As we drove into UCSB (University of California, Santa Barbara) on the bus I started to consider my second alias of the trip; perhaps a first year Literature student, living in the Bradbury building. Unfortunately on this day I was wearing green board shorts, flip flops and a bag that made me look incredibly 'tourist', so instead of another alias I decided upon truthing it, and telling anyone we spoke to that we were in fact just a bunch of english kids there for the day to see what it was like and maybe find a party. 

We had checked in to our hostel next to the train station in Santa Barbara after the long trip through the dimly lit Los Angeles as the sun was setting. I had chosen to soundtrack my journey with Mogwai's 'Special Moves' which seemed fitting after a long day and a heavy night at Venice.

Through Americanised television programming and the enormous cultural impact that american lifestyle has on the western world, I'd always been curious to see what an american university campus was like, and I couldn't have quite imagined anything like UCSB. Located right along the coast, UCSB is a town in itself, and a big one at that. On entrance we are greeted by a grand archway surrounded by palm trees, and are taken around the edge of the campus and dropped off outside of the first accomodation houses we see.

It was a bit of a maze and a little overwhelming for a newcomer but eventually, after passing sports centres, flats, schools and frat houses with they're name branded across the front, we reached the town centre which accommodated a Starbucks, Subway, surf shop, bars and tattoo parlour thoughtfully named "Precious Sluts". We stocked up on yet another Burrito and insisted to the staff of the local Mexican restaurant that we could all definitely beat their current taco eating record of nine in one hour.

We then headed down to the beach. It was unbelievable to think that people are able to live in some of the houses that sat along the cliff edge overlooking the beach. They were big houses, probably housing 5 or 6 people at least, with garrages, balconies and back gardens, almost unheard of at any UK university. We were also informed that this was the party road, and this was confirmed on passing the first house to find an abundance of plastic cups on the grass, in hedges and on the road and spotting a broken door concealing a pretty hefty keg of beer. Sam kept up his regular 5 minutes of unmanly comments and stories by today declaring "It's the most beautiful place I've ever seen man".

Unfortunately on this day there was no party to be found; to be fair it was a Monday night and most students were actually not due back for another week. The whole day was still an experience though, spending a few hours on the beach before chatting to people all round the campus, who coincidentally seem to wish they could go to Uni in the UK because of the drinking age and therefore all the partying that goes on. Not sure they would've taken me up on the swap if I gave them the option though. I'm also fairly sure, short of robbing a bank, I couldn't come up with the $22,000 a year tuition to sharply either.

Our other days in Santa Monica were filled with failed attempts to impress the locals at volleyball, as it really is much harder than it looks, and playing american football on the beach; and other than a trip to Kenny G's (?) for some beers, Santa Monica acted as a bit of a resting stop between the party in Venice and the impending rum drinking to be done on our return to Hermosa for our last two days.

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After a short stay in Santa Monica eventually culminating with us befriending a strange German fellow, whose name we never actually found out, watching a rat jump off a cliff edge, and setting JD's hair on fire with a lighter we forgot that we'd turned up to around a 6inch flame; we set off in hope that we would have more luck with our hostel just down the coast at Venice Beach.

Venice is nothing short of a freak show. I can't think of another place in the world that I would relate it to, and although my world travelling experience may be limited, I have been assured that its one of a kind. The streets are littered with a collection of beggars, grifters, salesmen, performers and just the downright mentals. In our short stay we crossed paths with the self proclaimed "worlds greatest wine-o", and an old mexican man who made his money from walking on broken liquor bottles. Not to mention far too many wannabe hip hop stars who force you to don some headphones and nod awkwardly about how 'great' their style is and how you'd actually love to buy a signed copy of their home made CD-R but you don't have your wallet right now. There's also at least a dozen beach front stalls fronted by stoners and bikini clad women letting every passer by that the doctor is in and that he can prescribe you some medical marijuana for free. Venice is a strange enough place with out help from the doctor though, and we had 2 bottles of rum in our hostel dorm.

