"Dude, that show was good. Like, it would've swept Follies."

Phil is naturally more inclined to exploration than I am. It’s a virtue of his of which I’m quite jealous. He awoke early and ventured out into the city to see it while it was still quiet. With the crowds arriving in the city for the Olympics, we were sure to experience and even more busy and crowded London than we had seen our first Saturday in the city.  When Phil returned to the room, a little after 10:00 AM, I got out of bed and showered.  We had tickets to the “Churchill War Rooms” museum, which was a museum held inside the old secret headquarters of Churchill and the war leaders of England. It’s underground because it was used while the Germans were bombing London.  The museum itself is a completely restored walk through experience of what the war rooms looked like during the war. The free audio tour was pretty fun, though Phil and I abandoned listening to it a little before halfway through the tour. The most interesting part of the actual war rooms exhibits was a video screen that looped recent interviews with people who actually had worked and lived in the war rooms. It was fascinating and enlightening to hear them talk about Churchill and the secrecy of the warm rooms.  They spoke about how scary London was to live in during the bombings, but how Churchill inspired everyone to simply be brave. They truly embraced the idea to “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

            

The best part of the whole museum, however, was the huge museum exhibit dedicated to Winston Churchill himself. An enormous room was filled with every little bit of info about Churchill you could ever want to now, short of reading every book written about him. Phil and I particularly enjoyed a part that let you listen to excerpts from Churchill’s most famous speeches from the war.  There was a giant touch screen table that allowed you to look through digital representations of documents involving Churchill from the entirety of his professional career. We read the letters and entries around the dates of Pearl Harbor and D-Day, giddy in our excitement to read about the candid and real conversations and reactions of Churchill, FDR, and other big players involved in the decisions and happenings of World War II.  The rest of the museum was interesting and really gave you a new perspective on what the bombings in London had been like. Over and over I read how the underground shelter, even while it was secretly reinforced with steel and concrete a year after it had been in use, would still probably have been crushed if the building above it would have been bombed.  The building was never bombed, so we’ll never know for sure, but I was struck with the sheer amount of luck that had played a role in the existence and effectiveness of the war rooms.  It was an awesome experience.

            

From the war rooms we crossed the bridge by Parliament and relaxed on the other side of the Thames, enjoying the view. Eventually we walked up the bank of Thames, fighting through ridiculously large crowds as we went.  We went as far as the Millennium Walking Bridge and the New Globe Theater and crossed back to the other side of the Thames, walking right into the shadow of St. Paul’s. Instead of going towards the church, however, we went under the bridge to a quieter sitting area on the Thames’ bank.  After another session of resting and unwinding, we returned to our hotel.  Phil’s dad paid for our tickets to see “Les Miserables” which had been playing at the “Queen’s Theater” for 27 years.  Really wanting to be American tonight, Phil and I ate at another “Ed’s Diner” near the theater. Again, the wall had “No danicin’ in the aisles!” painted on it, and again I ignored it’s warning. The steady stream of American diner songs over the speakers kept me movin’ and groovin’ in my chair. The sound of Elvis put me back home in Memphis and I was happy.

            

What can I say about a show that is in its 27^th season? Obviously it was marvelous. I laughed, I cried, I was angry, I was joyful, I was moved. It was magnificent.  There’s a scene in the show right after the rebels are all killed at the barricade.  We’ve been seeing the back of the barricade for its entire existence in the show so far, and, for the first time, it turns around. The leader of the rebellion lies sprawled on the front of the barricade. He’s dead, and draped with the huge red flag he waved to represent his rebellion. It was the most beautiful piece of living art I’ve ever seen. What a wonderful show.

            

Phil and I walked back through crowds of young people looking for clubs.  It made me miss the people so close to me at OSU.  We got back to the hotel and went to bed, knowing that our time abroad was over.  The next morning we would wake up, pack, and go straight to the airport.  And I can honestly say that, because of this trip, I’ll never be the same.

"Can you shut up? I'm trying to watch the movie. Cheers."

I woke up a little before 10:00 AM on Friday, and I walked over to Cam’s room to wish him goodbye since he was leaving by 10:30. As I was hanging out with him, the cleaning lady came into his room. I knew that I had to have left my phone in Mackenzie’s room, and since Mackenzie had left early that morning, I needed another way back into her room. The lady was nice enough to let me in and, sure enough, I found my phone in the only spot in the couch cushions that I hadn’t already checked. Relieved, I kept hanging out with Cam. Renae joined us and when Cam was all packed we walked to the main gate with him where we said goodbye to the rest of the group leaving with Cam. It was sad, but since we are all OSU students we were able to take some joy in the fact that we would all get to see each other again in only a few weeks. I went back to my room and began to pack my things. I got in the shower as soon as it was free, and finished packing just minutes before the taxi arrived to pick up Phil and me.

