exchange there, but it is a little more than a 2 hour drive from my house on the East Coast!

At home exchange #43 in Istanbul, I am still ahead of you, but you are closing fast.

I have a job as a tour director in retirement. Unfortunately, I can no longer exchange in the spring because I work heavily end of March through mid-June here in DC. So, you could catch me!

Home exchange is very addictive? No, I don't want to exchange in LA. Been there, done that. I've pretty much done it to LA.

Thanks very much, Jean. Timing will be the decision maker.

Yenta, you are way ahead of me; we'll never catch up. You're the leader!!

As usual, we were late getting started. Our plan for today was to lunch in town and then make the 1:00 docent tour at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. There's lots of public parking lots downtown which offer free parking for the first 75 minutes and a $1.50 thereafter for each additional hr. Certainly not highway robbery compared to what we paid in Paris near the Louvre one year. Our parking costs todaywere a modest $6.00.

However, for some reason we had trouble locating the public parking lot, though there's quite a few of them, and once we parked we found it later than we thought. N wanted to eat again at www.thenaturalcafe.com but it was a good ten blocks away. We both had the Cesar Salads with avocado, very good for less than $20 and then raced over to the museum. As luck would have it the "new" docent did not show, she had confused the dates. We wandered around sans guide for several hrs, returned to the Natural Cafe for a veggie burger. The museum was small, but had some lovely impressionistic art pieces. One particularly nice Pizzaro caught my eye and another German fauvist ( I was unfamiliar with his name ) that was very nice. There were also some interesting Japanese wood cuttings on the second floor. BTW, the museum clerks were very kind to us; offered us some free passes since the docent did not show up. Nice museum shop, too and all the personnel are friendly and go out of their way to help you.

Saving: The free map from the Courthouse had some coupons that offer one admission free to the museum with one purchase.The museum is free on Sundays, too.

Another visit to Lazy Acres for some small dinner snacking completed our day. Only 2 miles to downtown SB; we are ideally located. The weather was a bit cooler today, a little marine overcast. But no complaints on this end. Still perfectly delightful.

Our fourth day was overcast this morning. Not complaining, it was still perfect weather, but our tour guide at the Santa Barbara Mission today lamented that we were not seeing the mission under optimum conditions. The $8 tour began at 11:00 and lasted a full hour and a half. There were about 10-12 of us. I noticed that most people and there were lots of them had decided to forgo the tour and settle for the $4 self-guided tour.

The current mission was built in 1820; the original mission had been destroyed in an earthquake in 1812. It still functions as a parish church and according to the docent has served mass everyday since it has been rebuilt.

It is a beautiful building, the facade has six ionic columns and two pink domed towers. The main church's interior is decorated with colorful faux marble and there's some very attractive paintings and sculpture. The sculpture is from the mid 20th century.

The docent tried hard, but he was a bit tedious and I had to admit I didn't always enjoy his humor, however the tour guests were always polite even when some of them must have felt as I did and wanted to roll my eyes, however in spite of the limitations, he was able to point out a lot of the mission's history, and it was a lot better that peering down to read small signs. The gardens by the way are lovely and are very attractive when the sun shines and enclosed by the mission courtyard. Well worth a visit.

We talked to a couple afterwards who were from Niagara and it was great to get some first hand travel hints about the Falls and the general area. We, on the other hand traded them information about San Francisco and Monterey.

Later, we ran into them at The Natural Cafe where we lunched again for the third day and had recommended it to them.

It was quite late by now and we wandered State Street, bought some birthday cards and looked for a mailbox to mail some postcards. Never found one.

The day ended at Lazy Acres. Still debating about what we will do tomorrow.

Friday turned out to be a very cool, overcast day in Santa Barbara which though nowhere uncomfortable, a sweater about town would have been nice.

We or at least I planned on visiting Lotusland today. My husband reluctantly agreed - not big on gardens. However, by the time I telephoned this morning, there were no available reservations for today or the rest of the time we would be in town. Guess who was not disappointed? If this is something that might interest you, then plan accordingly, reserve in advance.

We decided to visit Stearn's Wharf, described in our Michelin Guide as a one star attraction. It felt vaguely familiar -- we had probably visited it yrs ago. We secured parking on the street and for the first time during our SB stay did not pay for parking. The wharf for a Friday mid morning was surprisingly uncrowded, perhaps the cold weather was keeping the tourists away or they had learned in advance that one wharf is pretty much like another one. There were the requisite candy shops, several fish restaurants (all empty and quite pricey), one or two souvenir postcard type places and some pretty views of the beach and the Pacific.