It must be said that Venice wasn't all bad though. Truth be told despite all the bums, addicts and wierdos it actually was home to most of my childhood hobbies and passions, some of which I still have now. There's surf, even if it was a little small at the time, a great skatepark, people forcing music they like onto others, and rows of basketball courts. After watching about 10 minutes of a street ball game on the nearest court to us, hearing the trash talking, the small crowd and the swish of a basket it was all too tempting and we picked up a ball for $8, and headed back that evening for a game.

Full of pasta and the curious looking free energy drinks we had collected outside the hostel we set off for the court. We'd also bought along a friendly kid who looked like he might not have seen the light outside of his dorm for a while, to balance up the teams. Its definitely the most tourist like I've felt on this entire trip, wearing board shorts, vest and flip flops and shooting around on a venice beach street ball court we looked a little out of place, but it didn't matter, as long as I'm playing basketball in some way I'm usually not bothered about the details.

As the sun was setting and it started to get a little darker, we were approached by a small gang of guys who asked for a game. A real street ball game with real Americans!? I was giddy. Converse on, so I could actually run, and I was ready to roll. Now these guys weren't exactly street ball players, or even basketball players really, they were kind of a skater crowd, but we played a full game, had a laugh with them and went on our way.

The score you ask?...well that's not important. What's important is the way that Basketball bought together different nationalities, cultures and people on this night and we just played, and nothing else mattered. And if I tell you that upon our exit from the court we were given a farewell message of "hey guys...next time, guard your ass cheeks better" you can probably work out the result.

Back to the hostel and armed with two bottles of rum and some xxtra hot cheetos, we made our way to the lounge to be greeted by connect four and that 70s show on the tv. Not quite the party we had in mind, but persistence is key. So we sat and drank. Much to my suprise I managed to pull of a card trick that an Argentinian guy called Waqim had taught me in Hermosa, and we got chatting to the rest of the room. Things escalated pretty quickly to the stage where the whole room including us, three guys from Australia, our other room mate, who we were convinced was German but was actually from Manchester, and some other english folk, were involved in pretty big drinking game. After removal from the lounge we took the party back to our room, being joined now also, by all of the hostel staff. Me and Ben took to forcing people to eat the xxtra hot cheetos and generally dishing out abuse, until an hour or so in when after too much rum and not enough sleep in recent nights, I went to sleep; at first leant against the bathroom wall, and then in my actual bed. I am assured though that the rest of the night was just as much fun as the start with plenty of stories shared the next morning, and from the painful hungover expressions on every one of our faces.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately from my liver's point of view, that was our only night in Venice and the following day we departed to meet Brendan, a friend of Sam, JD and James, who would be joining us for the rest of the trip as we moved north to Santa Barbara.

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"An HI hostel is much more than a clean, comfortable bed - a cosy lounge to chat with new-found friends, maybe a pool or barbecue to get you all in the party mood!" - www.hihostels.com

It's not though is it...?

We're currently looking out onto the courtyard of Santa Monica's hostelling international. You can't realy fault the facilities but of all the places we have stayed so far, including the house of a complete stranger, this has by far the least friendly and socialising atmosphere. This could be down to the strict ban on any alcoholic beverages anywhere near the hostel, with the punishment of death or something similar being threatened if caught even in possesion.

Thankfully, at check-in, Sam and our two new companions James and JD got upgraded for free to a private room with double bed, TV and a balcony, so we have taken refuge on the balcony, drinking lots of rum and playing lots and lots of hip hop.

Santa Monica is pretty different to what I originally expected, there are the crack heads, the homeless and the freaks down on the pier and along the beachfront, but hidden two blocks back there's stunning row of restaurants and shops, illuminated by fairy lights and guarded at each end by hedge dinosaurs; which are obviously my favourite part. However, other than shopping, which is never quite as fun on a student budget, or waiting for the magician on the pier to actually do some magic, there isn't that much around to entertain 5 guys who have come here to surf. So yesterday, we hopped on a bus to Malibu. I think we could be forgiven for riding past our intended stop for about 20 minutes and then having to get a bus back, as the world famous Malibu beach was not quite what I had pictured. This is not to say it wasn't a nice beach with some beautifully shaped waves, except for the fact that they were bordering unridably small, it just wasnt quite the golden sanded mecca that I had expected it to be...and Jeniffer Aniston was nowhere to be seen. We did take the opportunity to have a day off from surfing though to chill on the beach and rest some recurring injuries picked up along the way so far.

