Day 118-122: Newmarket, Cambridge, and Ely

After the Great Train Fiasco leaving Nottingham, I ended up at my friend's house in Newmarket without farther mishaps. My friend (Kirsty) has two older siblings and some family friends were over for the day, so the house was definitely busy compared to my great aunt and uncle's! That afternoon we took a walk up a bit of a hill (basically the only hill, as the whole area is very flat) where they exercise horses, since Newmarket is a racing town. It was bright and sunny and we had a beautiful view over the town.... but I forgot my camera, so I'm afraid I can't share it with you.

Aside from spending time with Kirsty in Newmarket, we also took day trips to Cambridge and Ely, which are both only around 20 minutes drive away. In Cambridge we got to park at one of the university's colleges because Kirsty's sister was an alumna. Kirsty and I walked around a bit, took photos by a row of four red telephone booths, went shopping, and visited another one of the colleges. Since the college wasn't open to tourists, we just pretended to be students and walked right on in. 

Ely was also a nice town, built on fenlands. We went to visit Oliver Cromwell's house, which was fascinating, since Milton (who I intend to write my MA thesis on) was a chief propagandist for him. Embarrassingly, our favourite part of the house was the children's fancy-dress bin, where we got to try on some period costumes. Afterwards, we attended evening prayers (we were hoping for evensong, but since it was New Year's Eve the choir boys were on holiday) at Ely Cathedral.

New Year's Eve was spent with friends of friends, which I think was a sort of perfect way to end/begin a year full of meeting new people. We played a bunch of games, lit fireworks at midnight, and sang Auld Lang Syng in proper Scottish style (despite being in England.)




The next day it was time to leave and catch the overnight bus from London to Amsterdam. As I wrote about here, the trip wasn't exactly a lot of fun, but it did get me safely to continental Europe, where the adventures truly began.