An Overdue Overview

With only six weeks remaining in the C-89 tour of Cambridge, I am long overdue to post a general overview of my time here.

The three month mark has yet to pass, and the time I spend in my room is usually confined to mornings and evenings. As I look around this possibily neglected area of 26A Huntingdon Road, I am surprised to notice how deeply attached I grew to a place just slightly bigger than a freshman dorm. There is the endtable with the drawer I broke my first day here. There are two wine bottles from France. Here is a desk with an expired BritRail, coupons for double “nectar points” at Sainsbury’s, and folders from the classes I take in a classroom one story above my room. I am going to miss them all.

Downstairs and out the door is a bike. Two months ago, Nola Schmidt and I spent an hour figuring out which key from a cup of about fifty unlocked it. The joy of releasing the bike quickly gave way to fear. A hoarde of enormous buses that play chicken with any cycler who dares to get in their way as they travel through narrow streets designed before the creation of the car is one result of England’s excellent public transportation system. I took my chances and lived to tell the tale. After a few days I had even given a few buses a run for their money.

We changed the layout of the living room to make it more communal, took late night trips for chips at Trailer of Life, and started a quote wall. While here, I “got nutty,” discovered that “it’s easier if you run,” and learned why “you gotta flick your wrist!” One student from Anglia Ruskin became an interesting topic of conversation before we went our separate ways.

I climbed a mountain in Wales and finally made use of my water bottle. The entire journey took over seven hours, and out of six people we had brought only six bottles of water. About two hours in, most of the water bottles were empty and people were getting thirsty. Thankfully, the mountain had numerous streams flowing down its side. All I had to do was step into a gorge, unscrew the cap of my bottle, and dip it into a stream to provide enough water for our entire group. This happened at least three times. Had we not had my water bottle, I doubt we could have made it all the way up the mountain. We eventually did make it over, and as we traveled down the other side on our way to a new town, one of our group rolled an ankle. She was walking behind everyone else when it happened, so no one saw it happen. I hear her cry out in pain, and when I turned and saw her on the ground, clutching her ankle, my first thought was “Prepare yourself. You’re going to have to carry her the rest of the way down.” After resting a few minutes, she was fine to walk the rest of the way. When we reached the bottom of the mountain, we realized we had taken a wrong turn and that we were another hour’s walk away from our lodging. We found a group of English students who were visiting Wales to get an outdoor survival certification, and one of their chaperones was kind enough to drive us to where we belonged.

Winter break seems so far in the past, despite its being only two-and-a-half months ago. Oddly, it seems much further away than my eventual departure from Cambridge. There is only a month’s difference between the two, but it seems as if it is at least a year. This trip has already helped me grow into an entirely new person. With six weeks left, I have no idea who I’ll be when I leave.

 

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