A Change in the Weather

Oh happy day!


On Sunday, the sun was shining!  Not a rain cloud in sight.  Ellie and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather because we knew it probably wouldn't last long.  This summer has the wettest summer in England in 100+ years.  The sun was a very welcome sight!  We took our time walking to get some lunch at the Copper Kettle, then went a few doors down for a sweet treat at a homemade ice cream shop The ice cream is homemade, not the shop.  Modifier placement is my favorite!  Mr. Davis would be proud.  I digress.  We ordered our double scoop cone of Cambridge Blue and sat outside on a bench in front of King's College. We watched as the tourists snapped their pictures with the iconic building.  Pretty soon I was cleaning drips of that Cambridge Blue off of my orange Gap dress.  But it's okay, because they're complementary colours. (That's the extent of my artistic knowledge.)

A homeless man walked by asking for change.  I reached into my wallet and handed him a few coins—still don't know which ones.  He thanked me and started to move down the line.  But then he stopped, turned around, and asked if we were Americans.  Why, yes we are, kind sir!

"I should talk to you girls because you're American."

He plopped himself down right there next to me.

He said, "I have friends in America."

"Oh really?  Where?"

"California."

"California is a great place! Have you ever been to the—"

"You are very good looking."

Pretend to be really focussed on eating your ice cream.

"Thank you." He stared intently at the left side of my face.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"


I swear, he's going to try to take a lick of my ice cream.

"No, I don't."

"Do you want a boyfriend?"

Ice cream.  Focus.  Ice cream.

"No, I'm actually kind of okay being by myself."


Let's get outta here before he proposes!

I turned to Ellie and muttered between gritted teeth, "Uhh, can we go now?"  We said goodbye to our new (boy)friend and made our way through the crowd.  


It wasn't long before a very tan salesman with a very official-looking clipboard stopped us and asked if we would like to go punting.  Punting on the river Cam is one of those things we're told is a must during our time here in Cambridge.  A punt is different than a gondola in the fact that a gondola is propelled using an oar rather than a pole.  Thanks Wikipedia!  Since "maneuvering a large wooden boat with a long pole down a crowded, narrow river while balancing on a three-foot wide platform" isn't something Ellie or I had on our resumes, we decided to opt for the guided tour. 

We waited for a few minutes while the rest of the group assembled.  Then we heard, "The two American girls?"

Present.


We made our way down to the edge of the river and got prime seats on the boat.  Front row on Big Bertha!  Our tour guide may or may not have known what she was doing.  She made zero attempts to steer clear of oncoming traffic and almost knocked a few amateur punters into the water.  Big Bertha comin' through!  

Ellie and I so enjoyed the sun, the breeze, and the clear blue sky!  

Laundry Day

You’d think that doing laundry was a pretty basic task.  Not so. 

It was around 8:00 pm Thursday night, and Ellie and I were movin’ slow.  After the first full week of classes, we were tired out!  We gathered our (several) weeks worth of dirty laundry and hauled it all across the street to the apartment designated for us to do our wash.

This washing machine is a very picky one.  It only likes £1 and 20 pence coins.  We searched everywhere: purses, wallets, pockets, backpacks, behind the washing machine, under the washing machine, in the washing machine.  But no luck.  

We decided to walk down the street to Pembroke College to ask the porter for change.  Porters are magical genie men that have the answer and solutions to any questions or problems we students might have.  They basically take care of the college and everyone it.  Forget your key?  Ask the porter.  Need to know where the Graduate Parlour is?  Ask the porter.  Alligator in your bathtub?  Say it with me, ask the porter.  

The porter stood there very patiently as we counted our change, which took much longer than I’m sure he preferred.  Ellie and I had to thoroughly inspect a few most of every single coin to see how much it was worth.  Eventually we had the right coins, and enough of them, to start the washer. 

But wait.  We forgot about the dryer.  

The dryer is even picker than his friend Mr. Washing Machine.  Dryer only likes 20 pence coins.  Again, we searched.  And again, we came up short.  We didn’t want to go back and bother the porter.  We couldn’t quite tell if the comments he made were grumpy ones, or if he was just trying make a joke.  We don’t understand British humor.