This morning we are getting out of HI Santa Monica and heading just a mile or two down the coast to Venice Beach Cotel, where the real freaks are! Hopefully allowing us a short surf this afternoon too, before we undoubtedly consume more rum, listen to more hip hop, get our gangster leans perfected, and move off in the morning for Santa Barbara. 

I have already lied from the title of this blog. The waves have actually picked up a lot sice we moved down to Orange County; I've just been wanting to use that title for a while.

We have currently taken up residency in the Lowden household, and they have been incredibly welcoming and kind to us. Ben met Sam (Lowden) on a snowboarding course 2 years ago in Whistler and they have managed to stay in touch since, it was actually through a drunken phone call from Sam that the idea to come out to California came about. In any case, we met the family on the beach yesterday after a journey through most of Orange County and were welcomed back into their amazing apartment on the beachfront. I have situated myself firmly on the sofa which, for the record, is the comfiest sofa I have ever slept on, I wouldnt be against taking it with me for the rest of the trip if it werent for the 6 foot surfboard I already have to lug around and my clear absence of a removal van. We went out for what is fast becoming our staple diet of Mexican food last night, and it was possibly the best so far. We were also told about paddle surfing, something we'd spotted in Hermosa but hadn't looked any further into, and we decided to get some boards and try it out the next morning.

So with a hearty breakfast in my belly, which despite all the exercise, does not seem to be decreasing in size (probably all the mexican food); we set out to hire our boards and go paddle surfing. Paddle surfing is fairly straight forward, you have a massive board; 10ft plus, and a paddle. Here's a video demonstration. I must say for the first hour all of us, probably me and Ben especially spent most of the time windmilling our arms so much that you might believe we were trying to generate electricity. This windmilling dance was usually followed by a stumble, a funny noise and then a large splash as we gave up the fight and hit the water. Get back on the board and repeat. It takes a while because the stance you take whilst paddling the boards out is with both feet side by side, where as the regular surfing stance is more one behind the other. Here's another video demonstration that is far more close to reality. We all picked up though and started riding waves far better than I've been riding on a regular surfboard, I imagine the feeling is similar to that of driving a tank. The boards were so fat, and so heavy, but it was definitely a good time. I mean, we were by no means at Laird Hamilton standard, ripping down 12ft waves...ours were more 1-2ft, but I can assure you it felt bigger at the time. After about four hours, when it felt like my arms would never be in a usable condition again, we headed back to the apartment for a quick lunch.

With the success of paddle boarding still fresh in our slightly damp heads, we set out down to the beach for an afternoon of surfing. It was killer, I am fully expecting to wake up paralysed tomorrow. Sam's brothers Nick and Alex have put us all to shame by shooting off to the gym to finish off the day. I for one am happy to be drinking a cold bottle of Corona and planning our route to Santa Monica tomorrow.

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Yesterday saw our exit from Hermosa beach and Surf City hostel. We said goodbye to everyone the night before by going out for the Labour Day celebrations, this was great..at the time, but for travelling the next day it meant a stinking hangover. This was also not helped by the microphone testing occuring outside of our window at 9am "one two...one two...testing, one two...one two...".

So we were up and out, and on our way to Orange County. Our destination however, was a slightly odd one. Orange County has a lot of things going for it, good surf, amazing houses, shops, weather; one thing it does not have though, is an abundance of hostels. In fact, there is one hostel between Long Beach and San Diego, so until we arrived at Dana Point to stay with friends, we were a little stuck.
Through trawling the internet for cheap accommodation we stumbled upon a site called Airbnb. Upon further inspection, and asking around the hostel, we had discovered couch surfing. Despite what you might first be thinking couch surfing is not an embarrassing relative hopping onto you sofa and shouting 'rad man' and 'hang ten' at any brief mention that you might be going surfing. Couch surfing is basically the idea that someone has a spare room in their home, or a couch, or even a floor, and you can pay a small amount and stay there.

