Kate and I

Today I hopped on the train to Cambridge hoping to catch a glimpse of Kate. (That's a teaser of course; not the Duchess of Cambridge, but my own lovely Kate.)

We left from Liverpool station about 9:45. (I can tell that we're on vacation because both of us are sleeping in.) I started to purchase our tickets from an automated machine, but waited too long counting out the bills and coins, and it erased our order. Instead of trying again, Kate (sorry, Kathy) suggested that we talk to a human at the ticket counter. That was fine with me, because if anyone needs to talk to a human, I have her do it.

And she did. She got our ticket for about $10 less than I would have paid through the vending machine.

The trip to Cambridge takes about an hour and a half, stopping at about a dozen very small stations. It was really relaxing; maybe a little too relaxing. Both of us wished we'd picked up a pair of Venti Starbucks for the trip.

When we got into Cambridge, we walked around town, gawking at the different sights. (That's what tourists do, right?) We saw the "great" St. Mary's church, and walked through the market stalls in market square right in front. (I bought some pear drops. Kathy looked for a scarf but didn't find what she wanted.)

We walked around King's College, but didn't want to pay $20 to go inside, like we did at Oxford. After all, they didn't use this King's College as a set for Harry Potter's Hogwarts. (I'm kind of joking, but it's terrible that I'm so shallow!) In any event, with our late start we really didn't have time, so I'll fall back on that as my excuse.

We saw the alley next to the Wren library where Sir Isaac Newton clapped his hands to measure the speed of sound. We didn't go inside there either.

We even saw one of the mechanical Locusts from the Apocalypse in a store window. (It was moving as the circle it sat upon rotated. Very eerie; like something out of Alien.)

On the map I saw "The Wesley House", so we went looking for that. (It's at the end of Jesus Lane.) It turns out that it was the dorms for one of the colleges, so there was nothing to see. We tried to walk through several of the colleges, but didn't want to take a tour. (I guess educational institutions in England are trying to make ends meet any way they can. I've gotten some good ideas for OCC once I get back.)

On the other side of Trinity college we watched some tourists punting on the Cam. The actual students were doing the punting, taking group tours up and down the river.

At Christ Church they had a beautiful entry way, but no pictures of Christ. The only ornamentation was a relief of Charles Darwin.

What I'll really remember about Cambridge, though? I finally got my Fish and Chips! I wonder if the British feel about Fish and Chips like the French do about French Onion Soup; they only sell it to the tourists.

We left Cambridge about 4:00. I knew a shortcut to get back to the train, but thankfully, Kathy insisted on asking a human where the train station actually was before we went too far afield. The trip back was really relaxing (that is, we slept almost the whole way, despite remembering to buy coffee this time).

When we got back, around 6:00, Debbie had prepared a delicious roast chicken dinner. Afterwards we spent the rest of evening "telling our stories"; Kathy and I told Marshall and Debbie about spending time in Shiloh, and later working for Calvary Chapel. I thought that our story was pretty exotic. Debbie and Marshall had us beat though. Who knew that he'd marry a girl from his kindergarten class. They still have the picture; Kathy was able to pick out Debbie, but both of us missed picking out Marshall.

Another wonderful day. I'm thinking about leaving my job at OCC and going "on holiday" permanently.