Summer 09: SURF-IT in Santa Cruz

The obligatory “what the hell was I doing all summer” post. Now that I’ve sent off my final paper and travel reimbursement, I am starting to feel like my summer is kind of over and I can reflect and report on what happened.

I was in Santa Cruz working at UCSC as part of the SURF-IT program, an NSF-funded research internship for undergrads in Computer Science and Engineering. I was lucky to meet and hang out with 16 other fabulous SURF-ITs in the forest, overlooking the bay, that was our campus.

UCSC is also super cool because the mascot is a BANANA SLUG. Yeah, unbeatable.

Sri Kurniawan was my advisor — she’s probably one of the most upbeat and energetic people I’ve ever met. I learned a lot about her overzealous vegetable garden and fruit trees, strange neighbors, and that she’s very chill about inviting people over and making experimental food, 99% from her garden. My grad student advisor, Sonia Arteaga was the most involved with my work (I was working on a pilot study for what she plans to do as her PhD project, essentially) and was nice enough to give us rides around to places like Sri’s house, Thai food for lunch, or Watsonville/Salinas where we did a lot of our user studies.

The other undergrad on SURF-IT I worked with was Adrienne Woodworth from St. Lawrence University in New York. She is the kind of person who has a story about every possible topic of conversation (usually quite amusing). It was also convenient that she is as much (if not more) of a night owl than me… we would often be working in our rooms on our project at 3am and be emailing/IMing each other about it then.

The project we did was to make a prototype mobile application that used interactive games to motivate teenagers to be more physically active. Sort of think a Wii on an iPhone. These are games that involve physical activity in some way (walking around in the real world to try to get somewhere on a map, or fighting games where you swing the phone like a sword, etc.) We made an iPhone/iPod Touch app that recommended a list of games and logged your playing time.

My part was mostly to make the game mode structure, that would recommend, display, and let you play games. Adrienne made a personality test for the beginning of the app, since it was supposed to cater to different personalities, and she made some characters (agents) who would say motivational phrases like “You’re doing great!” and Sonia made the database for keeping track of play times and user profiles.

We then found real live actual teenagers (whoa!) to test the app and tell us what they liked and what they didn’t like. Our mileage varied with different parts of the app, and we have a better idea of what to do in a “real” version of such an app to improve it.

Probably the most fun thing about the user testing was that we met the same group of 6 kids or so multiple times over the course of a month, so we got to know them fairly well. They were really interesting to talk to and interview/observe/study and it actually impressed me how not-flakey they were about showing up at random Friday afternoons in the summer (though I guess they had to be serious about it to receive their Forever 21 gift certificates).

I think all these different things kept my summer pretty interesting — I wasn’t only coding all day. Although I was indeed writing iPhone apps, I was also working on grants, transcribing interviews, driving out of town to meet teenagers, playing iPhone games, learning about Sri’s overly productive garden… (plums, tomatoes, lemons, oranges, zucchini, etc etc. that desperately needed to be eaten by someone). Since all of my work was iPhone coding or something else completely laptop-based, I often worked outside, downtown, on the bus, etc etc. which I mostly took advantage of by hanging out at Pergolesi and Asana Cafes.

At the end of the summer we had presentations and a poster session with all the other SURF-ITs. Here’s my poster, I thoroughly enjoyed making it (especially choosing exactly what shade of pink I wanted to use):

During the middle of our project, we wrote a paper and were published in the June 2009 SIGACCESS newsletter!

By the time I turned in my final paper for SURF-IT of course we had finished the project. It’s over here at my page on the SURF-IT website.

Aaaaand that’s my summer!

(And of course, Dannyland. Which all SURF-ITs have become quite familiar with.)

Top 5 Santa Cruzest Santa Cruz Stories

So I’m currently flying back from CA to IL. Reflecting on the summer and what being in Santa Cruz was like. Santa Cruz is its own little foggy bubble, full of hippies and good cafes, organic food, beachgoers, dreadlocks, vegans, dyed hair, sparkling apple juice.

Unfortunately I have been too busy to share some of the quintessential Santa Cruz experiences I had as they occurred — and now I have the added perspective of looking back at the whole summer and picking out the highlights. Some of these events I would like to repeat more than others. Just sayin’.

