Saturday 11 April 2015

Destination #11-Cambridge & Windsor, "The Ice Hockey", and Halfies

Oh boy. The Canucks are back in the playoffs and I'm wishing I was back home in Vancouver for this time of year. I've been watching as many games as I can and luckily I've had someone at work to talk to about it, otherwise I would've driven myself mad. I have to be careful here when I talk about hockey though, because if you just say "hockey", the Brits think you're talking about field hockey (!?) so you have to say "ice hockey". Not to mention, they like to put a "the" in front of sports. For example, they'll say "Did you watch the football?" So now I have to say "I watched THE ice hockey last night..."

Last weekend was the Easter long weekend and I think the last time I had the entire 4 days off would have been in high school. Trip planning for this weekend had been a complete failure after a few months of trying so my friends; Sasha, Nicole, and I decided to just do a couple of day trips and an Easter Sunday roast.

Our first trip was to Cambridge University on the Saturday. The first thing we did was take in a walking tour in which we were shown King's College, Trinity College, The Backs, Peterhouse, Queen's College, and the Mathematical Bridge. After, we grabbed some lunch in Cambridge's oldest pub (or at least that's what we were told). The rest of the afternoon was very much just walking around and seeing the city/university in more detail. We also made our way over to the Bridge of Sighs which you may recognize from The Theory of Everything. To wrap up the day, we went and got some afternoon tea. This was my first experience doing so and although it wasn't the full experience of sandwiches, cakes, and scones, it was still awesome.





On Sunday, I decided to cook my first roast beef and have an Easter Dinner with Sasha and Nicole. Everything turned out good except I underestimated the difficulty of making gravy from scratch! Never again.

The next day, we went to Windsor Castle and unfortunately, I don't think the Queen was in that day. Although the castle does seem huge, there actually wasn't a whole lot to see after paying 19 pounds to get in. There was definitely some cool sights to see though and we caught a little luck at the end where we saw a mini changing of the guard. I feel like it was a little bit of a joke though as I'm pretty sure the guard that was getting replaced was laughing. 



For those that don't know, I am currently training for my first ever half marathon. Right now, I am in week 6 of 10 and I'm up to 15km (Halfie is 21km). The run is on May 10 and while I do not need any donations or money, I do request that you wish me the best of luck as already running 15km is longer than I have ever ran. It hasn't been easy training and there's many times I would rather just sit at home then go for a run, but I am staying committed and I'm very happy that I've decided to do this for myself.

Next month, I will be heading up to Scotland for the first long weekend where my flatmates and I will be seeing Edinburgh, Lochness, and Isle of Skye. The second long weekend in May, I will be travelling to Dublin with Nicole! Exciting times ahead!