cambridge!

yesterday on my day off i took the bus to cambridge to visit other claire!  it was a great visit - really nice to see her and meet all her friends (i love them, of course) and see how the other campus of our program is run.  we didn't do much other than (a) go punting, (b) eat, (c) drink, and (d) sleep.  and that was FINE BY ME.

punting is this activity that is big in oxford and cambridge (but i'd never been!) where one person (in this case, other claire's friend justin) has a pole and propels the boat down the river by pushing off the bottom.

claire, me, and two of claire's friends sat in the boat and were punted down the river by justin while we drank prosecco.  IT WAS INCREDIBLE.  so relaxing, so beautiful, and a really oxford/cambridge thing to do.  i am in love with this picture:

the river runs right through cambridge, past buildings built right up to the water.  this building has a little door at water level from the time when people punted/boated/whatever grain up and down the river and apparently stored it in this building.  in addition to punting quite well, justin gave us lots of fun facts.  and you know i like fun facts.

the trip UP the river was gorgeous, and the trip DOWN the river was rainy, but we all had rain jackets and umbrellas, so that was fine, too.  typical england - sunny one minute, rainy the next.

after punting we had dinner and went to a pub with her friends, and then back to her room to sleep before i got up this morning and took the bus back to oxford.  excellent day off!

(i will say that i like oxford better, as a town, but perhaps i'm biased.  i mean: of course i'm biased.  oxford = amazing.)

tonight i'm going to see the new harry potter movie!  so exciting!