            

Our cabbie was friendly and had all kinds of questions about American Football, specifically the NFL. He was excited for the NFL game in London this year, and he gave us the impression that he had been to all of the NFL games played in London. He was curious about college football and he had no idea how big it was. He even asked Phil and I if we played college football. I almost snorted in laughter, but forced myself to hold it in because this man obviously just had no idea. We explained to him how college football was only for the best athletes, and he went on to ask how we played if we wanted to play sports. I tried to explain intramurals to him, which seemed to confuse him. I almost stumbled into explaining Greek Life and how that factors into intramurals, but I stopped myself because I was pretty sure his head would explode if I started to talk about “bigs,” “pledgeship,” and “date parties.” He dropped us off at the train station and we bought tickets for the direct train to King’s Cross. The train ride was smooth and simple.  Phil and I sat across from each other, happily remarking on the English countryside, Cambridge, and how much fun we’d had studying in one of the world’s oldest paces of higher learning.

            

We arrived at King’s Cross with a three point checklist of things we needed to do: Find a Barclay’s ATM for me, find some food (preferably cheap and quick), and find an Underground stop not far from the other two. We exited King’s Cross, turned up the street and checked all three off in a single glance. A Barclay’s ATM was right next door to a Burger King which was right next door to an entrance to the large Underground stop housed under King’s Cross. I thought to myself, as Harry often said in Spain, “nailed it!” After a delicious lunch (they really do fast food better here at the restaurants they have), we rode the Underground to the Hyde Park Corner stop. This was right outside of our hotel, the dazzling “Inter-Continental.”  It was legitimately dazzling, a serious five-star hotel which always caused my Chacos and Phil’s frequent bags of gummi candy to look extremely out of place. We went up to our room and put down our bags. We checked our social media while lying on the lotion-soft bed. From there we were off to Camden Town, the cute/hipster/artsy/Boston-esque little part of town where Phil’s mom lived when her family lived in London. We walked through a park and climbed a giant hill named “Primrose Hill.”  It provided a striking view of the London skyline.  Phil and I sat on a bench at the top, enjoying the quiet and the pleasant breeze. We looked at the city and chatted while a little boy nearby flew a kite with his grandparents.  We smiled at the pure joy on the child’s face.  We were happy to once again be traveling and exploring as Phil and I enjoy traveling. That is, we walk with our eyes moving more than our feet, and are frequent to stop for half an hour just so that we can enjoy the beauty of a place.

            

We walked down the hill and up a few streets, eventually finding Phil’s mother’s old home. Phil took a couple pictures and we walked back down into Camden Town. We stopped at a movie theater and saw “The Dark Knight Rises.”  Now if you’re someone who knows me at all then you’re aware of my deep appreciation for Batman. I’m not going to go into a rant about it here, but I will just state that Batman is one of my favorite things on Earth and probably my favorite story. Aside from two stupid and loud Europeans next to us, the movie was perfect. I cried a lot in it. That’s basically all I need to say. We returned to our hotel to rest, eventually deciding to venture out to find some food. It was late, so not many restaurants were open, and we ended up happily at McDonald’s. I thought it was funny how as we tired of being away from home, our bodies happily reached out to the familiar tastes of American fast food since we didn’t have the hugs of our families and loved ones to satisfy our physical yearning. A q-p-chee (quarter pounder with cheese) can only satisfy your homesickness so much, but it does it a whole lot better than British dairy does.

            

Feeling bloated from our dinner, we opted to walk back to our hotel rather than take the Underground and we returned to our room tired.  We knew we only had one more full day in London, so we wen to sleep hoping we’d get enough rest to be able to truly enjoy it.

"These cheese fries are so good! Not Coney quality... but comparable."

The only responsibility I had to fulfill on Thursday was a fifteen-minute meeting with Dr. Decker at 2:00 PM. It was to chat with him about my travel narrative, but since I already had a decent idea of the direction I wanted to take it, I wasn’t concerned with the meeting other than my need to physically be in Benson Hall at the appropriate time. I slept in, at least as late as my body would let me, with the light and noise of Cambridge drawing me out of my bed around 9:30 AM. I spent a better part of the morning on Facebook and Twitter, patrolling the socializing of my friends from the night before. I tried to read and write, but my brain was exhausted from the week of class, so I decided to simply relax. Eventually I convinced myself to shower, and I decided to go do my final bit of shopping for the trip.

