Cambridge 2010: Three Months On The Trot

I got up went downstairs for breakfast around 9:20am. I met all the Keswick group at 9:40am. We walk to the Trowbridge Road bus stop at the end of our road and get there about 7 minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive. The bus arrives about 3 minutes late and we find out that it is 9.45 pounds to get an all-day bus ticket (as opposed to an 8 pound one way x2). I did not care because Dr. Barnett had said a lot of very super things about this place, and I was not going to miss out on it. For all I know, this is the only chance I will have to see this place.

We get on the Stagecoach double-decker bus, route 555, for Keswick. I sat on the top deck. It took about an hour for us to get to the bus stop. We all get off and follow Amy to the market area. Amy told us that Keswick has a pretty good Saturday market. I went to a shop in the main center called “The Pink Fudge Shop of Keswick” to see what all they had. A candy store excites me; what can I say? I spotted the toffee section of the store and bought some treacle toffee for only a pound! The slab was about a centimeter and a half thick and a little bit shorter than my hand.

We all meet up at a pizza place called “The Loose Box Pizzeria” to get a bite of lunch. Amber and I shared some garlic bread and a margherita pizza. It was really good. Everyone at the table saw me do the whole “crushed red pepper and olive oil” thing, so they tried it out as well. They thought it was great too. The only thing that I missed was the parmesan cheese on the table. I love dipping garlic bread in a parmesan/olive oil mixture.

Haha, I am going to tell one on myself. When I go to an Italian place at home, I unscrew the top of the parmesan thing and get my cheese that way. It is not because I use a lot of it, well...maybe it is, BUT the main reason I do that is the cheese likes to clump up because of the moisture. Instead of wearing my arm out trying to get a little bit of cheese, I unscrew the lid and get...well...more. When we were finished eating, we all worked out our money to pay. Here in England, they put everyone on the same check.

Amy walks around a bit to get her bearings and she leads us down a path beside the lake. We walked to the very end of the path, and it was worth it! There sat Dr. Barnett’s bench (we dubbed it “Barnett’s Bench”) overlooking a spectacular view of the lake surrounded by both grassy and snowy mountains. I remembered what Dr. Barnett had said in class about not saying a word and just sitting there taking it all in, so I did just that.

After a few minutes, I took a bunch of pictures and even a video.



After spending about an hour there, we all left and went back into town to do some shopping and have a spot of tea. On the way back, there was this cute little bird that came over to check us out. It was really cute and I knew mom would love a picture of it, so I took a few.



I went into the Beatrix Potter store. I had a field day in there looking at all the cute little things. The store also had some stuff from Eric Carle there. Hopefully you remember Eric Carle maybe because of the “Very Hungry Caterpillar” story. I remember listening to that when I was in elementary school. It was one of my favorite stories of the time; the other was “Chicka Chicka, Boom Boom.”

We then went to this cute and homely little place called “The Wild Strawberry.” I had a pot of Earl Grey tea and a fruit scone with whipped cream and black currant jam. It was so good. The scone was fresh and had a soft center. Once we were finished, we went back to the bus stop for our 4:30pm bus ride home. We all jump on and I decided to sit in the bottom portion. We all get off the bus for the walk back to the hostel. It was not all that terrible of a walk since we still had some daylight left. It was a gorgeous sunset.

We get back and I rush to the room to download my pictures onto my lappy. I go downstairs to get dinner. I had sweet and sour chicken (not like what is served in America...it was sort of like a stew, but no liquid) with rice, carrots, and corn. For dessert, I had a chocolate tart with both strawberry and chocolate ice cream. It was amazing! I came back upstairs after dessert and finished uploading my pictures. Some of the girls came over to look at them and commented that they were really good. What do you think?



Cheerio poppets!