2009 November | Diane and Fernando

Solvang

While in Santa Barbara, we took a day trip to a Dutch town called Solvang. The town reminded me of Leavenworth Washington. It was basically a touristy town with Dutch architecture and shops that sold things like nutcrackers, collectibles, and Christmas decorations. There were also several bakeries, Belgian waffle houses, and fudge shops.

A clog

Apple crepe

We went to a pancake house that featured several crepes on their menu, so Fernando got an apple crepe and I got a crepe suzette filled with cheese. For some strange reason they topped mine off with about a cup of sour cream and didn’t taste so well, but Fernando’s was pretty good.

Ebelskivers

Right after leaving the pancake house, I noticed a sign for a place that sold Ebelskiver. I first stumbled upon Ebelskiver when online shopping at Williams Sonoma. They are pancake balls which sometimes have a filling inside of them. Ours were topped with lingonberry sauce.

Street view of Solvang

Santa Barbara

On the last weekend of Fernando’s five week business trip, I took off a couple of days of work and met him in Santa Barbara. Neither of us had been to Santa Barbara, but Fernando had already been offshore on an oil rig for two weeks before I got there. We stayed off of main street in a cute hotel that was walkable to all of the shops and the beach. Santa Barbara is a really cute town with a Mediterranean style of architecture. The city has strict codes which assures that all buildings are stucco with red tile roofs.

We rented surrey and rode along the boardwalk.

We saw this amazing tree right next to a busy street, called the Moreton Bay Fig Tree (largest in North America). The roots of the tree were at my shoulder, this picture hardly does it justice.