            

Along my way to the shopping area, I walked by Trinity College’s open gates. I hadn’t been able to go inside yet since I had always either been in class or working on one of Tom’s projects.  I slowly walked into the large courtyard of the college, being sure to take in my surroundings. I only took about three pictures, choosing instead to simply experience the beauty of the college’s well-groomed grounds. The walls were adorned with huge statues of what I suppose are important people in the college’s history. I was disappointed to see that the large dome/gazebo/monument type structure in the middle of the common area was under construction. I stood and imagined what this courtyard looked like in the height of the academic semesters: beautiful, full of students and instructors, people busy with work and accustomed to the intense beauty about them. On my way back out I stopped to marvel the large wooden door at the gate that seemed to be extremely old. I looked it over completely, and when I tilted my head upwards to see the top of hit, I lost my breath. Above my head was a ceiling full of the crests of the colleges of Cambridge. They were all painted and ornate, connected through fancy stonework that gave the gate’s inner ceiling a feeling of a permanent tapestry. I sat down on the floor of the gate and leaned onto my back so that I could get as much of the ceiling into a photo as was possible. I didn’t care that I looked ridiculous because it was the most amazing thing I’d seen in a college so far and I was so struck at how it was simply the ceiling of the gate. And I’d almost completely missed it. I strolled back out onto the streets of Cambridge, smiling at the porters as I walked out of the gate.

            

With the shop I was headed to in sight, I noticed that St. Mary’s church was also open. I believe St. Mary’s is the University Church, though I could be mistaken. Regardless, it’s really old, and a big part of the touristy activities in the U.K. seems to be going inside really old churches. So, obviously, I went inside. Climbing the spiral staircase to the tower was tempting, but the 3.5 pound price for admission turned me off, especially before my shopping trip. By the end of my visit in the church, however, I had donated 3 pounds in an offering box, so I guess it ended up being pretty dumb of me to not just put that towards a stair climb, but whatever. The church was fascinating with its stained glass and ornate alter.  An old man stalked around the church, eventually ending up in an argument about some church business with the woman working the gift shop. Let me mention that the gift shop wasn’t a separate room of the church but was in fact just a series of tables and desks set up in the back of the church. They were raising money to help wall off the gift shop. So… they were literally selling things at the gift shop… so that they could… have a better gift shop. Not really sure what conclusion to draw from that, but I definitely found it a little odd. I moved about the church, again only taking a few pictures, trying to let myself feel the experience of the church rather than simply recording it in photos.

            

My shopping trip proved successful, and with a substantially smaller amount of money, I returned to Magdalene. Renae, Andrew, and Kathleen were waiting outside the Pick before it opened. They were going to eat lunch there so I decided to join them. I tried to recruit Cam to my cause, but he was just eating in his room. He invited me to go shopping with him and Jennifer. While I’d just been shopping, the company sounded fun, so he agreed to meet me at the Pick when they were ready to go. I had fish and chips at the Pick and laughed that it was the best I’d had in England and had just been next door to Magdalene the whole time. It was a fun and friendly lunch, with all of us blubbering about how sad we were to be leaving each other. Kathleen and I also talked about how fun it was that everyone in the U.K. actually says, “cheers” when they finish a conversation or give you food or basically anytime. I said it to the locals while I was there but have absolutely no intention to bring it back to the U.S.A. It was fun in England, but in the U.S. I’ll just get odd looks. Plus, I love telling people to “have a great day!” So I’ll stick with that.

            

Shopping with Cam and Jennifer was a fun little trip, but I had to leave early to meet with Dr. Decker. We discussed the effects of travel and how odd it is to try to track down a sense of place for yourself when you’re abroad. We also toyed with the effect of a short travel, like this one. Two weeks is just enough time to let you truly feel homesick, but is also just enough time for you to get comfortable with your new “home” and “family” so that you don’t actually know how you’re supposed to feel. I shared that I’d just decided to be homesick. Not that it was a negative choice or that I’d chosen to be sad, it’s just that I had chosen to embrace my luck in having a home and people who care about me. Homesickness can be a joyful feeling when you understand how blessed you are to have people and places that make you feel homesick. After my meeting I went back to my room, where I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and writing.

