England, Day 2: Cambridge

Day two in the Merry Olde land took us to Cambridge.  We slept well, not feeling much jet lag, at least not yet.  Cheryl made me some "Manly Energy" herb tea and I was off like a shot!  Cambridge (from the river Cam, and the bridge that goes over it) isn't much on parking spaces, so we parked outside of town and rode a neato orange double-decker bus!

The roads into Cambridge were narrow and I applaud the bus driver for his skill in not ever driving on the sidewalk or into oncoming traffic.  We went immediately to the town square, where this town has been having markets for about, oh, over 1000 years!  So we went to the market and bought ostrich burgers…yummy.  This guy was really jammin' on his guitar…he really was good, but when I saw his face I was struck that this old looking very British guy looked just like Wallace, from Wallace and Grommit.  Dig the sideburns, Uncle!

This place is old (see above) and really beautiful…

…but unfortunately they aren't much on zoning, so there were soviet-looking concrete office buildings built right up against this majestic architecture.  I didn't take pictures of that stuff.  (Think Jason Borne in a room with one bare light bulb sewing up a bullet wound.)   I also saw and entered a quintessential British red phone booth (no phone any more, but pretty smelly.

Cheryl has always wanted to go "punting" on the river Cam, so we were the excuse she needed.  Off we went with some college student who was selling tickets and before we knew it we were punting!  Actually, we were sitting, he was punting.

We passed some cool bridges…

…and King's College (yes, THAT King's College)…

…and a cool old ivy-covered wall.  I noticed that our boatman was punting on the right side of the river, with other boats passing on our left.  When I asked why that was (instead of doing things the way they drive), without skipping a beat he said "the Cam flows all the way to the sea so this is essentially international waters."  I laughed hard and congratulated him with a fist bump (they do that in England too…he didn't leave me hangin').

I saw my spirit rock Easter Island head thing (I really want one for my back yard…

…and we ended the day by attending Evensong at the King's College chapel…I couldn't stop staring at the ceiling...

where Sue sang with the King's College Boys Choir!!!!!  (so did everyone else, but she sounded really great!)  This is all of us outside afterward.

It was a great day with great friends in a really cool place.  Something like 31 colleges in that one little town.  Oh, and this place...

is the pub where Pink Floyd got their start.  Cheryl was beside herself (and in this photo, beside the pub too!)  Thanks James and Cheryl, we had a wonderful day!

England...the real one...across the ocean

The long awaited time is here, and we've come across the pond to England!  The purpose of our trip is to visit our kids who live in Aberdeen, Scotland, but first we stopped in to see our dear friends James and Cheryl Meinders who live NE of London in the village of Mildenhall.  So...we got on a behemoth airplane

that was allegedly going to fly across the ocean.  I guess that thing called the Stromboli Effect is pretty powerful to lift this huge sausage and keep it in the air.  By the way, I know its Bernoulli, but I like Stromboli better.  British Airways treated us very well, with cute cans of soda and a gluten free meal for me.  Sue got something better.

The Stromboli did its job, as did the 747, so we arrived safely with no problems.  We found the rental car place and got our car, and I drew the short straw so I got to drive first...on the "other" side of both the car and the road.  Sue is a great co-pilot and navigator, constantly reminding me "turn left stay left" or "turn right stay left", and we developed a whole chorus for the roundabouts!

British drivers are very polite, which I greatly appreciate.  We hopped on a highway and got ourselves the 2+ hours to Mildenhall where the Meinders live.  They have a lovely new house that looks old.

Not to let the moss grow under us, they whisked us off to Ely to see the cathedral there and enjoy an Evensong service.  We sat in the cathedral choir seats for the service.

We even stopped for a moment to see Oliver Cromwell's house.  He's an important old British guy.  I don't think he was at home.

(that's not him in the picture, that's Miles, a mini-Meinders.)  Along with the lasagna Cheryl baked and the wonderful company and the really comfortable bed, we had a great first day in England!