Stearns Wharf is at the bottom of State Street and from the wharf there stretches a nice promenade for walkers, bicyclers, and some small rental carts with people laughing and struggling to get them moving.

We walked a bit, but without sweaters or a light jacket, we were uncomfortable and headed up the now familiar State Street looking for a place to have lunch. We know State Street fairly well by now and recognized the same places. The Habit, a hamburger place with french fries is always packed with young people. The fries look good, but this vegetarian was not interested. Both of us were tired of the Natural Cafe (we had eaten 3 meals there), but nothing else seemed interesting to us. As usual the Natural Cafe was packed even at the unlunch-like time of 2:30, while other places we passed were empty except for the above noted Habit.We ended up there again. I had a very good Tostada Salad and N had some chicken dish. N is more flexible eating-wise than I am.

The cold weather was getting to me, we hopped one of the electric trolleys (.25 ea) and rode back to our car. We had parked on Anacapa and Mason, not too far from several wineries. We went in sampled some wines ($5 tasting fee at one and $10 at the second), did not find anything I particularly enjoyed, but who could tell, the wine was making me woozy.

It was now late in the afternoon, we returned home to find the refrigerator section not working. We had been warned to make sure the refrigerator was closed securely and we had been doing that, it is slowly getting cooler again, but being no applicance geniuses we have no idea what went wrong, however the few items we bought were warm and/or suspect and were thrown away.

When I first investigated home exchange, one of the women I spoke to, reminded me that when you are in someone's home, there is always the potential for an appliance breaking down. Hopefully, their refrigerator continues to work.

Our refrigerator was still a bit warm this morning, so we opted to eat breakfast out at the Mesa Cafe, recommended by our home exchanger, close by and at 10:30 pretty crowded. We had a pleasant breakfast, not outstanding, but fine for about $25 including a tip.

N wanted to hear the Chamber Orchestra at the Music Academy of the West this afternoon at Hahn Hall in Montecito. I was not interested so I opted to drive with him, then walk to Montecito lower village, browse and have a drink while he enjoyed his concent.

It was a short pretty walk to the village and I wandered the upscale shops, tried on a pretty shirt which was too small for me; I was disappointed. There were lots of boutiquey kinds of things and I was seriously thinking about buying something should I have found it.

I went into one store that postively appalled me, called Ever. They had taken dozens of hard bound old books, sprayed them white and were using them as decoration for various clothing displays. I suppose the "white coating" answered their artistic leanings, but horrified me, the book lover. Granted some of the books were probably bought at good will and are no different that those mildewing in someone's basement, but it seemed sad to see them so debased. I asked the young clerk gently about the bks, but he was uninterested and I did not want to make an issue of it.

I wandered into another clothing shop several doors down, where I struck up a conversation with the owner. I told her about the painted books; she was not bothered about it, but thought her boyfriend's home library was more offensive since all his books had to match in width and height. Not good either, but at least his books are not defaced. It is just possible that someday someone may read them, since they can be identified.

I continued wandering for another hr or so, I only met one other customer on this bright warm Saturday, perhaps everyone was at the beach? Eventually I tired and wandered into a coffee shop, ordered tea and browsed the LA Times and the SB newspapers. N and I reconnected around 4 or so; he had enjoyed his concert. He loves live music and I had a nice lazy afternoon to myself to browse and wander as I pleased.

We drove over to State Street, went to our old stand by for dinner and then wandered over to the market for some breakfast things.

Another restful and pleasant day in SB


Trivial observations: We were starting to cross a pedestrian crosswalk and waved the car on before we crossed the street. He insisted we go first, according to him, that it the law in SB that pedestrians must go first;or he can be ticketed. Is this a local law? I am not aware of it down south in LA? And all this time, we thought locals were excessively polite on the streets. Even so, there is far less honking at home and people in general are less gruff.

Enjoying your adventures as I head out for home exchange 43. I would love 44 to be within driving distance in November or January-February (mutual exchange of lousy weather is possible). After 44, I will have had as many home exchanges as there have been presidents.

Thank you, Yenta. When we first began home exchanging in 1994, we concentrated on Europe and Australia. Lately, we have enjoyed local trips that do not depend on long plane flights, with the exception of our trip to Hamburg last summer which was over 14 hrs in air not to mention transfer/wait time between flights.