            

At 6:00 PM our entire group met at the porters’ lodge. We all went out to The Castle, the pub where we all spent our first night together. It was a joyful dinner, with everyone joking and recalling stories about our short time that now seemed so long and lovely.  After we ate we went back to Magdalene to receive our group photos taken earlier in the trip. I’m not going to lie… our group is hot. Like straight up killa in the looks department.  I volunteered to take Dr. Graalman and Tom’s copies of the photos back to OSU for them since they had both already left. I’m pretty nervous about the pictures getting back safety, but I can only hope, I suppose. (They’re actually stored safely between a notebook and many a soft articles of clothing in my suitcase right now. I’m more worried about their safety than I am about my own at this point. Volunteering made me a tad paranoid. Not my best idea of all time.)

            

The entire group headed over to a nice pub called “The Boathouse” so that we could watch Joel’s band perform. We went upstairs to the “entertainment room” and found it set for a small group to sit in chairs and listen to the concert. Disappointed that it wasn’t more of a “show” setting, Phil, Ryan, Logan, and I all headed out to the small dock patio behind the pub. We watched a swan that was incredibly close to the edge of the dock and talked until it was time for the show to start. And then we stayed outside and talked some more. Eventually we roused ourselves from our seats and went upstairs. Some kind of long dreadlocked English granola hipster acoustic playing guy was babbling on about how he had “heard this next song in my head today and thought ‘I need to learn this.’” First of all: WHAT. I understand that songs just come to songwriters sometimes; the same thing happens to me with passages. But this dude was the physical embodiment of “trying too hard” and saying things like that were not helping anything. But, as travel always does, my first impression was thrown for a loop. He wasn’t the best performer I’ve ever seen, but he had a fun little lyric in the chorus of one of his songs. He sang, “I have to give up everything just so I can be free, but how can I have my freedom if I have to give up me?” I thought to myself, “what an excellent question.”

            

The next act was a man and woman who played folk music from the U.K. I’ll let you know everything you need to know about folk music from the U.K.: don’t listen to it. The people gave very pretty renditions of some songs, but when the songs are about sad sailors on the North Sea and “old Edward’s father” it can get pretty dreary. After their act, Joel’s band came up. Joel plays bass guitar and is more or less a master of the funk. Not that his band played funk, but you could just tell he had a very intimate relationship with things that would be modified by the adjective “funky.”  Their lead singer was a giant, bald, English teacher of a Scotsman.  He obviously wrote the songs and his lyrics were fun and casual. Their final song was a touching and personal little love song that had a chorus that said, “You look fine, you look fine, even though you don’t believe me.” It was just a pretty little ditty about a man telling his love that she looked beautiful all the time and didn’t need to worry, even though he knew that she was going to anyway. I really liked the song.

            

Most of our group had been drinking during the show and many people were feeling pretty good. We all walked back to the city center through Jesus Green and were all laughing and loving, aware how little time we had left together. Most everyone was hungry so we went to “The Trailer of Life” which is a food trailer the parks itself in the market square in the night. Logan and I were first to arrive and we each tried a bacon cheeseburger. We were busy raving about its deliciousness to each other when the rest of the group arrived. So we raved about the deliciousness to them. We didn’t convince anyone to try the bacon cheeseburger like us, but as far as Logan and I were concerned, we were the only people who had truly experienced The Trailer of Life. Our experience at “The Trailer of Life” had bonded us as “Bros for Life” and we happily shared an order of chips on the side. I walked back to Magdalene with Mackenzie and Cam. I went to Mackenzie’s room, and after a little while Cam joined us. We talked for almost two hours about OSU, Stillwater, Greek Life, and our dating lives. It was a wonderful conversation spent with friends and as Cam and I said goodnight and goodbye to Mackenzie until this fall, I felt blessed to have gotten so close to such wonderful people.

            

I returned to my room and noticed I didn’t have my phone. I ran back to Mackenzie’s room and she let me in so I could search through the couch.  I couldn’t find it, so I just shrugged it off until the morning, bidding a final farewell to Mackenzie as I left. It was bedtime, and without my phone as a distraction (the damn wifi was down again anyway) I went to sleep as soon as my head hit my pillow.

            

"Can we get thrown out of Shakespeare in the park?" "We're sure as hell gonna find out!"