In typical english fashion, when we discovered Karen Embree's house online, we contemplated the options. Maybe she's a psycho? Or chronically lonely? Or maybe she's just a cougar...? We mulled it over, but with no clear alternatives we booked a room at Karen's place and awaited our untimely demise at the hands of a Seal beach mental case.

We were of course totally wrong and slightly over dramatizing things, and after a 4 hour journey which featured an amazing burger from 'In n Out Burger', and a treck through the housing estates of Seal beach, we found Karen's place. We were greeted by the slightly worrying growls of Lola the golden labrador and showed to our room.

It turns out that Karen is a professional Marathon runner who travels all over the world to compete, she also has two sons, one of which is the vocalist/guitarist from the RX Bandits. Karen explained that because of his touring lifestyle, she was more than used to people crashing all the time and that was why she had signed up to couch surfing. And in that moment, I think we both signed a sigh of relief and stopped worrying about the distance between us and the kitchen knives. Karen's son came round to say hi and told us all about the California surf, where to go and not to go, and all sorts of surfing lingo that could have basically been chinese to my ears. He talked about touring, visits to the UK, they even dropped in the fact the mother of a Reel Big Fish member lived over the road. In all the whole family was so nice and inviting and made us both feel a little stupid for doubting the whole operation in the first place.

This morning we said goodbye to Lola the dog and departed for Dana Point. We hopped on the bus paid our $1.50 and rode all the way down the coast. We passed through Huntington Beach, Newport and Laguna, all of which looked amazing, and actually not too far away from what The O.C. and Laguna beach has made out. I think when I make my millions I'll buy a house here.

After 2 hours we arrived at Dana Point, and went to meet Ben's friend Sam and his family at the beach. And Dana Point is a whole new chapter entirely.

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Tonight I am Robert Clark. I was Robert Clark last night too. I am 28 years old and I was definitely a little chubbier 8 years ago.
 
I am of course, not Robert Clark, I'm not 28, and 8 years ago I was chubbier, but was certainly not sharing a bottle of rum with Ben Ricketts and nursing a serious hangover in the morning. But the legal drinking age in California is 21, and at the tender age of 20, the option to use someone's spare ID to experience some of the nightlife on the Pier of Hermosa is too good to pass up. So for the purpose of the bouncers and the bar staff...I am Robert Clark.
 
Two days ago Elvis did leave the building, as did Patrick, our first two room mates at Surf City Hostel in Hermosa beach. They left us with some pretty interesting stories though.
 
Patrick has basically moved to LA on a whim, he's applied around Hermosa area and managed to get himself a job at a Frozen Yoghurt place. He's also found an apartment, with two randomers that he's decided to take up. Apparently the course he was studying at College had basically folded and so he needed to do something with his time. So he left today with his $40 vintage leather jacket, to go to his new apartment.
 
Elvis was a little older than the three of us and was a rare character to say the least. 'Sketchy' is probably an accurate description. Apparently his father was a devout catholic priest from Ireland, who apparently beat him as a child. One day he said he'd had enough and at 16 he learned martial arts and fought back. He was told to leave the house and not come back, to which happily agreed and took off, his two brothers joining him. He told us this in a fairly routine sort of way, sipping a large bottle of beer and laughing with that laugh that suggested Elvis was a little bit loco.
 
He also told us that the Martial arts he learned payed of later in life too, as he managed to get a part in 1993 film 'Only the Strong'. After a quick google search to confirm that his is not in fact a mental case, the film does exist, so I shall check this out on my return to home soil.
 
