So last night we went to the Picadilly Circus/Bar crawl, and now Friday is our last day in London, sadly. I had a hard time trying to figure out what I wanted to do. The others we’re going to a couple museums, and I am not a very big museum person so I decided to stay back and go on a little side trip of my own.
So I know this boy. I happen to go to grade school with him. Elementary school to be exact. And he just so happens near London, about an hour train ride, in Cambridge England. Actually he doesn’t exactly live IN Cam I don’t think, but about a half hour drive from it, on the Air Force Base in England. SO, after talking about meeting up with him for a couple weeks, no official plans we talked Friday morning and decided I should probably check out his stomping grounds. I walked to the train station, hopped on a train, barely stayed awake the whole ride and made it to good ol’ Cambridge England. Cambridge is the host to, what I believe it the biggest university in the United Kingdom, may need to check my facts but I think that’s right? It was HUGE and BEAUTIFUL. The campus was so awesome, so much space and the buildings were really, really cool. The town kind of reminded me of Sweden, narrow streets with LOTS of shops and lots of food places. He picked me up in his right sided BMW car which he adores, and we found a parking spot surprisingly and walked around for a while in the town area. Love love it there! So much different from London. We got some Coffee at Starbucks and stopped in H&M so I can pick up my bronzer I can only buy in Europe because they don’t have cosmetics at H&M in the states, and the bronzer lasts me 2 years and it was only like $6, so I bought two. There were so many Punters out scavenging for business. What’s a Punter? It’s someone who gives tours on those skinny little boats that you ride down the skinny little river through town. After being given 3 discounted tickets and approached by like 4 other guys, we were like what the hell, let’s just go for it. Neither of us had been on a Punter boat before (I don’t even know if that’s what you call it, not sure if punter is the boat or the job of making it move haha) so we hop in and enjoyed the ride. There were a couple other tourists on there as well, though he isn’t a tourist, I was. The boat took us through the center of campus to see the buildings we couldn’t see from the outside, gave us some history etc. at some parts it was like freaking bumper boats because it was super busy with other people doing the same thing. So that was fun, its cool to say I did that because I have always kind of wanted to/thought it’d be fun. After that we walked around a little bit more and decided to he’d back to the car for our next destination, the Air Force Base. It was about a 30 min car ride or so, which was pretty enjoyable because of coure riding in European cars is a bit different in the car, and on the road. We took the highway, or motorway or something which was cool too because its not something many people get to do when their being tourists and such.
We got to his town and he wanted me to try kabobs for lunch, after over an hour of indecisive-ness on both our ends of where we wanted to eat. It was a Istanbul Turkey lil place, I just got chicken, cheese and lettuce kabob so it wasn’t to authentic or anything, I didn’t get lamb or anything, though I tried his and it was good.
Next, We got to the base, checked me in and he showed me around and got to see the airplanes he works on (his job). They were huge! Pretty coooal to see If I may say so, cant say I’ve seen military plans on an air force base before, and we got to see the hellocopters as well, I forget what the military copters are called, but we saw 2 of them, and I don’t think he has even seen them up flying above base either, so that was another plus. The air force base is its own community, I had no idea what to expect but they even have a car dealership, food, gas station, dorms, housing, restaurants, bowling, bars, etc. He basically said you could get away with never having to leave base. After the lil grand tour of base, we were ready for a drink, so we went to the bar/restaurant place on base. I started with a good ol’ bloody mary, which honestly wasn’t one of the best I’ve ever had, but that’s okay we played darts for couple games, loser bought shots, I definitely lost both times, so patron shots were on me. Then I lost again, SoCo Lime shots. Then a beer baha, then another..anndd another. I Had a really good time, I hadn’t seen him in what, 10 years? Like, literally. But it wasn’t awkward and we actually were a lot alike after all these years, which was refreshing. It kind of was like a First, and last date we kind of joked. Obviously we won’t see each other for till who knows when, but it was fun to go out and venture outside of all the touristy stuff and have some a genuinely good time with someone you basically grew up with for a few years as kids. Deff reminisced about the old days which brought back soo many memories, good ones of course! We went back to his dorm/apartment quick to check times for Trains and when the last one was leaving, I told the roomies it’d be back at midnight, and the train stopped running then as well. Well we were running kind of really late and pretty sure that was the first time I went 125 MPH on the highway. BUT I got there in time and made the train. BUT when I walked into the train station after saying bye, I saw some man laying on the ground with police surrounding him, annddd pretty sure he had a tarp covering him, because I only saw his feet..so it was his body. I assume he was like, dead unfortunately because the tarp/blanket thing was covering his whole body but his feet were out, it was really sad, but I didn’t have to much time to be nosey cause I had a train to catch. The train took forever it felt like, I fell asleep like 1,00,000 times which is bad because I couldn’t miss my stop, luckily it was the last stop though but I managed to make it, got off the train and walked back to the hostel which was only a couple blocks away thank god. I fell asleep finally at like 2:15am, and of course I woke up at 4:45…… let’s just say right now I’m SOO tired, less than 3 hours of sleep
I am kind of bummed because the people I came with went to do night photography in London and see the London tower bridge thing, (which I knew they were going to do) I was really looking forward to night photo in London, but I guess I just had to make a decision and I chose to go to Cambridge, I don’t regret it at all, but I deff wish I could have done both.
Right now I am on the train heading to Scotland, it’s a 4 hour train ride. I woke up not to bad, but im getting super tired now, like sickly tired, the train also seemed to bring out a minor hangover in me, all the movement/shakiness isn’t doing too well with my body, I didn’t get super drunk, but enough to feel it on the train the next day I can’t really sleep because it’s so uncomfortable and when I lay my head on the window I end up hitting my head every couple minutes cause its kind of shaky,.
Anywho, I guess that sums out my time In London, sorry for the long, wordy, detailed blogs. But yah know 5 years down the road or something I can look on my blogs and read pretty much everything I did. If you look on this blog back in 2008 I blogged my whole trip to Europe then as well, and I enjoy going back and reading it every once in a while. So, that’s it!
Scotland stores coming soon
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