There is something so pleasurable about traveling close to home. For one thing, your schedule and your packing is not dependent on boarding a plane on time and of course you can throw a few odds and ends in the trunk of your car.

We had not traveled locally for yrs, so traveling in California, Oregon,
and British Columbia all feel new to us with a sense of deja vu of course.

And of course, there are no long boring plane flights, cramped seating, annoying passengers, jet lag ( a biggie when coming from the West Coast) or expensive transportation costs.
This is not to say, European travel is finished for us, certainly not, there are plenty of places we would enjoy visiting or returning. It is just a nice break for us to stay in North America for a while.

Our last day in Santa Barbara. It has been a wonderful visit. No one (even my mother who always complains about the weather being too hot or too cold) could find fault with Santa Barbara's weather this past week. It was almost always sunny, t-shirt comfortable, and with a soft breeze blowing. Perfect tourist weather.

We debated Solvang for a few minutes; it has been years, but decided to return to the SB Museum of Art. We missed the docent's tour the other day and thought we'd try a second time. Arrived at 12 noon for what we thought was a Munch to Van Gough tour, but wrong again.

There was a very kind pleasant docent who was looking desperately for some patrons for the Asia tour and told us she would even do a 5 minute tour for us if we wished. She was very knowlegeable, unfortunately my hearing stinks and when someone speaks English with a heavy accent, I miss so much and am uncomfortable asking people to repeat themselves. I am sure I missed at least 50%, but what I understood was very intersting and she tried very hard. Fortunately,I had viewed the exhibit the day before, read a lot of the information, remembered a little and it was easier to follow along.

It was now close to 1:00 for the Munch to Van Gough tour; it was packed, easily 40 people surrounding this docent. We gave up and went out had a lunch, returned for the 2:30 lecture in the museum's auditorium called Munch, Madness, Women and France by a visiting academic. The small aud must have sat 200 people and there was not an empty seat available. The 45 minute talk was okay, at least I had no difficulty understanding it, but it was a glib, academic recital that probably has been given numerous times before. Somehow, I sensed that the speaker was not even listening to her own words. It became a bit interesting during the q and a session.

We wandered north up State Street, passed the lovely Morrocan style Arlington theater. Opposite the Arlington is a small sign post that states that the Old Stage Coach Trail began here from 1861 and lasted until 1901. The Arlington theater is on the site of the former Arlington hotel.

Stopped and shared a smoothie, and wandered once more the very pleasant streets.

One of the tourists we encountered remarked that SB has so many independents compared to the US NE. I think she's a bit fooled, as I walked up and down the streets, I noticed tons of national businesses, Costplus, Restoration Hardware, Macy's, Staples, Rite Aid, CVS Pharmacy, Sunglass Hut, McDonald's, Tilly's Sur la Table, Pink Berry Yogurt, Starbucks, and these are just a few that come to my mind. I think what fools the occasional observer is that every store has the same or nearly the same facade with just a small business logo above the store. The city most likely has ordinances that prohibit the usual corportate storefronts, giving the city a small town appearance, coupled with lots of street maintenance, people cleaning frequently, lots of flowers and well tended trees, makes the city very tourist friendly.

Of course, there are a few independents, too, but if I were to do a count, I bet they are very few. Sometimes what one thinks of as an independent is actually part of a corporate ownership where they own many restaurants, but all with different names. This is very often done in France.

More later -- it is getting late, we need to do some packing and cleaning. We need to be on the road relatively ealy to avoid heavy LA traffic.

Re: Ped Xing laws. They're the same here in the LA area. Cars are supposed to stop when a pedestrian is in the crosswalk, even if they have just entered the crosswalk or have nearly got to the the other side. As a driver, I admit I sometimes fudge on the latter detail.

Having grown up as a pedestrian in Chicago, I acquired the habit of practically running across the street once the traffic stopped. Getting harder to do now that I'm in my 80's.

Local home exchanges, where everyone drives, are much easier to set up than the long haul ones. I am off to Turkey in a few days--which took a lot of doing. However, I exchanged in Myrtle Beach, SC, last November and Ottawa, Ontario, for the 4th of July week this year. I usually do about 2 home exchanges per year, but it does vary.

When I went to Australia & NZ, I did 3 home exchanges the first time and 2 the second. I was gone 9 and 6 weeks respectively.