If all the hostels are like the one last night, Europe won’t be so bad. I was on the top bunk, but even so, I slept fairly soundly. I still woke up a bit early, but I sort of expected that.
Breakfast wasn’t anything to write home about (though I suppose I’m doing just that). I ate two bowls of Cornflakes, breat with marmalade, bread with peanut butter, and drank some milk and orange ‘juice’. Actually, the juice was some sort of awful orange drink. In the end, I was ready to leave by 8:45.
So, I headed on down to the underground station where I was met with a surprise. A one-way pass from zone 1 to zone 1 (inner-city) is 4 quid ($8)! I thought that NYC was expensive… But still, considering I had been able to get an all’day all-zones (1-6) yesterday for £6.70, I couldn’t believe the price.
In any case, I got to Victoria Station quite early. Once I was there, however, it took me a long time to find the bus terminals. They are actually in ‘Victoria Coach Station’ two blocks down the street and around the corner. Since I was still two hours early, I decided to find an internet cafe, then call my parents. Other than having to walk an inordinant distance to get internet access, all that went ok.
So, I caught my bus to Cambridge at 11:30 and headed up. On the way (it’s a two-hour trip), I slept and practiced Chinese characters. I have a book called “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Chinese Script” that I thought might help. To me, it’s a little strange, because I really think in sounds, so each character is strongly associated with a sound. However, this book says nothing about pronounciation, and gives all character meanings in English. So, I get a little confused sometimes.
I arrived in Cambridge at 1:30. After that, I met my friend Irene, and she showed me her friend’s house where I would be spending the night while she went to the Mayball. Next, I got some lunch and she shopped for an absinthe spoon for her dad’s birthday. After that, we walked to another town nearby to have tea where so many famous people (Virginia Woolf, Earnest Rutherford, Richard Brookes, Hugh Laurie, etc.) have had tea. There, I learned that to the English, a flapjack is not a pancake, but a dense oatmeal/cashew cookie, very tasty in its own way.
After the walk back, I picked up some laundry detergent at the store and Irene started to get ready. Right now, I’m sitting in her friend’s kitchen doing laundry and eating some frozen pizza from the grocery store (the only cheap place that accepts mastercard, since I have no British cash).
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This entry was posted on June 18, 2007 at 10:51 pm and is filed under travel.
My startup that I've been working on since January 2010
