Viva La Fiesta

So as promised...I told you we would blog more so here goes. Last weekend, we drove up to the beautiful Santa Barbara, CA for its annual Fiesta, staying with one of our good friends, Laszlo, whose mom still lives in Santa Barbara. It was my second time at Fiesta and Matt's first time, so of course, the whole car ride I had to prep him for the trip. Basically, what I told him boiled down to this: there is Mexican food everywhere, you crack confetti-filled eggs on other people's heads, and Corona is a staple. The whole trip could have been soundtracked by the song, Toes by Zac Brown Band. I'm actually listening to that song right now as I write down all our memories from the trip.

We started our adventure by stopping in LA and grabbing lunch with my friend Andrew and my dad. Then we made a stop at the Camarillo Outlets where Matt managed to snag a pair of Guess jeans for $15. Talk about a deal. I'm pretty sure that kid made off with more stuff than I did :) Afterward, we stopped in Ventura to pick up our friends, Alice and Laszlo. They were having a family reunion, and of course, Laszlo asked us to come haha. I'm pretty sure I've never had a better pulled pork sandwich than at that house. Well finally we arrived in Santa Barbara. We laid pretty low the first night and hung out at one of his friend's house before walking around on State St (downtown SB).

I know...we are disgusting.

Saturday was the best day ever. We woke up and Las's mom took us to a church called Our Lady Guadalupe, where they had an outdoor food festival. The food was amazing. Between the five of us, I'm pretty sure we wolfed down pizole (a Mexican soup filled with hominy and pork/beef), tacos, corn (roasted in mayo and covered with cheese and lime juice and cayenne pepper), a torta, and several Sprite bottles. I'm pretty sure you haven't had good mexican food til you've had it at Fiesta. Afterward, Kathy (his mom) drove us around Santa Barbara because Matt wanted to see some of the architecture in the area. We drove by the Court house, and the Mission, and numerous other places. But not before we stopped at a local microbrewery, called Telegraphy Brewing Company. We also decided to pay $6 to do the beer tasting. Though it's not the best beer I've ever had, Telegraph does have a lot of potential and they even had a beer named after Fiesta. The whole place was probably no bigger than a huge garage, but it had the lovely Santa Barbara style. One of the employees even recommended that we should go on the architecture walking tour next time, which tickled Matt's fancy. We met up with our friends, Vinitha and Jennah, and tried to go to Las and Cathy's favorite dive bar. However, they were closed and instead, we went to Joe's, Santa Barbara's oldest restaurant. drove over to the Santa Cruz market to pick up meats and supplies for dinner. Our plan for the night was to host our own fiesta. Alice and Cathy in charge of the margaritas, which they made without margarita mix (it was definitely the best margarita i've ever had). I was in charge of the pico de gallo and Jennah and V were in charge of the guacamole. Matt, Las, and some of his friends were in charge of grilling up the meats. Our dinner was a huge success. With the option of chicken, carne, or pork, the tacos were amazing and we were all stuffed. But our night was just starting. All of us headed back down to State St., walking around and living it up the fiesta way. We walked around and found a few bars, but also managed to stop for some authentic churros :)

Sunday was our last day in Santa Barbara, and Matt's professor, Fred (a Santa Barbara native), told us that we had to try the Brewhouse  on Montecito St. So we went for lunch and of course, the boys had to get beers. I'm not sure if you guys know this (especially Connie), but your son is a little bit of a beer connoisseur and he really enjoys trying beers from different places. I highly recommend the Brewhouse if you're ever looking for cheap beer with delicious food. After lunch, we decided it was time to head back to San Diego. Though our trip was short, it was glorious. Viva la Fiesta.

Ooooo and on our way home, we drove by the Oscar Mayer Weiner mobile. Matt waved and it honked at us. But it definitely wasn't a regular honk....it sang....

"I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weiner..."