Hella Hippy Style!

~Our View While Wine Tasting in Beautiful Napa Valley California~

"By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone. But I will bend the light pretending that it somehow lingered on~

. . . And I will wait to find, if this will last forever. And I will pay no mind when it wont, and it wont, because it can't . . . it just can't . . . it's not suppose to . . . " - John Mayer

So here I am . . . flying somewhere over the Midwest on my way home from beautiful California. Oh am I going to miss it! The past week and a half was amazing and I wish every time I go I could bring everyone I know to experience the great times I have there. On the ride back from Capitola Beach to my aunt's house in Santa Clara I was in the back seat listening to my own music trying to drown out my mom and here sister's loud conversations and their horrible singing voices, and I was thinking about how the past 11 days went. There were ups and downs like every family experiences and some new memories I will never forget. Our visit was coming to an end and it really flew by. My mom and I were whining cuz we didn't want to go home yet and wished we all lived closer together and wanted to be in wonderful Cali everyday . . . but I was thinking . . . would we think of things like that if that were all true? Would our visit be as special or as enjoyable if we were to have all of what we had during our trip all of the time? It sucks leaving the people you love and the places you love, but that's true with a lot of things. Would we experience anything special or have any values if we got everything we wished for every day? I started to feel better about going back to New York, and I am so excited for this summer. I feel like I just finished a vacation but it's really just beginning, and knowing that I don't have to go home to school work is a great feeling. I miss my friends and my home. It feels like it's been forever since I've seen home and everyone there since I was really only home for less than 48 hours after getting back from school. I'm really only going to be home for the month of June and a couple weeks in August because I will be studying abroad in Italy from July 2nd - August 6th, but that is yet another thing to look forward to! So I really gotta take advantage of every moment home this summer . . . no more sleeping till 3 in the afternoon or sitting inside on a beautiful day . . . gotta get my priorities straight or it's only gonna come right back to bite me in the ass in the end, haha.

Well there I go thinking and thinking and thinking again . . . I feel like there's the energizer bunny in my head, but eh, maybe I'm better off, lol. Anywayyyssss I have to metion this crazy surfer guy I met at the beach . . . and just a little background info - Mixed in with all the tourists and people from the Central Silicon Valley (right over the mountains where my aunts' houses are and where most of the latest technology in the U.S. comes from) there are the Santa Cruz/Capitolians. A lot of the younger people say "hella" a lot instead of really or somehting like that . . . like hella good, or hella cool . . . but you really hear it a hella lot from everyone on the beaches. Sounds kinda funny :-P Capitola is this little hippy surfer town where almost all the people who live there year round live in little hippy-huts, walk around barefoot everywhere, are stoned most of the time, play music all of the time, surf whenever they're not working and make just enough to get by, because money, looks and materialistic things aren't important to them . . . happiness, freedom and feeling good are everything, and some of them kinda smell, but they really are some awsome people, and great to talk to . . . well most of them . . . there was this crazy beach-blond, tall, lanky Capitolian guy that couldn't have been much older than me, and he was walking around on the top deck of the restaurant my family and I were having some cocktails in. We're all outside sitting down with a bunch of other people and he was just walking around barefoot, with sand all over his feet, with high-water jeans on, and a surfer T-shirt that he was telling everyone he got "for only 2 bucks!" He had more energy than a kid just let out for recess and had a tropical cocktail in one hand in this crazy big glass with 3 paper umbrellas and an unusually long straw. He was going around to everyone's table outside and just casually pulling up a chair and sitting down with them. He would start chatting about something rediculous, and the looks on everyone's face at the table was just hilarious . . . I mean everyone out there was hanging out and having a good time, so no one really got pissed off, but we were all like "who the hell is this guy!?" When we got there to meet up with some family friends he just happened to be making his little visit to our table . . . I was the last to get there and there were no seats left cuz he was in mine. I never saw him before, but really didn't think twice cuz it could have been someone that my family knew cuz he pulled up a chair for me and told me "to take a load off and have a scrumptulous alcoholicism cocktail!" He made me laugh, and gave me one of his many umbrellas when I got my drink and introduced himself as "Luca Luca Cruz" (mind you he was a blond haired, blue eyed Cali guy that didn't look anywhere near Hispanic.) Yeah, I'm amused, but I'm like "who the frig is this guy?", and I can see that everyone is thinking the same thing. My single, buzzed, obnoxious aunt is making fun of his name and asking him where all his friends are and he's just making no sense every time he opens his mouth. He was there all of 5 minutes and gets up while in the middle of a sentence and just walks away and goes to sit at another table to do the same thing all over again. It was just crazy and hilarious to see that when the bartender would set down a drink for the servers to take to their tables then turned his back "Luca Luca" would whisk it up all nonchalantly and put all his umbrellas in it. I thought it was the funniest thing, and the manager eventually kicked him out, so he flicked him off and took a hangful of mints on his way out. Haha . . . Ohhhh Luca Luca Cruz! You the Hella Man!

I miss you already California! But you've only got half my heart! Mmmmmmm Summer, Friends, Love, Home is where the heart is! *

" . . . So much sacred in the month of June . . . "