1) Can I finish that milkshake?
The night of the second Teacrawl Santa Cruz, we ended up at Saturn Cafe at the end of the night, the retro vegetarian cafe where the bathrooms are labeled “robot” and “alien”. I ordered a turkish coffee milkshake, which is certainly one of the best things I have eaten in my life. (Coffee grounds still in the milkshake = YUM.) The only thing more intense than this drink is the turkish coffee ice cream sundae. You think you’re doing okay until you take a spoonful of the fudgey gritty chocolate at the bottom and then you feel like you might explode/melt/turn into chocolate. Anything can happen. Disclaimer to either of these treats: if you plan on going to sleep less than 5 hours after consumption… well, scratch those plans.

I made it through 3/4 of my milkshake and my teacrawl buddies Bhargav and Mukund were working through their delicious vegetarian diner food. It was certainly past 1 am, and we were considering leaving. But before we did so, a group of about 6 people (maybe in their late 20s?) walked in and sat down at the table next to us. They were all certainly on some kind of substance (not sure what kind — nothing was particularly odorous). However, one guy in the group decided to sit down at the empty chair at our table instead of with his friends. He introduced himself as Justin. He was all about talking to us and what we were up to, where we were from, etc. He asked Bhargav and Mukund about their Indian heritage and began telling stories about playing the sitar. And cooking Indian food. And how we should come by and cook with him. Surprisingly, he didn’t actually ask us for any contact information but instead made Bhargav take *his* phone number.

I was hoping he would decide to resume hanging out with his friends instead of us, but he showed no signs of losing interest in our table. He eyed the remains of my milkshake, and asked me what I’d ordered (as our waiter was coming by his friend’s table and wanted to take his order). I explained the turkish coffee milkshake, and that it was delicious. At which point, he asked me if he could try it. Have the melty slightly warm bottom of my milkshake? Uhhh sure, it’s all yours. Justin proceeded to snarf down the rest of my milkshake. No really, you can keep it, Justin. I’m not gonna need that back. And finally, he took note of my not-so-subtle body language (I had progressed from looking a little bored to full-on glare of death) and said goodbye to us. We left, feigning exhaustion.

But Bhargav still has his number, so anytime we really need to contact him… we’re set.

2) Tree 9 by Star/Flashlight
The UC Santa Cruz campus is full of legendary things. Caves, koi ponds, stages in the middle of the woods. Another is Tree 9, a large tree out in the forest in upper campus, that students like to go climb. I missed several opportunities to climb tree 9 with other SURF-ITs, but Joey was interested in going with me, so one Friday night he came down to Santa Cruz with his friends Nikki and Derek. While I waited for them to arrive, I spent time with the other SURF-ITs, taking quizzes in Cosmo to determine whether Wade was “good girl hot” or “bad girl hot” (“good girl hot” by a long shot).

Soon Joey arrived with his friends and an array of flashlights. I lent Nikki some socks and tennis shoes so that we could go out to the forest to find this tree, following a combination of directions from the internet and David’s explanation. We wandered off into the forest. Wooded areas, a small clearing, and more trees. We found a large tree that looked similar to the pictures I’d seen of tree 9, but there appeared to be no good way of climbing it. Instead of giving up and heading back, we stopped in the clearing for a long time and stargazed, with the help of iPhone to identify celestial bodies.

After maybe ten or fifteen minutes of stargazing, we heard someone coming up the path. We rudely pointed our flashlights at him, trying to determine who this was. As he passed us, he said nothing, and neither did we — this was one of the most awkward moments of my life. I didn’t get a good look at him, but he was certainly walking very deliberately alone at night in the forest. I was a little surprised he hadn’t done anything like murdered us, but I wanted to head back anyway. About 20 minutes of walking later, we were back at my apartment. Mission: FAILED.

This time, we asked Tina and some of the others for better directions. Instead of trying to explain, she and Steph actually came with us and led us to tree 9. It was only about a third as far as we had walked before, and in a completely different location. I couldn’t quite tell that we were even on a path.

But when we arrived, it was clear that this tree, unlike the last, was actually climbable — tree 9 actually has a swing and a rope ladder. Joey climbed first, and I followed, climbing to the first branch. Tina and Steph headed back. Derek leapt up the tree and disappeared so far up that we couldn’t see or hear him anymore. Nikki climbed up and was fairly brave about it. At all times, someone was standing at the bottom, pointing flashlights up at the tree.

Eventually Derek decided to climb down and we found our way back, this time feeling much more accomplished. The night ended, unsurprisingly, at Saturn Cafe before heading to Santa Clara.

