Sunday, February 14, 2010

Buggin' Out

Sunday--a day of rest, relaxation, and major catch up on school work. Let's just say, it's going to be a long night...

Yesterday, however, I woke up excited for the university-sponsored day trip to Cambridge with a glorious sore throat. Grrrreat. I also overslept, finally jumped out of bed at 7 and rushed to get ready for the 8am departure of our coach bus. I desperately wanted (and probably needed) a shower but the water was ice cold. I opted for washing in the sink with burning hot water. Desperate times, as they say. Off track but, why the devil would you design a sink with 2 faucets? You either get freezing cold or scorching hot! Anywho...

By some miracle Daniella (housemate) and I made it to campus by 8 and met up with Natalie and Lilly. Our fun group of four ended up sticking together all day. I also HAD to stay with someone since I forgot my cell phone. Yes, as you may have guessed, it was a wonderful morning. I spent the 2.5 hour bus ride reading for class and watching the English country side go by. We arrived and headed out with our maps around 11 with instructions to return to the drop off point at 5:15. Time to explore!

The city is really beautiful although we were in the central, downtown area the whole day. It sort of feels like a walled-city the way its all clustered in a small area. The obvious points of interest were Cambridge's many colleges. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but there are a lot of small colleges like King's College and Pembroke College that seem to make up the larger university system. I'm assuming that the students that go there are university age although college's here also act like high schools for 16-18 year-olds, I think. The city has so much character and we were satisfied just wandering around and slipping through old doorways and into grassy courtyards. At one point we found ourselves in a cafeteria full of noisy students at long tables; it was like walking into a scene in Harry Potter! These campuses don't have very good security...just saying. We were almost tempted to eat in their cafeteria. But, alas, we decided to find the shopping center and eat at the food court--seemed cheaper. To make up for the fact that we were in a mall, I ordered a traditional English breakfast complete with eggs, bacon (really thick!), sausage, hashbrowns, and deep fried toast topped with a generous helping of baked beans. Extremely unhealthy but delicious! We then went to the very popular Primark which is an experience everyone should have when coming to the UK. I guess it's like a Walmart/H&M/Target but cheaper than all 3 and mainly clothing. My travel mates picked up some stuff for the traffic light party later that night. We spent the later half of the day visiting a really nice, and free...and warm, art museum and taking in the general splendor.


I read on the way back to Sheffield but didn't get as far as I'd hoped. We stopped at the grocery store on the way back and I picked up a big orange juice hoping it would help my impending cold. Sydnee and my other housemates were already celebrating her b-day so I made dinner and tried to stay awake. We got everyone out of the house and over to the Edge for the traffic light party around 10. I had fun dancing and eating the chocolate fountain but could tell I wasn't feeling great so headed home early.

I'm feeling much better today thanks to Sydnee's magic tea powder, sleep and a lot of liquids. I'm taking it easy and trying to finish reading but I keep finding more work to do. I've also been eating nonstop today in hopes of "feeding my cold." I need to be in great shape for London next weekend!

So as I was sitting typing this, something flew or fell on my chest and down my shirt. Wam! It looked like a massive bug so I flipped out and ran into paige's room. I was shaking my shirt trying to figure out what it was but it seemed to have disappeared. Walking back to my room I looked down and noticed a lady bug still clinging to my chest. The little bugger soon found himself flying across the room.

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