Wednesday in Cambridge was our final day of class. We all had been assigned to choose a single event or aspect of our trip and to write about the event three separate times, each to a different particular audience. I chose my dad, my sister, and my Big Mama.  Each had its own particular flavor, which was good because that was also the point of the assignment. It was funny to hear how strikingly different everyone’s assignments were and everyone had wonderful things to say about what the writing had felt like and what it made us think about regarding how we told the story to three different people.  Most were simple, “I’ll tell my friends about the drinking and crazy things and leave those parts out of the ones I write for my parents.” Even though this was the general feeling, it was still hilarious to hear how the nightlife events were always skimmed over in the parent-version pieces. We all broke for lunch, and Phil, Logan, Ryan, and I all decided to eat at McDonald’s. That was a second day in a row of McDonald’s lunch for Phil and me, but our wallets were thankful for it. The U.K. is expensive.

            

After lunch we returned to class to discuss the Angelou and Theroux novels. I kept everyone in class at least an extra twenty minutes while I gushed about the Theroux book by myself. I wasn’t sorry about it either. I liked the book so I was gonna talk about it. BOOM. Class ended and everyone split up to go to their rooms. We were all going to see the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival put on “The Merry Wives of Windsor” that evening, so dinner was an on your own kind of thing. I decided that I wasn’t very hungry, and I ate nothing until it was time for us all to gather for the show. As we all gathered, I went into the little convenience store outside Magdalene and bought a big tube of Pringles. About seven Pringles in, I knew I’d made a horrible mistake. I kept trying to find someone to pawn the chips off.  As long as I had them, I kept eating them, and I complained loudly for the entire walk to the park where the show was being put on for us.  Everyone found seats in the chairs provided, and a few of the girls set up a picnic blanket with wine, bread, cheese, and other little snacks. They didn’t want my Pringles. I bet Pringles and wine would be an awesome combination. At least a better combination than Pringles and my mouth. That combination was bad. Really bad. Eventually I coerced Logan into about two thirds of the tube, and I happily relaxed between Ryan and Phil as the show started. It was absolutely hilarious, and as the sobriety of our group decreased, the hilarity of the play increased. Quite an example of inverse variation. It got to the point that we were laughing so hard that two of the funniest actors broke in the middle of scene and started laughing themselves. This sent our group into utter hysteria and just made the actors laugh harder. When they finally composed themselves, I was in such a fit of laughter that I was laughing silently: that intense but silent laugh that happens when things get really funny sometimes. One of the actors saw me and smiled, happily acknowledging my pleasure with the performance.

            

A rainstorm rolled through during the show, but the actors never stopped, so we put on our hoods and deployed our umbrellas, never stopping our loud laughter. It was a fantastic and fun performance. After the show some of the more drunk members of our group went to the Pick to continue drinking and having fun. I, however, was sober, wet, cold, and had laughed out my last bits of energy.  I went back to my room at Magdalene and rested. It had been a long day and I wanted to be rested for my final day in Cambridge.

"I'd just be thinking, This is fun, I'm gonna die, this is fun, I'm gonna die."

I awoke Tuesday just in time to put on pants and walk to the breakfast hall right before it closed. I stuffed down a buttery and flaky croissant and drained a small glass of orange juice. Vitamin C. Defending me from illness all day. Making good choices, y’all.

            

Class was full of travel journals and discussion of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad. This novel is a travel novel about a tour of Europe all the way to the Holy Land.  I didn’t read the book, though I eventually will, but from what everyone talked about, it sounded that the book was true Twain: humor, sarcasm, and an enlightening voice that is truly American. Our group slowly tired as we discussed more and more, so Dr. Decker gave us a break. I hadn’t showered, and I’m oddly finicky about my hands and face feeling dirty, so I decided to shower in our short fifteen minutes of freedom.  I have to take a shower to feel completely clean and I can’t completely concentrate or focus on anything if I’m not clean.  

I briskly walked back to my room and stripped down, covering myself in my towel and grabbing my small magnetic key for my door. I hurried out into the hall to use the bathroom, but, to my dismay, someone had slipped in to use the toilet while I was in my room. Even worse, I could hear the voices of the girls who live on our floor approaching the doorway behind me. I jumped back to my door, fumbling with my key and struggling with the door lock, which has been troublesome my entire time I’ve been here. The female voices were getting louder, and I could already feel my face beginning to blush. Luckily, Philip’s door was open, so I jumped into his room. The girls’ voices, however, continued to get louder, and in my moment of fear I thought that they were coming into the little hallway that hold the doors to our rooms.  I crouched in the corner behind Phil’s fridge so that I wouldn’t be seen. All this time Phil has been laughing at my antics and me. Unfortunately, as I hid, I placed my left forearm on the back of the mini-fridge in Phil’s room. This mini-fridge, like every other one in the rooms at Magdalene, has exposed pipes on the back that are scalding hot to the touch. My forearm had the strange experience of feeling a sudden sensation that is at first purely cool and then suddenly white hot. I recoiled from the fridge, yelling two or three words that I’d rather not publish on my blog. My burned spot was about as big as my thumb and throbbed horribly, but I still needed to shower, and I heard the bathroom user exit.

