One of the first things I do in a new city is head for cafes and the local free sheets and newspapers. In those sources you’ll often find the best up to date information about what is happening, what is open and what is best avoided. The local free sheets Santa Cruz Weekly and Good Times are widely available in bookshops and cafes, as is the weekly Metro Santa Cruz and the Dilated Pupil 2009-2010 free student guide – that had the most useful information about where to go for the best coffee, where to go to get a bike repaired, a good haircut, the best bars and importantly, a note of caution for cyclists about Mission St (avoid it – it’s too busy and too risky). There is also the Santa Cruz Sentinel which has an events guide every Friday. Anywhere it was mentioned, the Abbey Cafe, Art and Music Lounge was given enthusiastic reviews for its tasty and locally sourced food, its fair traded coffee and produce, its cosy and laid back and warm atmosphere.

My partner has also discovered it in his advance party reconnaissance of the area. He certainly knows what I like in a cafe. He told me it was only five minutes from the apartment, that it also had exquisite pastries and scones, that it has large sofas and chairs that swallow you up, that there is a sunny courtyard and that the staff are very welcoming and friendly. So we had to go. I have to confess – it was all true. But was it too good to be true?

The Abbey Cafe Lounge

The Abbey Cafe is attached to the Vintage Faith Church – as well as sharing the same site and being part of the same building as the Church, it also seems to be seen as a kind of faith outreach activity (check out it’s pastor’s comments on http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2009/03/hippie-church-with-evangevibe-blessedly-under-wraps.html).  There is nothing new in that. In Ireland we’re told that some of the Protestant Churches canvassed for new members while bringing relief to the starving and dying poor. We’re also told that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! The cafe is always busy, with a predominantly 20 to mid 30s crowd (its open 7am to 8pm most days, and until 10pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday). The attendance at the 7pm Sunday evening service in the Church draws a packed crowd, again predominantly 20 to 30 year old group.  I know – I went along one Sunday. But that’s another story.

My attendance at a Sunday service is also how I know that had I been discovered as a gay man, the welcoming and friendly conversation may not be as warm. The theme of the sermon was marriage, sex and relationships. So I decided to do a bit of outreach myself. In a kind of parallel process to the mission of the Abbey Cafe, I’ll go along, engage in friendly banter, let them see there is nothing to fear and then when the opportunity arises, rather than talk to people about a wonderful service on Sunday in the Church and ask whether they might like to come along, I’ll mention the committed, loving relationship I’m in as a gay man, adding that in truth this is part of God’s plan for me. Well, it’s either that or avoid the Abbey Cafe altogether. The coffee and cinnamon scones are just too good resist. I almost said they are to die for, but I’ve no wish to me a martyr! Wish me luck…and the courage not to crumble in the face of an innocent and expectant smile!

Flood at San Fran

Flood on the Castro

Soft drizzle is an Irish thing it seems. There we were, wandering around the Castro in San Francisco in our tee shirts, without a care in the world. We went into the Human Rights Campaign shop for a browse and then turned around to see sheets of rain fall from the sky. I’ve rarely seen rain like it. So we spent longer in the shop than we might have, bought a tee shirt with a slogan from Harvey Milk (Hope will never be silent) – it is the Castro after all and we got talking with a guy who had spent some time living in Italy before returning home to California to study law.

We also heard about plans for the celebration of Hallowe’en, a holiday they take very seriously both in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. During previous years there had been street parties in the Castro, with the streets closed off, music and stalls on the streets and lots of people in make up and costume. There had been some stabbings last year, with young men from other parts of the city coming in to attack gay men, some had serious injuries and there had been fears that the situation might get out of hand this year. So the city council cancelled the street party following reports from the police. So it meant that this year there would be no official street party or fair but other than that, life would go on as usual – for the Castro (the gay village in San Francisco) and Hallowe’en.

John and I were intrigued by descriptions of what happens on the Castro for Hallowe’en and we got into the spirit of things. We put in a little effort and got dressed up. Make up and I are not well aquainted, let me hasten to add. Apart from College productions of musicals and a frightening encounter with make up and costume for Pride many years ago, I have been more than happy to leave make up to those who know it well and for whom it seems to work. When I last wore make up, I hastened the end of a relationship and frightened myself with the result of the application of all kinds of make up by friends. They did a very good job, knowing their art well, but some pairings are simply not meant to be. So I left it at that until last weekend when John got dressed up and I used both make up and something of a costume. You can let me know what you think of the results at another time.