I remembered going to an express grocery store my first day in Cambridge and thought that they would be able to help us in our desperate situation.  I also thought it was right around the corner from our flats.  (Wrong—my directional instincts are seriously lacking.)  We started in the opposite direction of the porter’s lodge, huddled under Ellie’s little black umbrella.  Oh, that English rain!  We passed a homeless man, and Ellie thought about doing a trade with him to get us those much-needed 20 pence coins.  We decided against that plan.

We kept ourselves entertained on our little detour, though.  The entire walk, we practiced our English accents in an attempt to get them to stick.  We really want to leave here with accents.  We channeled the entire Harry Potter cast.

Side story:  When we were in Edinburgh, Ellie was working the Hermione accent like a pro.  We were walking through the city center when we passed some cape-clad, wand-bearing wizards advertising Harry Potter tours.  Ellie excitedly took a flyer and continued walking up the street.  But she stopped, turned around to our wizard friends, and said like Emma Watson herself, “I’m Hermione Granger.”  Then just walked away. So great!

Anyways.

Eventually we realized that we had gone in a complete circle.  Thankfully, we were in a part of town that we walk though every day on our way to class.  We knew exactly where Sainsbury’s was—the big papa grocery store.  When we asked the cashier for change for our 1 pound coin, she looked at us like we had just asked her to massage our feet.

But success was ours!  We made our way back home through the rain, all the way talking like proper English ladies.

Ah, the detours we take for clean clothes.

Scotland

After just three days of being in Cambridge, we were swept off to Scotland!  And when I say we were swept off, I mean we sat on a bus.  For 9 hours. Thank goodness the drive was so beautiful.  A classic postcard photo: Green rolling hills dotted with little country houses every few miles.  Sheep, horses, cows— Old McDonald's whole gang.  Red wildflowers lining the highway.  It was stunning!  There were a couple of times that I looked out the window to enjoy the view but instead saw cars on the "wrong" side of the road.  I panicked.  It's going to take me a while to get used to that one!

While on the bus, Ellie her research project to us.  It's on changing behavior in healthy ways and how behavioral economics suggests that incentives can lead to a healthier more productive workforce.  Breath!  

I'm still not quite sure how we arrived at the decision, but we three girls have started a Summer of Self-Improvement!  Our man-friend Taylor's idea of a Summer of Self Improvement consists of gaining 20 pounds of muscle and whitening his teeth.  But we're girls.  What's the one thing on our mind 24/7?  Chocolate.  So we decided to go a whole week with out it.  Each week we will set a new goal.  Wish us luck!

When we got to the University of Edinburgh where we were staying, we decided to explore the city centre.  A thick fog covered everything.  It was eerie, romantic, spooky, and calm all at the same time. That town has character!  Fun fact: Scotland makes my hair go crazy!  I could feel it getting curlier (a.k.a frizzier by the minute.  I really got in touch with my inner Merida. 

 We wanted to go see Brave while we were in Scotland. Perfect, right? But it's not in theaters. That was a sad discovery for us 20-going-on-9-year-olds.

Friday morning, we went on a hike called in a town called Killin.  Scary name.  I reassured myself, "Hey self, this won't be too bad," when I saw our tour guide with his red backpack running up the mountain.  Boy, was I wrong.  And out of shape.  There were several times on the hike that I grumbled references, pretty clever ones might I add, to Killin/death/dying.  (I think I am the only person on the planet with exercise-induced asthma.)  We made it to the top 1000 feet up.  We enjoyed the view for a while and made our way down, all the while trying to resist the urge to pet the sheep.

After the hike, we rewarded ourselves with some Cadbury chocolate.  I was going strong on the no chocolate rule for a solid day and a half.  Sorry, Ellie!  A Scottish man walked by us 7 American bums sitting on the side of the road devouring our candy and said, "There's a joke here somewhere, I just don't know what it is." We all laughed.

Later that night, we danced the traditional Scottish Ceilidh (pronounced Kaylee—go figure).  Picture country line dancing, but with kilts instead of Wranglers.  We really struggled to understand the announcer with his strong accent.  Add in the fact that 90% of the kids dancing were a little tipsy.  Madness!  After a few minutes of aimless skipping, with the help of some insanely talented BYU ballroom dancers, it went a little something like this:


Note to self: get video from Averill


Saturday morning we went to the National Gallery where I discovered my new favorite artists, Giovanni Piranesi.  All of the pieces in the exhibit were etchings.  Feast your eyes:

After we explored the Gallery top to bottom, we went to lunch at Whiski's where I had real-life British fish and chips!  On our way back to the university, Averill and I decided to brave the rain with our matching polka-dot umbrellas and take some time to get to know the city a little better.  