            

I ran into the shower, having already spent over half of my precious fifteen minutes walking, hiding, and burning myself. It wasn’t until halfway through my shower that I realized how much my burn hurt and how much the hot water was adding to the pain. But the bathing must go on, so I finished and got dressed again in my room. The burn was blistering, and my Eagle Scout brain instantly thought, “So it’s a second degree burn. Awesome.” (The awesome was sarcastic. Second degree burns are definitely NOT awesome.)

            

Back in class we discussed the meanings and questions of travel. The discussion was healthy, though we all tired fairly quickly with the cloudy and rainy sky outside the windows. We broke for lunch, letting Phil and I scurry off to the Cambridge McDonald’s for a lunch of burgers.  Again, McDonald’s provided an incredibly cheap and delicious meal (the McDonald’s here in the U.K. just serve an incredibly higher quality of food than the McDonald’s in the U.S.)  After our lunch, we strolled through the Cambridge market, perusing all the stands. We looked through a couple used book stands and I came out with a copy of Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not and a couple gifts for friends and family. Cheap prices. We visited one of the nicer souvenir shops not far from the market and I bought myself a nice silk Magdalene tie.  With Phil thoroughly worn out with being near the touristy shopping area outside King’s College, we headed back to Magdalene for class.

            

Afternoon class was more discussion of Twain, and since I wasn’t in the mood to really participate, I worked on my travel logs.  After class I took a dozing nap until 5:00, when I got ready to go to the rooftop bar of the nearby “Varsity Hotel.” Logan had made reservations for our group, and everyone dressed a little nicer for the event. Well, the level of dress varied a lot. I wore a casual dress shirt, green plaid, and jeans. Phil wore a collared polo shirt and jeans. Harry wore a woman’s blazer he found in the computer lab. Logan wore a full suit. It was an interesting sight to see our group. We were happy though, and everyone had a great time socializing on the roof. Joel, Josh, Dr. Graalman, and Dr. Decker all joined us as well, making it a more legitimate hang out. Eventually everyone got hungry, and groups set off to different places for dinner. 

Ryan, Phil, Makenzie, and I accompanied Joel, Dr. Decker, Dr. Graalman, and Joel’s wife Helena to “The Maypole” which is a little pub just east of The Round Church (Dude, that’s a round church.)  I hadn’t been to the Maypole yet, and after a difficult period of deliberation, I settled on trying their burger with egg and bacon.  It was an excellent choice, and I was happy to see that Phil and Ryan enjoyed the vegetable lasagna that they chose. I would have preferred the meaty lasagna, but that’s just me. Mackenzie has some sort of lighter “toastie” sandwich and we enjoyed talking to each other and eating while the older members of our dinner party chatted amongst themselves. Phil and Ryan finished their food and beers and decided to head back to Magdalene to work on our small assignments for class the next day. Mackenzie still had half a glass left of her beer so she was staying. I decided that I didn’t want to work on my assignments yet, that I didn’t like the idea of my sweet new friend Mackenzie having to walk back to Magdalene by herself, and that I just wanted to talk to the older members of our group more. So I stayed too. We all shared stories about the crazy things we’ve run into while traveling in planes, since everyone at the table turned out to be frequenters of air travel.  The conversation was friendly and funny, and eventually changed subjects onto “squirrel suits” or the spandex type suits that people wear when the base jump and fly through the air with their suits acting as a glider. Joel and Dr. Decker hadn’t heard of this so Joel used his phone to look up a video on youtube. We all crowded around the phone and watched, exclaiming in amazement at the danger.  Eventually all the glasses were empty and it was time to leave, so Mackenzie and I walked back to Magdalene, laughing about our instructors and each of us enjoying the company of a new close friend.

            

I spent the rest of my evening reading and writing. I was very tired, and was still fighting off some homesickness, so I wasn’t in the mood to go out to The Pick.  I turned in to bed fairly early, ready to start our last day of classes in Cambridge.