Weekend in Santa Cruz with Beowulf
We spent this past weekend with my little sister Laurel at her place in Santa Cruz. In the morning one of Laurel's roommates asked, "hey where's Joanna? (another roommate)" And someone yelled from down the hall, "probably out surfing!" This seemed completely normal to them but I think it's pretty cool and unique that some of Laurel's roommates surf. Although Laurel doesn't surf, she finished her first half-marathon a week ago. Impressive.
On Saturday, Ivy and I parked our rental car in Santa Cruz near some cliffs overlooking the beach and we walked over to Capitola (a tiny town with lots of character right next to Santa Cruz). Capitola brought back some good memories because Ivy took me here for a weekend to celebrate right after I had taken the bar exam a number of years ago.
We had Thai food in Capitola and I tried something new I'd highly recommend: a mint noodle dish. It was excellent and Ivy also had a superb squash-based curry. (Note: one way you can tell you're in an authentic Thai place in my opinion is if the TV is playing on the side of the restaurant and you see some kind of asian soap opera featured. When Ivy and I visited Thailand most of the restaurants we saw in Bangkok had some kind of TV show playing. Annoying to westerners, but always great food. These weren't expensive places of course.)
Saturday evening we saw the amazing new film Beowulf in downtown Santa Cruz. The images were computer-generated but at the same time the roles were somehow acted out by real actors (e.g. Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie). It was the most high-tech and visually impressive film I think I've ever seen. The audience we saw it with made the experience a lot of fun because people would cheer or chuckle at every over-the-top macho thing Beowulf did. It was also a rather sexually-charged film so I'm not sure if its PG13 rating was the right call. But I think this movie will generate lots of interest in the classic work itself--which it has for me. I recommend the movie for adults for sure.
On Sunday we hiked through some trails in Santa Cruz with lots of beautiful redwood trees. These trees are enormous and create an incredibly peaceful, sylvan setting (exactly like the moon of Endor--that's where the the Ewoks all lived, right?)