We both had a wonderful time. The Castro was packed with people of all shapes and sizes in costume – there were witches and wizards, policemen and firemen, ghostly brides and brides and grooms and grooms, muscle men, leather men, people in animal costumes. The main street down Castro was so busy in the evening that you just had to resign yourself to making slow progress and to drinking in the fun filled and relaxed atmosphere. At one stage we were lucky enough to grab a window seat in a coffee shop, giving us a chance to take a rest from the melee and to see the world in all its glory amble by. It was magical. I haven’t discovered a new affinity for make up and costume, but it can be fun and who knows now what might happen next year in Galway. And by the way, there wasn’t a repeat of the end of a relationship – thankfully- and our only regret was that in our haste to leave the hotel and join in the festivities we forgot to take the camera out with us after we took pictures in our room of ourselves in costume.

I have to go now, but I’ll just finish with some pictures of the outside of our apartment here – notice the lemon tree and rose bush that straddle themselves around the door.

Our Kitchen in Santa Cruz

Entrance at Santa Cruz

I am enjoying settling in here but I still have not got the hang of cycling in this part of the world. Santa Cruz is a cycle friendly town -apart from the motorised madness of Mission St. There are cycle lanes all around town, there are some pedestrianised areas and there are plenty of places to lock your bike safely. But I can’t figure out who gives way when you come to a four-way junction and there are no traffic lights. This happens quite a lot.Its a little unnerving because it feels like a game of who blinks first. Its not so bad if there are cyclists on the other streets but its a different story when you have cars or buses facing you on 3 sides. It feels a bit like “you go first”, “no you first”, “no you go”…and no one seems to be able to explain it to me.

Cyclists and assistants in the bike shops couldn’t be more friendly. There are a lot of bike shops to choose from for bike hire, repair and wear. I’m sticking with t-shirt and shorts but they take their cycle gear seriously here. There seems to be a choice of either surfer wear (loose jeans/shorts, loose t-shirts with surfing logos and flowing hair) or tight lycra wear all over, apart from the head. Frankly, judging by those who wear the gear around here, I’m too old for the surfer wear and too, shall we say, round in some parts for the lycra.

But there is a chance that the holiday routine will help reduce the roundness – since we have the time, we’re cooking together a lot more and John has convinced me to try vegetarianism and even, whisper it, veganism. Now I won’t be a complete convert – there is enough down to earth farming in my history and my genes. I still love my meat, but no matter what you cook, its no more cooking a dish that only one of you might enjoy. On one of our visits to the Santa Cruz Bookshop (yes, its called bookshop, not bookstore), John found a book called the Accidental Vegan, sneaked it home and twisted my arm into trying a curry it suggested. What can I say? it was delicious.I’ll be having some more of that. When he wasn’t looking, I read through the introduction and some of the recipes and I liked the down to earth approach of the writer Devra Gartenstein – there is no fussing with fancy ingredients and it seems you don’t need to be either a chemist or a culinary fundamentalist to try the recipes. So we’ll see how it goes.

Another one of our trips took us along the north west coast with some friends as far as Davenport. We passed alot of beautiful sunny beaches where people were surfing or flying kites or paddling along the waters edge. Its much too cold to swim now. No one swims at any of the beaches at this time of year. I walked along the waters edge a few times and it was like walking on shattered ice. I could just about grin and bear it but I wasn’t going to be the only one to plunge into the water and loose all dignity as screaming shouting and a lot worse followed.

Along the way we stopped off at a farm to pick up some fresh fruit and vegetables, including pumpkins. There fields along the coast had looked like they had been covered with a deluge of basketballs of all shapes and sizes -it was a surreal sight for these eyes-but it turned out that a lot of fruit, vegetables and especially pumpkins are grown in the area. I thought we had fresh fruit and vegetables at home, but the strawberries tasted more…well more like strawberries and the pears tasted more like pears rather than the pale imitations I had grown used to. We were invited to join the others for a pumpkin carving party on Friday, but we had already booked a trip to Berkeley for Thursday and then to San Francisco for the Hallow’een weekend. They take their Hallow’een very seriously here, so we’re looking forward to seeing what happens on the Castro that night!

One of the things I like about having this time of is that if something is one and I’d feel like I might like to give it a shot, then I can. The funny thing about not having much that has to be done is that I find that the day fills up pretty quickly. I’ve been to different types of yoga classes – more about them another time. I’ve enjoyed browsing through different independent book stores and getting familiar with the lay out of the town, the coffee shops, the bike shops and bakeries. I’ve also noticed there is a Centre for Non-Violence here and that intrigues me. There is also a Women’s Refuge here that is closed once a week and puts up huge placards protesting about the Governor’s budget cut backs and it lays out the implications of those cut backs for the women and children with whom they work (all services shut for a day, including the shelter, counselling, legal and other support services).

