SF breakfast, Green Chile Kitchen
So now we’ve had two AirBnB experiences, and they’ve both been very different. In San Francisco we had a lovely studio apartment in an old Victorian building that survived the 1906 quake. It was furnished with antique pieces and as fully equipped as you could hope. Indeed, it even came with a fully stocked fridge – coffee, milk, yogurts, juice, sodas, etc. We had a lovely stay even though our host Marijke was concerned we might notice the fire escape in the process of being replaced at the front (we didn’t).
By contrast, our studio apartment in Monterey is the top floor of a tiny old wooden house with sloping floors. The decor inside is basic and it looks to have been furnished from thrift stores. I grant you, someone of a cynical nature might ponder on when is something an antique as opposed to just second-hand, but there’s a difference. It comes equipped with almost nothing, to the extent that even salt and pepper aren’t provided. The worst omission, though, is the lack of curtains. Yeah, it has no curtains. And given it’s on an ordinary residential road the windows are visible from all the neighbouring properties and from the street.
Apricots in April
We squodged a good bit of touring into our journey from SF to Monterey. First: the farmers market at the old Ferry Building, which was huge and really hammered home how amazing California is for produce. How can it be strawberry season in April?! Next: Berkeley, home of California’s most famous University, but frankly we couldn’t see much to set it apart from any other big-ish American town. Then: across to the coast at Half Moon Bay and down to Ano Nuevo State Park, where we asked about Stellar’s sealion but were told no-one had seen any yet this year. Thence down past Santa Cruz to Moss Landing where we booked ourselves in for kayaking the next day. And so to Monterey, where we decided we would stay one night and then go and find a hotel that comes with curtains.
Update: at least there’s a positive outcome to this negative AirBnB experience. The owner has accepted our complaint and refunded the remaining nights without quibble, although that does mean we’re down the cost of the cleaning and AirBnB’s own booking fee which you don’t get back.
Berkeley lunch
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