I spent a longer time in London than I typically spend in a city, but when you are visiting one of the largest cities in Europe, you need to spend a little more time exploring them.  My buddy Mike who I knew from conferences (I passed him the ESSCO presidency torch way back when) was living in Cambridge and so I decided to make a stop there on my way north!

I arrived in Cambridge with the aim to get there right when he was finishing work, so I met him at his office and then we headed downtown to grab some food and start checking out the sites.  It was apparently the Cambridge “Big Weekend” that weekend which means there would be fireworks and a famous band playing that evening.  We grabbed a beer from the store and a Burrito from the Burrito joint and had a nice afternoon picnic on the grass.

Following that we headed off to one of his favorite pubs, that had a great outdoor beer garden and a large selection of hand cranked taps to choose from.

The place was called the Cambridge blue and it was very enjoyable.  After a pint or two there we headed down the street to one of the breweries in town called Calverley’s  Brewery.  This is also the place we met up with Mike’s girlfriend Alex for the start of the next phase of our evening.

As it started to get a bit dark, it was time to hit up an off license, grab some beer and head to the park for the concert and fireworks show.

This year’s random semi famous band from the 80s or 90s (Apparently that’s typically who they aim for) was called Right Said Fred who if you don’t recognize their band name were famous for the song, I’m too sexy for my shirt.  They played a few of their songs, a few covers and then finished off their set with their one hit wonder (at least internationally)

We were then treated to a fireworks show!

After everything at the park was said and done, we decided it was time for a night cap on one of the bars on the way home.

Gotta love Real Ale.

That capped off the night as we had an earlyish morning ahead of us. (Well at least Alex and I did)

I had heard about Park Runs in the past and knew that they did one in San Francisco as I ended up in the middle of one running up stream like a salmon, but never really looked into them very much.  Alex had mentioned that there was one run every Saturday in one of the Park’s in Cambridge and so it sounded like a pretty cool thing to do.  It was about 5km to the run, the run was 5km and then 5km back, which sounded like a pretty solid Saturday morning to me.  Alex rode her bike beside me as we ran to the park through the countryside.

When we arrived, I was very surprised to see so many people there.  I forget what the total number was but it was for sure over 400.

The race is completely free and volunteer run and it’s a timed race with some really fast people, so you can really get a nice short speed run in by going to these things.  If anyone is interested more info can be found here. http://www.parkrun.com/

At the end of the race you are given a littel plastic number which signifies the place you came.  Then later on they scan the placement barcode and your unique one, and it merges the two in the database to give you your time.  It’s a pretty practiced system and does work pretty well.  I was impressed that it was completely volunteer run and when I looked at other locations around the world and the UK they are EVERYWHERE!  I’m not that fast at 5km runs but having someone to push me is always nice.  This was my first timed 5km and I think I did decently well, placing 33rd in just over 20 minutes.  Alex did pretty well too and best of all, we had fun!

I hadn’t really expected the waiting around and extra speed work, so the 5km back home was a bit tougher than I anticipated.  The morning was fun and I now make it a habit to see if there are any park runs in the area on Saturday mornings.

Once we returned home and showered, it was time to explore the old town of Cambridge.

We saw the old colleges and the punters on the river and it turns out that my first year College roomate also lives in Cambridge, so he met up with me downtown to do some more exploring.

I don’t think Kristof and I have seen each other since graduation, but it’s as if you 5 years hasn’t gone by.  It’s crazy how short a few years can feel.

After getting some food at the market and wandering a bit more, we headed to a beer garden on the grounds of a church where Mike and Alex were meeting us.  It was kind of cool drinking beer on the grounds of a working church for some reason, not sure why but I enjoyed it.

After that we grabbed a giant cheap bottle of apple cider and headed to the water for a nice chill Saturday afternoon!

We watched the floaters and the punters and general park goers until it started getting dark and then it was time to head home.

We took the scenic route and were treated to a nice sunset.

I then fell asleep watching the crown on netflix.

Sunday was my last day in Cambridge and we basically did what we had been doing the whole time there.  A whole lot of chilling, since the weather is so nice and the town of Cambridge is just set up for chilling.  First things first though.  It was time to FINALLY wash my hat.  It was getting pretty gross, so I think it was finally time. I did a first round with dish soap to get any grease out and then followed up with some washing powder in the sink.  It worked way better than I expected and came out looking “almost brand new”

After my laundry was finished, we headed to the park for a picnic.  While I was in Cambridge one of the guys in the Scooter Crew from Laos, Jack, reached out and said he was available for a beer that afternoon and that he lives just outside of Cambridge.  As I have said before, it is one of my favorite things to re engage with some of the people I had met earlier in my trip.

Alex and Mike enjoyed the picnic as well!

That Afternoon was the world cup finals and so we decided to find somewhere to watch the game.  We ended up getting seats a t a local pub and enjoyed the game with a few other people, that didn’t seem to care too much who won or lost.  I was for sure in that boat.

After the game we decided it would be fun to do a pub trivia night and Kristof was down to join.  So we had a team of 4 Canadians at an English pub quiz.  You can imagine how things turned out.  There were a lot of British questions we had no idea about but it was funny when there was a North American related question the English people would all struggle.  For example, not many teams got the question, how many points is a touchdown in american football?

We ended up getting second last place, but had a pretty fun time and was a great wrap up to the weekend.  The next morning I was catching a train to Birmingham via Bletchley Park!

But more on that later.

I would like to take this time to thank Mike and Alex for being fantastic hosts and I hope we can meet up again somewhere soon!

Ta Ta for now!