Climate

The climate is quite mediterranean, although a bit colder than southern Sicily which has the same degree of northern latitude as Santa Cruz. This is because Europe is warmed by the gulf stream whereas the west coast is cooled down by the Alaska stream. Now in October it is rather fresh in the morning and evening, but usually 25°C during the day so that I work often outside on campus! Strange to have sunset already around 6:45pm while I would normally associate such temperatures with ~midsummer.

Due to the friendly climate, the vegetation is really different from central Europe. We are supplied with fresh lemons by a lemon tree in front of our house. Typical vegetables are eggplant, avocado, artichokes - quite Sicilian, actually ;-) But there are also e.g. Brussels sprouts (native to Belgium...) which I saw for the first time on their branch.

Also bambus, Eucalyptus and cactuses can be found here although they may be native to other countries!