Cambridge (12-13 of August)

I left my wonderful, couch-surfing host Kwame early in the morning and set out for the short train ride to Cambridge. When I arrived I was picked up at the station by James Duffy, a friend I met in San Francisco. It was really happy to see a familiar face and have a warm welcome. After my arrival, we went to his flat to drop off my pack and decide what to do for the day. So, we went on a wonderful walking tour of the town. We started at the outskirts of the city and walked all along the river. It was so nice to do so much walking; it was a perfect day for walking, not hot and not raining. The trails are marvelous, it did not feel at all like we were close to a town- it was all fields and river. We also had a lovely lunch picnic along side the river. It was really very nice. Once we followed the river into town, we started to see people punting up and down the river. It was very entertaining (even though we didn't see anyone fall in...). The whole town is such a beautiful and amazingly clean place. In the evening we went to see an outdoors performance of Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost". It was a really fun show - I had never read the comedy or heard the story even, so it was really great. A very good day, indeed.
The next day was just as good. We rode bicycles all along the river in the other direction. There were so many fishing, barge type boats. They added so much character to the riverside because many of them were very antique-y looking. It felt really good to ride so much on a bicycle and do so much outdoors exercise. After riding along the river for some time (which really made me want to go fishing...) we rode back into town and explored one of the many colleges of Cambridge University. We went and saw King's College. It was so impressive! The chapel for the college was massive - it was hard to believe it was a chapel for a University. Then, we drove to the east coast of England near a town called Lowestoft and saw the beach there. By this time it was a bit rainy outside and the temperature had dropped a bit, but it was lovely. It made me wish I had a kite to fly, as it was extremely windy. The beach was sandy and was lined with colorful little beach huts. We did not stay there for very long because of the rain, but it was really nice to see and feel the ocean. I really enjoyed my time in Cambridge and had such a fabulous host.
Off to Brighton...