3) West Byrd and the 3 Pergolesi Musketeers
One day, about 2 weeks before I left Santa Cruz, I decided to head downtown to work at a cafe. On the bus ride down, there was a girl in front of me, clearly a UCSC student. Across the aisle, blonde guy was clearly very interested in talking to her, and did not let her even THINK about ending their mostly-one-sided conversation. He was new to Santa Cruz but definitely also a student, and they talked about sci-fi books and the school and the town etc.

The guy was hugely enthusiastic about Santa Cruz, and was describing his first time at Pacific Avenue downtown. “I felt like I was in Star Wars, you know that scene where Luke and Obi-Wan go to meet Han, and there are all the weird creatures?” I did not interrupt their conversation with “guys, seriously, it’s called the Mos Eisley Cantina” as clarification, but I really wanted to and demand a little more expertise before you start throwing around Star Wars references. In any case, this was still the best description I have heard of what Pacific Avenue is like. As we pulled into the bus station, I saw a crowd of five teenagers in plaid skinny-pants and red spiked hair that was several feet long. Yep, aliens. (It’s pretty clear which bathroom they need to use at Saturn Cafe).

I started walking and the same guy happened to be walking near me. Though I hadn’t said anything during the conversation on the bus, it was clear that I had been somewhat involved and paying attention. We talked a bit now and I discovered he was from Boston but goes to school in Vermont, a philosophy major who just decided to take summer classes at Santa Cruz. We stopped to get food at a vegetarian-friendly Mexican place, and then headed to Pergolesi. At some point he handed me a very minimalistic business card that said just his name: West Byrd (how about that for a name?!)

At Pergolesi I ordered my mocha chai. Soon a pair of white and black macbooks came out, as we sat in the room off to the right with the white tables. On the opposite side of the room there were three tables, each occupied with one customer each, men varying in age but all much older than myself. One was a repeat customer who likes to play WoW and talk on his headset. West Byrd hadn’t been to Pergolesi before, so he needed the wireless password. I tried to tell him what the password was, and somehow this erupted into a full-room conversation that went something like this:

Me: Oh it’s a12345
West: Thanks
Guy1: It’s a12345
Guy2: She JUST said that
Guy3: (plays WoW) yeah she did
Guy2: How about we tell it to her one more time? It’s a12345
Me: Yep, got it, thanks
Guy1: I was just trying to tell her
Guy3: Uhh…

I’d never seen a dialogue among so many customers who did not know each other, all sitting at different tables. Finally the room quieted down and we could use the internet in peace.

After West Byrd left, I stayed for a bit longer. At some point, Guy1 or 2 made an announcement to the room (but somewhat directed at me).

Guy: What is it… you can’t read?
Me: Um… what?
Guy: You like, can’t read or … what’s it called??
Me: (pause in confusion) you mean “illiterate”?
Guy: That’s it!! Thank you…
Me: Crossword puzzle or…?
Guy: No I just forgot it.

Not one of the most coherent conversations I have been a part of.

4) Yoga with and without Joy
When I came to California, I knew I wanted to try yoga. Admittedly, this is mostly because of Seth and Sandy Cohen standing in the kitchen in an episode of the first season of The OC, making fun of Kirsten’s yogalates class. “Yogalates” — it’s so fun to say. I figured just plain old yoga without the pilates would be good enough, so I looked into classes at the university. There was one on Wednesday nights, and Sarah had said she was interested too. She’s a much more “make a plan and then round people up” type of person, so she sent some emails to all the SURF-ITs asking if anyone wanted to come. We had a few takers, as well as Bhargav, who ended up visiting that night. We headed down to college eight and found the class. It was in a red room full of yoga students, mats, blocks, straps, and blankets. Most equipment was gone already, but we made do and squeezed into a row of yoga students.

Joy, our teacher, is pretty much just how I would imagine a yoga teacher. In her 30s, short blonde hair. In pretty good shape. Soothing voice. Toe ring. She played soothing music from her iPod and taught us basic yoga poses. I achieved some level of relaxation. It was nice.

We continued going to yoga, almost every week. There was always some group (I think about half of the SURF-ITs tried it at one point or another) and a few fairly consistent yoga students. I looked forward to it every week, especially towards the end of the summer when we got into a routine of Yoga, going for a teacrawl with Bhargav and Pete and the two Russian girls who were here, and then heading back up to campus. The only problem with yoga was that the class was just too popular, and you had to worry about stretching your arms out to the sides and hitting someone. Anyway, Joy taught us many a yoga pose and how to relax and let your thoughts float away instead of letting the mind keep racing. For 1.5 hours a week, at least. Every time, the extreme relaxation from savasana at the end made me completely certain I needed to come back next week.