There was a reading last week in Bookstore Santa Cruz – I had noticed the advertisement for the event the day after I arrived and although he wasn’t keen, John agreed to come. You might remember Matthew Shepard, the gay teenager who was beaten up, tied to a fence and left to die over ten years ago in Laramie. His mother Judy Shepard has written a book called The Meaning Of Matthew. I had followed the news reporting at the time but I missed the film based on what took place that was released a few years ago. So when I saw that Judy Shepard was going to speak in Santa Cruz, I bought the book (assuring me of a ticket for the event and allowing me buy one other for John) and I read it over a few days before the Judy Shepard was due to visit Santa Cruz. Its an angry but gentle and hopeful book – I’ll say no more other than that. We went to the reading at Bookstore Santa Cruz and we were both glad we went. For me it was a way of showing solidarity with this woman whose son was murdered, as well as a way of showing my support for the work she does and the hope she holds. She spoke to us on the week that a bill finally went before the US president for signing which will make assaults or murders of people that take place because of homopobia a federal offence.

Judy Shepard spoke about battles and pain, but she also spoke with humour as well. She told what she described as a funny and true story about a college student who was afraid to tell his parents that he was gay. He went home to his folks during one of the breaks towards the end of his time at college. he was terrified. He didn’t know how his parents would respond. He thought they might disown him, break off all ties with him, never speak to him again. He drove the car into the card, left the engine running and rushed in, blurting out to his mother “Mom, I’m gay”. There was a moments silence. Then she called down to her husband who was in the basement, laughed and said “Bob, I win the bet”.

Now that I’ve arrived and begun to adjust to Californian time, I’ve taken time to notice a few things different. Santa Cruz is a lovely town, on the west coast of the US with sunshine and a lot to like. Did I mention sunshine? But apart from that there is an independent bookstore where you can browse away the time and pick up some great books and magazines, there is some great coffee to be had in this town, there are two independent grocery shops nearby that sell locally produced and organic produce and there is a bakery near our apartment. I didn’t mention the apartment – its on the ground floor of a house in a residential area about 20 minutes from Santa Cruz centre so its handy for walking into town and its quiet enough (even though there is a highway near by). There are lemon trees and rose bushes in bloom growing around the apartment and the gardens around the house have a kind of encouraged wildness about them. There is lots of space and light in the apartment, with large windows allowing the sunshine to come in. Though this also means we have to make sure we are dressed enough to make our way to the bathroom to spare the blushes of passersby (and ours!) or remember before going to bed to put up some large paper bags to cover two windows on the route between the bedroom and the bathroom.

Earlier this week we went to the natural bridges beach on the edges of Santa Cruz. We took the number 3 bus and made our way through a park in which the beautiful and famous Monarch butterflies that gather here for a time each October. There is a boardwalk that brings you through the area the large red and black butterflies bask and swoop and it was an amazing sight to see. If you can imagine flocks of swallows swooping and swirling in the Autumn at home, then you have an idea of what it was like to stand and see these butterflies flutter around in large numbers. John had told me about them so much that I finally agreed to go. Then I was only too glad we had made the trip out before the butterflies moved on.

Monarchs at the Natural Bridges

Natural Bridges Monarchs

After the butterflies, we made our way out to the natural bridges beach. Think of sunshine and clear blue skies, a long unbroken horizon ahead, waves crashing along a beach and along nearby cliffs and rocks while behind you is a quiet shaded woody area and you have a picture of what we saw. Wonderful.

John has to work while we’re here but I am lucky enough to have freedom from schedules for a time. And it feels so good. I’ve explored other parts of Santa Cruz, went on a scenic walk that took way longer than planned and ended up with me getting lost, discovered parts I want to explore more (the boardwalk, the Museum and Gallery, the redwoods at the UC Santa Cruz campus) and I’ve also begun to do a bit more cooking. Its taking time to get used to the humours of an ancient and huge gas cooker (I’ll not be using the oven again for quite a while after filling the apartment with greasy smoke that took almost an entire evening to clear!). I’m also experimenting with different types of yoga classes – more about them another time. And we had a trip to San Francisco last weekend, but again, there’ll be more about that next time. John has experimented with a butternut squash curry and its time to taste.

So, I’m loving it here in Santa Cruz and after just a taste, I’m looking forward to so much more.