Cambridge 2010: Three Months On The Trot

My alarm went off this morning at 7am sharp. I had the cheese toast for breakfast today with yogurt and coffee. The cheese toast was amazing. After breakfast, I went to the annex to fix my lunch for the day.

I was kind of dreading the bike ride to the church this morning because rain was in the forecast all day. It was rainy, but the rain had stopped just long enough to ride my bike over to the church. I get to the church around 10:30am and I was eager to help out, and I was especially happy because I was dry.

The center leader welcomed me and basically told me to hang out because they had it covered at that point. I noticed yesterday that they had a piano in the corner of the room, so I asked if he minded if I played it. I only have all of 2 pieces somewhat memorized, but hey...I love playing the piano for enjoyment. I play for a little while until some of the people there for the lunch started to walk in.

I floated around talking to different people. There were a couple of funny characters in the group, namely Bruce and David. Oh my, they loved to laugh and loved to make others around them do so as well. They asked me a lot of questions about the United States and my trip here. They were fascinated with my answers about America, and both expressed how they would love to go there sometime. These two comedians also kept using the phrase, "...that would make a person bent!" In the way that they kept using the phrase, I concluded that bent = crazy.

Lunch was ready to be served. I helped take the plates around until everyone was served, and then the church let us sit down and have lunch too. That was really nice of them. We had like a lamb stew with carrots, broccoli, and roasted potatoes on the side. Hands down, it was the best thing I have eaten so far while in Cambridge. Then I helped them pass out the dessert, homemade treacle pie with homemade whipped cream. It was so amazing! I had no clue what treacle was, so I asked one of the ladies I was sitting with. She explained to me that it was a molasses-type thick syrup. The pie looked like cushaw pie, balanced with the sourness of what I thought was rhubarb (later I found out the sour was lemon juice), and had the sweet warmness of "molasses". Everyone cleared their plates, and I helped take the dirty dishes back to the kitchen.

The lunch crowd left and we started our two-hour CS Lewis class. After class, we had a few hours of free time to study. I put my earbuds in and worked on various stuff. Everyone starts packing up to leave about 30 minutes before the center was set to close. I pack up my stuff to go and right before I was about to head out the door, a small group of four asked me to go with them to dinner. We rode around on our bikes for quite a while before finally deciding to park them around the market square and walk to a place to eat. It was raining the whole time we were on our bikes, but the rain and I have made peace.

Near Marks & Spencers was a pub called "The Cow" on Corn Exchange Street. The atmosphere there was really nice. All around the pub was artwork for sale from local artists. They had an awesome menu. I had the 6" Fiorentina. The crust of the pizza was not like pizza crust in America. It was like a fluffy pita round with all the toppings on it and garnished with wild rocket leaves.

We all bike back to the hotel and do some studying in the annex for a while, and then I went upstairs to go to sleep.

Cheerio poppets!