One week, we had a different yoga teacher, who was a little odd. His instructions were too fast for me, but he did talk about creativity and finding poses that feel good to you rather than pushing yourself. Interesting. But thankfully, Joy was back the following week and yoga continued at a more reasonable pace.

Finally, this Wednesday, I was fairly pumped about my last round of yoga for the summer. I headed down to college eight and met Willi and Pete there (this was Willi’s first time trying yoga). Unbelievably, we were met with this sign:

Thanks a lot, Joy! Way to ruin my relaxation and add more stress into my day! We were thoroughly disappointed, but I decided to try going into the empty room anyway and it was open. Score! So we taught Willi yoga and found that we remembered enough poses to keep us occupied for as long as a normal class. It was much more relaxing to have only three people in the big room and not have to worry about hitting anyone. The high ceiling and the fact that we start yoga-ing in daylight but it’s dark out by the end of our class makes it a great place and time for yoga. Relaxation: achieved. Willi also had a good nap during savasana.

Bonus: Now I could teach yoga classes as a night job!

5) Sitting and staring at Joe’s
It was Monday of everyone’s last week in Santa Cruz. Adrienne and I wandered down to lunch around 12:45, which is early for us. We are night owls and on a somewhat skewed schedule, so we often missed people at lunch. Monday was a good day, though, and we hit Joe’s right when everyone else was there. They were mostly eating/had eaten, and even with the sometimes long waits at Joe’s, everyone, including Adrienne and I were certainly done by about 1:30. At this point, a few people headed back to lab. The rest of us didn’t seem particularly eager. We weren’t really having a conversation either. After a few minutes, everyone was sort of staring off into space or at things around the room. Occasionally we would exchange a few words or laugh (at the fact that we were all just quiet and staring), but it was mostly just quiet.

And we continued to sit and stare.

Everyone in their own separate direction.

For a half hour…

This was one of the most relaxing, peaceful experiences of my summer. I really felt like all of us had successfully adopted some part of the Santa Cruz chill as a result of this summer. And that we had achieved something GREAT.

There are many more Santa Cruz stories, not all of which I have time to tell. Other things that come to mind are visiting Chaikhana, meeting and befriending Russian and German travelers, interacting with street performers in downtown, Patrick and Tina’s serious issues with our rude waitress at Kianti’s on Adrienne’s 21st, all the time spent working with Patrick and others at Asana, memorable baristas, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the alleged Italian travelers with Monopoly, the girlfriend of a grad student in my lab as a hitchhiker, and Dannyland.

But this flight is actually going to be over in about 45 minutes so I have run out of time for stories. Too bad Santa Cruz isn’t a 13 hour flight away from Chicago like Japan is (just kidding. That would suck.)

eduFire, of Montreal, the Sounds, and Fabio:
My Weekend in Celebrities

That is the short version of everything that happened during July Surpise (aka oM noM noM 2009) or, to the common people, “this weekend”.

Prologue to the weekend:
Thursday night, I went with Joey to try my hand at curling (yes, that Canadian sport, eh) in Fremont, CA. He’s a veteran curler of 1 year, but this was my first try. It was surprisingly fun (being dragged/slid along the ice by a 42 pound rock is good times! Oh yes, and sweeping). Noam was making her way into SF at the same time to celebrate her birthday weekend in the best place she could, clearly. Originally, the plan was for this to be a surprise, but logistics won out and we carefully crafted the perfect weekend.

eduFire with Koichi
Friday morning, I Caltrained to SF for a visit to the eduFire office. eduFire is basically a social media site for education — you go there to take classes, teach them, or tutor, all with live video conferencing, but I was introduced to the site through the 2nd jblogger conference back in March (I’ve also taken a couple classes). The famous Koichi of tofugu.com, the twitterverse (and eduFire, obviously) welcomed me to the lovely office and showed me around. I did some user testing for eduFire, one intern was around that day, so we all went to lunch at a nearby Caribbean place (yummy!) All in all good times, thanks for letting me visit @eduFire.

