Santa Barbara

Samantha Brown — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:05:00 -0400

Santa Barbara Blog I love Santa Barbara, how could you not? It's devastatingly good-looking with its mountains and oceanfront. I arrive and do what I always do at a destination: head out for a jog to get some exercise and take in my surroundings. I get back to my hotel, shower and head out to a nice-looking restaurant nearby that had a great menu and wonderful wines by the glass. When I walk up to the host she says she's sorry but the kitchen is closed. I look at my watch. It's only 9:30! She didn't seem to think that was a strange time to close everything down. Oh well, I can tell by my level of perturbness that I am cranky because I am really hungry so instead of looking for another exciting menu I decide to go right next door and have a bowl of soup and a beer.

First up, I try out being a Zookeeper for the day at the Santa Barbara Zoo. I helped feed the Gorillas by measuring out 100 grams of both sweet potato and cantaloupe for their snack. Only 200 grams? I eat more than a Gorilla!

Then we see the giraffes. The giraffe has a 15-inch tongue. After feeding the giraffe about 100 treats, it then started licking me. It's over a foot long tongue coming out like a lasso hitting my shoulders, head and chest. Tough to speak to camera when you're getting a tongue lashing!

Later, at the Plow and Angel we drink a 160-dollar margarita! I couldn't get bartender Chris to divulge the recipe which is so highly secret that he was flown to Mexico to learn how to make it and then sign a confidentiality contract.The cocktail was out of this world and the price definitely kept my usual two-drink maximum to one.

Our dinner scene for Santa Barbara is at Cold Spring tavern. At first you can't believe your eyes -- it looks like it's been around for 100s of years. Almost. It used to be where the stage coach drivers for wells fargo would rest and have a good meal. It feels like you've stumbled upon an old frontier town with log cabins and a mill.

Next door to the restaurant is a pretty wild bar, after a half a beer I end up asking a man over 30 years my senior for a dance. He knows how to two-step like nobody's business. After dinner it's dancing. We go to the Stateside Lounge for some Salsa dancing, thankfully before the official event begins there's an hour's dance lesson. After about 20 minutes I realize my new shoes are killing my feet. They are sexy strappy deals, they look great but in reality they are like tight nooses around my feet, the thin layer of leather cutting in deeper and deeper with every turn. At least I have a really good excuse for dancing badly. One margarita at the bar and I am now pain-free.

Next on the agenda: get a Polo lesson. This should be good. I am terrible on a horse, sometimes quite frightened and now I get to play a sport on top of one of them. Polo looks hard and it is hard. I have a problem letting the weight of the mallet follow thru to the strike. My main issue is that I don't won't to mistakenly whack the poor horse. I actually didn't do too badly at Polo, and I was able to forget my fear being on a horse since I was more consumed with hitting the ball.

In Santa Barbara I found my new sport! Paddleboarding. Basically you are standing on top of what looks to be a very large surfboard and you move with a Paddle. Anyone can do it after about 20 minutes of instruction. Pretty soon you are out on the bay soaking in a great view of the Ocean.

It's odd looking out and seeing other paddleboarders, it's striking in that it looks like people are walking on water.One of the challenges of my paddleboarding is that because of a scene that we have to shoot right after, I can't get my hair wet. My whole crew and I place bets on whether or not my skills are up to the task. The fellas don't think I can, but both Christina and I know that I will do anything not to have to re-style my hair.

There were a few moments where the wakes from other boats passing by almost knocked me off my board but in the end … I won.

And while shooting on the main street I ran into my old friend Jim Dubinsky whom I haven't seen in almost 10 years! We both moved to NYC at the same time and started waiting on tables at a now defunct restaurant called Perretti's. We couldn't believe we found each other again without the help of Facebook.

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Santa Barbara