Late posts

Apologies for not posting recently, the last few weeks have been pretty busy.

Firstly, Spring Break was incredible. Earlier, I said I was heading to Arizona with my friends. We had a really lovely time, visiting the incredible Grand Canyon and eating out a lot, where my friend lives in Scottsdale is known for it's eateries. We got a luxurious hotel for the night and hung out in the hot tub for hours which was brilliant. It's always a bit weird leaving Santa Barbara because I feel at home here, when I leave I feel like a tourist again. I do like to see other parts of America though, and this was a really relaxing time with great friends. We spent about a week in Arizona, actually whatever you may have heard about Arizona, I really like the place. It's so modern, clean and there is a lot to do. I highly recommend Scottsdale, it reminds me of Egypt or
Dubai, just without the ocean.

Then my friends from England came over. So my roommate and I headed down to LA to show them around. We enjoyed showing them Venice Beach, Santa Monica pier, UCLA and the Hollywood Sign. Actually I had never done the hike up by the sign so I really enjoyed that. It was great to explore UCLA again, i'm still waiting to hear back from them but the area around the school is really nice, and has such nice places to eat. Actually, that week I heard back from UCSB, who gave me a lovely acceptance letter! I was really happy, even though it's not my first choice, I would be happy staying here and going to UCSB. The UC's give you their decisions throughout March- May, a huge window. Usually, UCSD, UCSB, UC Davis are the first ones to notify you in the month of March and early April. Then UCLA and Berkeley will notify you last, at the end of April to the 1st of May. It's definitely a tricky time because you have no idea where you are going, but you just have to know you can't do anything about it, so you just try and stay occupied.
Anyway, my friends and I then headed back up to LA and they spent the next few days living with me and touring Santa Barbara. I showed them the Douglas Preserve, State Street, Deltopia, they went off Whale watching, Montecito to see Oprah's house, SBCC Campus, and high up in the mountains so they could see the view over Santa Barbara. Actually showing them around made me realize how much I don't want to leave this place, it is ridiculous where we live. My life is really here now, I know i'll return in two years but this place has really become home. I'm really happy my friends got to see my life out here and see what an amazing place this is too!

Of course, the end of Deltopia was really awful and it was a really shame things got so out of hand. I just think it's really important to remember that IV, has been a great place for me to live these two years. It has on the whole a real buzz to it, it's a lot of fun, has a good beach, places to eat, and your friends are so close. Saturday night was nothing i'd ever associate with this place, it is important to note that it was majority not people that live in IV, it was hopefully just a one off unfortunate event. What was great to see and hear about is actually the number of students that were involved in the clear up, we care about our community here and Saturday night was by no means a representation of IV life.