Part 2: London, Cambridge, and Nottingham

After Karneval ended it was time to hit the road. First on the agenda was England where I would meet up with Josh again in London before making my way to Nottingham to visit Samson on his stomping ground. As opposed to flying to London from Cologne, which I did in November, I instead took a bus. It ended up being about 10.5 hours (including London traffic), but was a great alternative to flying for several reasons: I went under the English Channel for the first time, got some reading done and listened to new music, and also saw  Europe. We took a route from Cologne to Brussels, passing through the Netherlands, before entering the top corner of France and then making our way to London. It was really interesting to see so much during that ride, although by the 9th and 10th hour I was definitely ready to arrive.

My first weekend in London was great. I met up with Josh and his friend Marta for some art gallery touring and sightseeing. Josh showed me around the Bangladesh-corner of the city, which had great food to sample and an alternative art scene. Window shopping was the name of the game. We also ducked into a coffeeshop because I wanted to read a local newspaper and Josh wanted to work on some homework, so all in all a rather normal day but still I had a bunch of fun. Late that night, as expected, we rented out the Boris bikes and zipped through town at breakneck speeds. It's always a highlight of being in London for me, especially with a local tour guide to ride behind.

Parliament by night

The next day we went out and celebrated the Chinese New Year in Trafalgar Square. It was packed with people and there was hardly any room to stand, so we went through some back streets to get to London's China Town which was unsurprisingly crazier. I think Josh and I stood for 20 minutes in a sea of people just trying to maneuver around to an adjacent street. We were pretty content with the festivities so we headed out to the nearest Boris bike station, rented a pair of bikes, and rode over to the coach station, where I'd be hopping on a bus to Cambridge. That ride was memorable for two reasons. First, I was carrying a huge hiking backpack on my back with all of my possessions which made turning and accelerating extremely difficult. So while Josh was zipping away in front of me I was huffing and puffing just to keep up. Secondly, here we were enjoying a nice ride with blue skies and white clouds when all of a sudden the temperature drops, the wind picks up, and it starts raining. My glasses get all dewy and it starts getting so chilly that I lost feeling in my fingers. We were shouting directions back and forth through the rain and eventually got to the coach station, but it seemed like one of those bike rides which seemed to stretch on an on and on. I boarded my bus to Cambridge and set off for the next adventure.

I arrived into Cambridge around 8 pm but it was cold and desolate all around town. It was like a scene in a movie with the dark streets with standing water in the potholes, the dim-orange light of the occasional street lamp, and the one other person on the other side of the street walking briskly in the other direction. It was kind of surreal. I bumbled around the neighborhood looking for my hostel and eventually came across it. What a place! That night they happened to be hosting a local music concert with folk artists. There was a fair share of acoustic guitars, symbolic tattoos, and neck beards. I didn't actually get to attend because I was late to the party and had to eat dinner in the reception area, but later after dinner I went and walked around town for about an hour, getting to know the sleepy town by night.

English humour, so jokes

Local ale with dinner

I only spent 18 hours in Cambridge as a pit stop between London and Nottingham but had a blast just walking around the town and seeing all of the historic colleges, canals, churches, and libraries. Sometimes I played 'dumb tourist' by wandering into the campus facilities, ignoring the admission fee, but sometimes I also got kicked out. I don't have any picture from the colleges because I left my phone in the hostel to charge, but the whole town was extremely well-kept and attended to. I saw a few groups doing punting tours in the canals of Cambridge (kind of like gondola tours in Venice), which I've been told is a uniquely Cambridge tradition. I also wandered into a library which was having a free exhibition on the printing press, which was pretty fascinating. All in all, Cambridge was great, and I highly recommend it to other travelers. One full day would have been better, but I think I did the town justice. Afterwards it was on to Nottingham to see Samson!

I met up with Samson outside of the Nottingham train station and we boarded a city bus back to the university. Just like when we met up in Cologne in January, we were talking back and forth and catching each other up since the last time we saw each other a week prior. We hit the ground running once we made it back to the dorm and went to the cafeteria for dinner where I met a lot of his friends. Afterwards we went down the hall to the dorm's billiards room and bar, where we shot around for an hour or two, betting with beer. Samson and I make a dream team with pool, so if you're reading this and think you might have a chance, just know that we'll take you down! Samson's friends didn't know any better but we all had lots of fun. I crashed on the floor and slept like a baby that night.

The rest of my time in Nottingham went by quickly. By day I was exploring the campus and surrounding neighborhood or sitting in a cafe trying English tea and reading the newspaper. Samson was still in class so during the day I was on my own, but by night we were always out and about in the town. Samson actually got a job from his friends he met the first weekend in England, so every Tuesday night he checks coats at a bar during one of their dance nights. We went out and he showed me around that night which was really cool. My regular 11 pm-7 am sleep schedule was drawn into direct opposition to Samson's nocturnal nature in the funniest ways possible. He stays out much later than I am used to, so it became a common theme that I always headed home around midnight while Samson partied the night away during my week in Nottingham. I'd wake up the next morning and without fail he'd be in the room sleeping like a log. One night I stayed out til 2 am (do I get an award?) and everyone cheered me on, but I still ended up leaving earlier than everyone else!

My last day in Nottingham was wrapping up some to-dos for the sightseeing which included Wollaton Hall, the set for the Dark Knight Rises. It was only a 15 minute walk away from the dormitory and provided some great photo-ops. The weather happened to be exceptionally "un-English" that day with blue skies and rays of sunshine.

Wollaton Hall

At the end of the week Samson and I headed to London with a few of his friends to cheer on his friend Damien in England's national ping pong tournament. It was the real deal type of ping pong games and we saw some crazy moves, the kind you see in Youtube videos but are never lucky enough to see in person. We only spent a weekend in London before Samson and his crew headed back to Nottingham and I headed out to Paris to visit Miranda but it was a great 7 days with Samson meeting new friends and seeing new places. This marked my third trip to London but first to Cambridge and Nottingham, where I felt I actually got to experience English culture. I had a conversation with a stranger about rugby and american football, tried the whole English tea time thing (a little overrated), had an English breakfast at my hostel in Cambridge (so really, just an American breakfast with baked beans), read the local newspapers and political sections for the upcoming elections, learned some of the lingo ("So jokes mate, so jokes," or "All over the gaff") and really just tried to blend in during my time there. By the end I was telling myself that England would be my #2 choice for studying abroad because of the culture, but Germany would still be #1. I was glad to be able to spend a week getting to know the culture to some degree but more time would be appreciated! Unfortunately I don't have any extra free time before coming back to the US to give England another road trip opportunity, so I'll just have to save it for the future. I'll end this post with a nice little find in the local newspaper.

"Was said to resemble a giant chocolate cake......" -___-