The day Elvis and Patrick departed was a little sad, but by now we had grown to know the current occupants of the hostel; Ricardo the Spaniard surfer who finds great pleasure in winding us up whenever he can, Iris the self professed stalker girl from Switzerland, the group of Australian girls with an attitude problem, the guys from Plymouth Uni, and all the other residents whose names for the life of me I can not remember.
 
And now we have Rob and Matt. Rob and Matt are two 28 year old guys from Milton Keynes, who have taken six months off from work to see the world, and to party. They are definitely lads. Before arriving with us they've have been through New York, Boston and San Francisco, leaving champagne bottles, girls, hotels, hostels, hobos at the bar, ladyboys, and a lot of Jack Daniels in their wake. In two days they head to Las Vegas, then San Diego and the New Zealand, Australia and Thailand.
 
For now though me and Ben have one more night in Hermosa before we move south where we are 'Sofa Surfing' for one evening at Seal Beach with a woman called Karen, and then spending two nights at Dana Point, with Ben's friend Sam. So one more night with the lads here, its labour day weekend, and although I don't really know what that entails, from looking out of my window it looks like one hell of a party.

              
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What would a surfing trip be without surfboards? We have our own, but due to our research being a little incomprehensive, we were being charged €200 to fly our boards out to America and $200 to fly them back. I tried to get in touch with Delta, eventually resorting to a tweet which read something like "My board is far lighter than me, and it doesn't want a seat or a meal, so why is it costing nearly as much as my ticket!?"...safe to say I had no response. No matter, we left our boards at home and decided to buy some out here and sell them before we leave, it all adds to the experience I think.

So on our second day we went in hunt of boards, the first shop we arrived at was directly opposite our hostel. The shop assistant was in the sort of daze that meant it took him roughly 20 seconds to formulate any response to a question, the sort of daze that suggested he may have smoked a joint or two before work that morning. There were no boards to match what we were after in any case, so onwards we went.

We got a little distracted by cheap clothing and the sheer quantity of different brands and designs compared to what you get in the UK. This did pay off though, as after entering a small street art/clothing store just up towards Pacific Ave, we were directed to ET skate and surf shop on Aviation Blvd.

After a short stop for a french loaf a box of fried chicken, we found ET and went in. It is single handedly the best shop of its kind that I've seen, and I've been skateboarding since the age of 14 so I've seen a few. The inside was basically a wooden frame covered with skate stickers, griptape, old skate magazines and photos of the staff through the years of the shops existence. The guys in there were awesome; they knew exactly what they were talking about and after an hour or so we were set with our boards.

A 6'something fish which appeared to be almost more resin than board which cost us $150 and a 6'3" shortboard which all in all was in pretty good shape apart from a dink in the tail, for $200. We also worked out a price to sell the boards back to the shop for $160 meaning that the whole trip only costs us $95 each...around £60.

Yesterday we took the boards out to the water. Unfortunately the surf has not improved and we were pretty gutted to find out that the surf in Bude, UK was on average 3ft higher than here. But we decided to surf anyway and hope that it improves. We walked two miles north to Manhattan beach and set up camp next to some middle aged los angeles housewives who found our accents 'funny' and asked if england had a coast...words escaped us.

Now for those of you who haven't been to California, you may have been lead to believe that its really warm at all times and you can virtually swim naked. This is not true, that sea is cold. Real cold. And there's also sharks. This is obviously something we're a little concerned about, having never really faced this problem before, so when we saw a large fin sticking out of the water towards the end of the pier I think we can be forgiven for giving each other a slightly nervous glance. Thankfully though it turned out to be a pack of dolphins, at least that's what we decided after discussing that a shark is far too bad-ass for that constant bobbing up and down and playing with their friends business.

So we surfed, or more accurately we paddled. And paddled, and floated, and paddled. Surfing can be a waiting game, you sit and wait for a good wave to roll in, but we waited all afternoon and the day ended with Ben re-damaging a recent injury to his knee, and neither of us catching a single wave.

The boards both seem to be good purchases though, and the surf report is looking up as the weather is looking down. So now we just wait that little bit longer and plan our move down the coast, through Long Beach to Dana Point.

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