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Santa Clara University // POM Friday

We never stop exploring. I think that’s what keeps me excited about living here in California. There is just so much to see, and do â€” and luckily most everything seems to be quite dog friendly.

Alfie is our little buddy (his name is NOT buddy for those leaving comments haha!) and we take him almost every adventure we go on. This time, I explored the Santa Clara University campus on the 4th of July weekend while my husband cycled down in Santa Cruz.

Considering it was a long weekend, add in the fact it’s summer break and you have a secluded almost eerie feeling University campus. I left Alfie off the leash for a bit of it, since it was all walk-ways, no roads, and zero pedestrian traffic. Perfect time to snap some shots!

I’m not entirely sure what Santa Clara University is known for, but I’m going to guess Law School, and Engineering.

Pretty sure Alfie loves a bit of freedom from time to time, so being off leash he’s a little happy boy! Look at him sitting up on that bench like he owns the place. Ha!

If it wasn’t such a scorcher of a day, I’d spend a little more time here. All we could both bear was about 30 minutes and my face was sweating, and Alfie’s tongue was half way down to the ground. Lil’ fella needed to head home and get some water.

Alfie just taking in the views! Is it a dogs life, or what.

I’ll let the rest of the photos do the talking. Hope you enjoyed this week’s Pomeranian Friday. I try to post about Alfie’s adventures once a week. But sometimes we run out of time, or don’t go anywhere in particular. But clearly this day was one to be captured â€” and I took an abundance of photos. Yay!

I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that the sign “Do not climb. Under video surveillance” was put there for good reason. I can imagine University students being a little tipsy and gettin’ up and giv’ner on the horse. Ya knows now.

Probably one of my favourite photos of Alfie, of all time.

He loves the “Alfie â€” COME!” command. Look at that smile as he runs to me full belt.

Beautiful water feature with those huge palm trees in the back. Perfection man.

Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053

Exploring coffee shops: Chromatic Coffee Co.

December 16, 2014 40 Comments

Chromatic-header It never occurred to me to let you guys in on some of the coffee shops I visit. After I posted a photo of my first Starbucks red cup of the season, my old Graphic Design classmate Geri suggested I check out local coffee establishments rather than large chains like Starbucks. While I do often go to smaller one-off coffee shops, I didn’t really blog about it, except for that one time I went to Bellano!

Today I’m bringing you along with me to Chromatic Coffee, a few blocks down the road from Bellano.

For my own personal review purposes I’ve decided to order the same type of drink for each coffee shop I visit, a vanilla latte. I sound some fancy! It’s only because I’m not a fan of regular coffeeÂ â€” flavoured coffee’s is where it’s at you guys. That and iced vanilla coffees. Hoo-wee, yummo! This time I took my iPad, sat down and read for a little, people watched while I was at it too. It was pretty packed when I went this day since I popped in around lunch time. They were playing No Doubt (an ol’ classic fav of mine, brings me back to the early 2000’s when my local climbing gym back home played that). I got lucky and snagged an awesome comfy leather couch to perch myself down on and sip away.

I love whoever did the Graphic Design for this coffee shop, and the fonts they used on the ground coffee packages.

Chromatic doesn’t have a menu up on the wall, but they have a stand alone right in front of the cash register which is clipboard cut in half and smoothed out. Pretty snazzy if you ask me. It’s not the cheapest coffee spot I went to, I ended up paying $5.15 for my vanilla latte. Ouch.

I love watching the barista’s work their magic. One dude was so quick with his hands pouring out two tea pots into two to-go cups at once, a little fascinating to watch especially since I’m a little clumsy.

It’s like having “me time” and being social without being social. Know what I mean? I can write a lot of my blog posts here if I didn’t get annoyed and frustrated with my ipad no working with wordpress. Instead, I bring a pen and notebook, sit down for a bit and write a few pages.

Chromatic-latte-art I stuck around for about an hour until my friend from Canada texted me, and I drove over to her house in Sunnyvale to hang out for the afternoon.