Staying near Parkside in Cambridge is great. It's so close to the city centre and there's always a game of football or cricket on. Gloria and her boyfriend Luca live near Parkside in a cluttered little apartment. Luca, being Italian, grows capsicum and tomatoes near the windowsill and regularly went outside to water and fond over his plants. I'm told that it's very difficult to grow tomatoes where they live because of the lack of sunlight but his had several green fruit growing off it.
Gloria and Luca were a very welcoming couple. As soon as I arrived, Gloria showed me around Emmanuel College, where ducks walked unabatedly beside us. She told me about the formal dinners the colleges put on every few weeks for anyone to attend as long as they dress up. The tour was short because we had to race to the station for crepes day.
Their french friend Stephan is an amazing cook. We were an hour late and the crepes were cold but still delicious! They were so large they hung over the plate. Stephan served jars of homemade jam and marmalade but most people went for the nutella, banana and whipped cream combo. Being Australian and recently deprived of bananas, I followed suit. While eating, Stephan told us of the 800 kilos he shipped over from Canada with him to here. One look inside his kitchen and it's clear where a large portion of the weight came from. He is an avid tea drinker and owned 6 teapots from what I could see. Homes in Britain may not come with any furniture but they will always come with a kettle.
After lunch we took a walk around New Market. The only thing to look at in this town were the painted plastic horses (due to the racecourse nearby). Gloria's walk with me later on along King's Parade was much prettier. The colleges are enormous and conveniently the nicest ones are all lined in a row. Clare's College was strangely open (all college close at 4:30pm) so we took a walk amongst the beautiful gardens.
Later that night we went out to dinner at an algerian place called Al Casbah. The tables are squished together and fabric hung across the ceiling like a dozen hammocks. I'm told it's a typically European thing to always order entres and our's was a combination of dips and pita bread. For the main I ordered the lamb and chicken couscous which was delicious but way way way too much! We walked out of there with our jean's buttons straining.
We stopped by Bill's restaurant/cafe/shop to meet up with Luca and have a glass of pims - a sweet fruit punch mixed with Southern Comfort. When we left at midnight, people on the street were already getting rowdy because a night out in Cambridge begins at 7pm, and "smashing bottles is a national sport," said Luca.
