England Trip - PART 3 Cambridge

Right O', time to add some more photos and tidbits from my trip to Great Britain. Last Valentine's Day Pete and I drove up to Cambridge (it's about an hour and a half outside of Finchley, London). It was the first time I got a chance to see true blue (or rather green) English countryside and I was SOOO excited. The drive was very pleasant and nice. Along the way I enjoyed hearing a bit of the British radio stations, BBC 1 in particular (I believe that's what it was called). They played a lot of Top 40 tunes they play here in the states.... artists like Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Pink, but with some artists I've never been privileged to hear as well....(Yeah, British rap is quite interesting, lol!). For instance, Lily Allen is HUGE over there. A mega star. As is Jimmy Osmond (yeah, his posters for a Broadway show were plastered all over the London tube stations). I can understand the hype with Lily maybe, but Jimmy? What gives?! LOL!

Pete and I arrived in Cambridge in early afternoon and I had my camera in hand to snap as many pictures as was possible (scratch that, in actuality I wasn't able to snap as MANY pics as I truly wanted due to my memory card not formatting properly). I was forced to take only probably 5-7 photos to be saved on my camera's internal memory, otherwise I'd have to delete some precious photos taken in London. The rest of the pictures from Cambridge would have to be memories saved in, well, MY internal memory.

We did a lot of walking through Cambridge. Its a beautiful town with breathtaking architecture, an interesting mix of the old traditional Gothic & Georgian styles fused with modern contemporary. Most of the buildings still have the historical facades, of course, which I really liked, but were renovated inside, to suit our 21st century needs. I absolutely loved it! They also had a lot of American establishments I recognized like Starbucks, Pizza Hut and Chilli's which made me feel a little more at home.

Speaking of which, I made up a game with Pete during my time in England. Whenever I saw an American business, whether it be a restaurant, coffee shop, clothing store, etc..., I'd make a 'T' symbol with my hand and haughtily yell "T", as though we Americans somehow had the upper hand on Brits, and that's why they want to copy us. A competition ensued between us and Pete tried to trademark as many British establishments as he could in a certain amount of time against me. I always said I'd tally up the points between us at the end of the day to decide officially which nation is the best, but I never really did. Guess this trip was more a United Nations mission trying to unite cultures vs. dividing them. Which is why we held hands and kissed, ALOT, to fill in the cultural gaps, of course, hahaha! Call me a good will ambassador from America if you will, lol!

Anyhoo, here we have some pictures of our journey through Cambridge. First up we have a picture of a church I took during our drive through Cambridge trying to find parking (it was rather difficult!)


We'd finally found parking at a shopping centre and began our long walk through town. Here's me standing in front of a cute old hotel across from a park, the name of which escapes me.


And poor Pete trying to keep warm at the park (it was rather cold that day).


Walking through Cambridge.

The Fitzwilliam Museum and its grand white columns. This is one of my favorite pics of that day.


A beautiful old building used by the University where Pete deciphered the Latin inscriptions and then tried to explain them to me (courtesy of his private-school education. Why oh why don't they teach us Americans Latin in school, lol?!)


Another of the streets of Cambridge.


The historical and spellbinding King's College. It was such a massive building it was hard to capture the full building on one sole picture, so here's a couple shots!






Lastly here's a pic of a cute little church that was in the center of a shopping street. I couldn't resist taking a pic; it had so much character.


SOME MORE HIGHLIGHTS OF CAMBRIDGE

After a lot of walking we got rather tired so decided to take a break in the evening at a mall in the center of Cambridge. We stopped at a little coffee stand and it was there that I had my first eccles cake (very good pastry, crusty, flakey, nuts & raisin goodness) and the best hot chocolate ever with whipped cream (possibly the best in my life!)

While walking around we decided to stop by a pharmacy called Boots (Think Rite Aid in America). I was in dire need of a shower cap because, well, I didn't feel like washing my hair every day (my hair dryer took FOREVER to dry my hair due to the low wattage converter). We looked for one of those cheap disposable thin plastic shower caps but to no avail. All we could find is something that resembled this:

I don't know why that model is so happy. These shower caps aren't exactly beauty enhancers. Mine could only be described as a hideous, beige colored, industrial strength plastic shower cap that belonged in the 70's. Luckily Pete thought it was hot stuff and happily modeled it on his head in the line for check out to make me feel better. He even encouraged me to try it on in public, too, to my dismay, which I did, trying to ignore the curious looks of onlookers. But I tell you, Pete was so persuasive and he wore that cap with such finesse that even Paris Hilton herself would have to buy one, cause it was just HOT! (On a side note, I later lost that shower cap when I accidentally left the bag in a bathroom stall at the mall that night, not on purpose of course, or was it?!!). I later had to search throughout London to find another suitable replacement of its high quality and grace.

I also enjoyed getting lost at night in Cambridge trying to find our way back to the car park at a mall. I know this sounds odd, but it was kind of fun as we retraced our steps of the day. We finally found the right streets after I recognized various shops and restaurants from our Trademark game. Yeah, it came in really handy!

So all in all it was a great Valentine's Day. We drove home and Pete cooked me a wonderful dinner of Indian food, Chicken Tikka Masala! I couldn't have asked for more!