Afterwards, I wandered around San Francisco for a long while. Hiked and hiked. Found Alcatraz and a number of other good views. Eventually I ended up at 901 Columbus Cafe, where I had some chai, and later a bagel, while I got some work done. Later, Noam and her mom picked me up and we headed to their hotel room. It was her birthday, yay!! And now we transition to the next celebrities…

Some photos from my walk through San Francisco

of Montreal with Kevin Barnes
Now, I’ve been an of Montreal fan for a couple of years now, and have seen them in concert a few times. I was not going to pass up the opportunity to see them this time around, and the plan was to go with Bhargav, Mukund, and Boyce too, other Bay Area interns from IL. The plan to have a car fell through, though, and we were challenged with how to the concert and then get back to Silicon Valley after Caltrains stopped running.

Thankfully, my phone was still hanging on to dear battery life at this point, and Google transit got me and Noam to the right BART and to the concert. Once we got to the station, it wasn’t necessary to know where the actual concert venue was, you could just be a sheep and follow the masses of indie kids there. We checked our bags and prayed they wouldn’t be stolen, and proceeded to chill in the lobby.

The concert started a bit late, but soon enough of Montreal was doing their thing, engaging the id, etc. However, the party was crashing some of the audience — right as they started playing, some guy who was WAY too high zombie-walked through our group and made it out of the room (hopefully). I had never seen people as messed up at an oM concert, nor as many drag queens (but they seemed to be relatively unintrusive). Surprisingly, Kevin Barnes stayed 100% clothed the entire time. I repeat: he was NOT nude, covered in shaving cream and red paint. What kind of of Montreal concert *is this*?? But it was great anyway. Here’s Kevin:

After the concert, we decided to start heading back. BART taken to Fremont, and then a taxi back home. Again, Oakland’s potential sketchiness was warded off by friendly of Montreal fans. And Noam, who scored an anti-meat brochure. Oh, and it was 11:25 pm.

A few more concert pics

We made it back by 1:00 AM to the total surprise of Joey. Score! (Surprise is the theme of the weekend).

The Sounds with Maja Ivarsson
Saturday Noam, Joey and I ate our way from Santa Clara to Mountain View, experiencing coffee, Turkish food, and dessert. We wandered Mountain View for a while, viewed some Mountains, and headed to the extremely early concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre (7PM — well, we got there at 7:30). The Sounds were opening for No Doubt, and as The Sounds are one of the best bands ever, I had to see them, even though they were just the first opener and not even printed on the ticket. Alas. The Shoreline holds 22,000 people, and we were very far away, but still managed to party it up as The Sounds played an awesome but brief set. The main opening band, Paramore, was quite crappy, and the lead singer was really patronizing, yelling things like, “DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!?!?!” (Yes, I do. I’m right here.) and “IN CASE YOU FORGOT, WE’RE PARAMORE!!!” Nice, lady.

at 9:00 the 20 fans of The Sounds lined up for autographs and photos, while the other 21,980 concertgoers waited for No Doubt to come onstage. Finally we made it to the front of the line and got a miniposter signed:

And most importantly, got a picture with Maja!! Yeah yeah it was kind of dark, but look she’s an angel in that spotlight. While I get secondhand smoke from *her* cigarette (#truefan) – thanks to Charlie for making this picture look nicer :)

No Doubt came on, the crowd roared, and they played older hits I actually knew (upon further inspection, they don’t actually have any new songs, so it worked out well). I, having read this article about Gwen Stefani’s abs, was fully prepared for the concert.

We left comfortably early enough to miss the 1.5 hour traffic jam that surely followed (as we experienced from the same theatre on 4th of July).

Finally, the evening ended with introducing Noam to a Tim Tam Slam. You can go investigate that one on your own.

Gilroy Garlic Festival with Fabio
Sunday morning, Joey, Noam, Erik and I headed south to Gilroy for the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival. The traffic was worse than the No Doubt concert and we spent hours in the sweltering heat (the only time this summer when I’ve actually been hot) eating all kinds of garlic treats. YUMMY. I was totally bummed that they ran out of garlic ice cream (this could be my new favorite flavor!) but I did have some garlic chicken stir fry, garlic fries and garlic mustards, olives, etc.

I bought a cute parasol too!

Other than eating garlic and wandering… Noam and I decided we desperately needed to ride the teacup ride (since I missed out on this during childhood). So we made up for lost time, a decade and a half later.

Here are ACTUAL SCREAMS OF TERROR as we rode in this spinning teacup. Note the relative ages of the other people on this ride. This was possibly the most fun thing Moam has ever done.