:: We stopped in a soap store.  Our favorite was chocolate scented one.  The fact that we stood there and smelled it for a good 5 minutes may or may not be related to chocolate withdrawals.

:: A fudge shop was offering free samples.  Obviously, we went in.  But since we're off chocolate for a week, we tried the Turkish Delight—which tasted like soap.

:: We saw a wedding store that displayed kilts and plaid wedding dresses.  Averill asked if they deliver to the states.  Great news, they do!

:: I learned from the creepy wax people in the Scottish History Museum that the hip-happenin' Scottish dad is a Yankees fan.

:: The Queen's gallery was too expensive for us, so we just swooned over the crown jewels book we found in the gift shop.

:: Averill decided that the Parliament building looks like a modern art museum.

We were having so much fun that we missed the turn to get back to the university.  We asked several places how to get back, but only got the response, "There's a university around here?"  Eventually we found our way, but truly,

we enjoyed the detour.

Let the Games Begin

Well here we are!  The moment I’ve been waiting for.  The moment I’ve told complete strangers about— waiters, grocery store cashiers, the Schwan’s guy, and cab drivers.  The excitement over this trip has overwhelmed my life for the past few months, and now I’m actually here!  Can you believe it?!

The week in D.C. and New York with my mom and Tommy seemed to go by all to quickly.  Believe you me, I was insanely excited to start my English adventure, but I was also nervous about being so far away from my family and living on my own again.  We waited in lines, and the whole time I was trying so hard to not bite my nails/burst into tears/scream.  

After a 6 hour flight, a 3 hour coach ride, too many uncomfortable sleeping positions, and a quick trip in a taxi with our new driver-friend Patrick (he has lived in Cambridge all of his 76 years of life), we arrived at our flat.  That’s our apartment for all you American-folk.  My travel buddies and I got settled in our rooms and then went out to explore the town.  This place is adorable— with its little shops, beautifully ancient buildings, and cobblestone streets.

All of the flats on our street have the cutest blue doors!

I took a short nap to battle the jet lag and then was off to mingle with the ivy leaguers.  One of the students, who had a beard that make him look like he was 35 years old, felt the need to stand on a table and announced to the entire room, “THE BAR IS NOW OPEN” Thank you for that.  Us BYU kids exchanged some oh-boy-here-we-go glances and got much more excited about the welcome buffet.  The airplane food didn’t quite hit the spot.

After the buffet, a few of the graduate BYU students gave us little-uns a tour of the city.  They showed us the necessities, like the grocery store and the place to buy dang good fudge.  Fudge is a necessity.  They gave us some history about the colleges where we will be studying.  I feel honored to be a part of such a rich history.

King's College

Pembroke College

This library inspires me!

  
A few of my first impressions

:: The English are so polite.  We got lost trying to find a place to buy adapters (embrace the detours experience #1), and the woman who pointed us in the right direction said thank you to us.  

:: It’s cold! Good thing all of the clothes I packed would be suitable for an Arizona summer.

:: All of the students in the program are serious prodigy children.  I’m going to have to work really, really hard!  But I’m confident!  

Challenge accepted.

Detours Ahead

Hello world!  

Friends, family, and random web surfers who find themselves here after Googling New York Times Bestselling author, Sydney Croft.  

This is my blog—welcome to it!

I’ve always had the secret desire to be a world-famous blogger.  The go-to source for fashion advice or summer craft ideas.  But since my clothes aren’t quite worthy to grace the cover of Vogue (though my dad would disagree.  He thinks I have enough stuff in my closet to clothe an entire third world country), and taking into consideration the fact that my sister snagged all of the artistic genes in the family... I thought I’d start here with a travel blog.  

This blog is as much for me as it is for you.  It’s a way for me to journal about the thoughts and feelings I have as I visit far away places.  It’s a way for me to share my adventures with the ones I love.  It’s also for my travel-loving mother to read and live vicariously through me.  Hi mom!

So stay tuned people!  There are many exciting things to come.