Trolley and a Boat

This is coming a bit late, but is just as informative as if you read it earlier!!

First, I had a wonderful evening a couple weeks ago with Astrid and a resident from the US, Kelly - our original goal was just to take pictures pushing the trolley at Platform 9 3/4 in Kings Cross station (no explanation needed for Harry Potter fans), but we expanded the evening to walking down the Thames at night. We had a blast in the Danish fountain which shoots up streams of water in the shape of a four-square outline; the fountain randomly drops one or more of the edges of water so that you can step inside the square - the trick is not to get caught when it unexpectedly goes back up! We got a rather blurry picture of all of us inside the fountain, as well as some other great night shots of the London skyline.

On 21st July, I took one of my last journeys in England (the very last will be to Canterbury next week with Dr. Watson) - to Cambridge! I don't think Dr. Watson would have continued to be my friend if had shown myself to be so one-sided as to only visit Oxford . . .

-Just in case you didn't realize, Oxford and Cambridge are both cities within which the respective universities reside.

I went, by coach, with Alice, her friend Maria Helena, David, Luke, and three residents - Margaret (USA), Ayano (Japan), and Sylvia (Italy). Aside from one of party getting lost or disappearing, and our return bus driver selling our tickets because we weren't there 10 minutes early, we didn't have any problems :)(Pictures link here)

It had been an extremely rainy week, and looked like a rainy day; however, the weather certainly cooperated and only poured down buckets once we were happily seated for dinner in a Pizza Hut (NOT my choice of restaurant! I was outnumbered . . .)

We meandered through the town, browsed through a craft market, and got the three major punting companies to duke it out for our business (we ended up paying £6 per person to pile into a boat and be piloted down the Thames - the going individual rate was double that). We also wandered in and out of several colleges. We happened to catch Cambridge on a graduation day and saw many graduates and their families (some of which stereotypically rode in boats down the Thames in their tuxes, drinking champagne).

Overall, Cambridge had a different feel to it than Oxford. Everything in Oxford is the same old stone look - and even the new buildings are just a new sign on the same old stone. It gave Oxford a rather hallowed, sacred feel to it. Which makes for a great day trip. I'm not sure I would have liked actually living there for four years. Although Cambridge also had many old buildings, it had a broad mixture of architure from many eras and in general just felt more lived in.

I highly recommend punting down the Thames - especially if you get a cute punter from California (sorry Mom, he was a bit too green - just starting his sophomore year :)