One of the main attractions of the garlic festival was special guest Fabio (from Top Chef)! Zomg! We got to watch him do a live cooking show, and make fun of himself to the audience for an hour. The best part was that they didn’t have any ingredients or utensils ready before the show started, and he kept complaining that he didn’t have the pepper (and then he had to go unwrap it, break the seal, open it, etc etc.) He kept saying “I know I’m not Emeril, but can someone bring me a colander??” At some point, a man dressed in a giant garlic suit came out to say hi to Fabio, and did nothing. It was all bizarre and almost surreal. No one was allowed to eat the food Fabio made. His microphone kept falling off. The electric mixer didn’t work. Etc. etc. Cooking live is ROUGH. But, the best part was watching Joey be extraordinarily entertained by all of this.

Other photos from the Garlic Festival:

After that, it was:
Gilroy -> Santa Cruz, where we visited my apartment, the meadow, and downtown for food
Santa Cruz -> Santa Clara to pick up Noam’s stuff
Santa Clara -> San Francisco to drop Noam off at the airport
San Francisco -> Santa Clara to pack the rest of my stuff (including bike)
Santa Clara -> Santa Cruz to drop me off at my apt
And for Joey, Santa Cruz -> Santa Clara to go home.

It was a lot of driving.

And an epic weekend. Goodnight.

Tuesday Evening at SURF-IT

All I have to say is…

Teacrawl in Santa Cruz

So two years into college, we’ve gotten the whole barcrawl thing down. Some random Tuesday, we all wear matching shirts, 1 bar per hour until closing time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, old news.

But last night, I embarked on a new kind of nighttime journey: the teacrawl. Same principle of course, but replace the bars with cafes, the bartenders with baristas.

Bhargav and Mukund made their way down from San Jose, just to check the whole Santa Cruz thing out I ’spose. Unfortunately, I realized yesterday that my roommate Sarah and I had a Yoga class to attend that night. Luckily, Bhargav rolled with it and partook in some free yoga, and Mukund requested that we drop him off at the Santa Cruz hangout, Cafe Pergolesi.

An hour and a half later, we were stretched out, in our zone, and ready for the teacrawl.

After reuniting with Mukund, we made our way to Pacific Thai, since we had intended to find bubble/boba tea (depending on what you call it). They make you choose a tea base (green or black) and choose iced or blended (whether they just put ice in, or they make it more smoothie-like with the ice blended in). The flavors were fine, but nothing special I’d say — we tried Jasmine, which was good, Avocado, which was subtle, and Thai iced tea, which was exactly what you would expect — thai iced tea with boba (go figure). Delightful boba though. Not too big, chewy, or icy.

Here is Mukund eagerly anticipating what his avocado boba tea will taste like, as Bhargav swoops in:

But Pacific Thai wasn’t much of a hangout. So we crawled. Downtown SC.

Clock tower:

Building at the end of Pacific, the main downtown street. No, Jamba Juice is NOT part of any teacrawl.

Then we walked by every cafe on Pacific, and checked how late they were open. This was at 9:30pm. Almost all of them closed at 10. This is simply not acceptable! I’m usually offended that Espresso closes at MIDNIGHT! Come on now, cafes.

So, after passing up several other options due to early closing times, including Bad Ass Coffee, which I went to with Joey on my very first day in SC, we decided to head back to Cafe Pergolesi, where Mukund had spent some time.

And thus the sugar explosion began.

A hot chai, a mint papaya tea, an iced chai, and cookies, flavored roughly as chocolate/coconut/some kinda nut, “Mexican Mocha”, and chocolate/peanut butter/some kind of nut… I don’t know. It was a pretty epic order, and made me feel like we had some assembly to program in the middle of the night or something.

This place is pretty cool. Too cool for school. Too cool for us, probably. Some foreign hip-hop was playing the entire time. And very, very Santa Cruz. The chalkboard back there says, “dude, I know this is Santa Cruz, but please, no dope smokin’ on the patio. Thanks”

Cafe Pergolesi is too cool to have standardized seating. Bhargav’s chair was about four feet below our table. Which is okay I guess, if you have chai to worship.

This chai was friggin’ AMAZING. It was the most spiced chai I’ve ever had — left your throat all tingly! And just the right amount of foam. Yummmm to the max.

Bhargav summons the power of the iced chai, which was kind of too milky and not as intense as my SPICY CHAI of wonder and amazement.

After another hour of chilling, our favorite barista said we had to leave so he could go kill zombies, and thus ended the epic June ‘09 Santa Cruz Teacrawl.

This must be repeated.