Monday night, Blake hosted a party in his room (it's HUGE), and we all had a great time hanging out and taking tons of pictures.... for some reason, we love to take crazy pictures when we all get together. Unfortunately, they were taken with someone else's camera, so I don't have all of them, but I did recover this one of me and my ladies:
This was also the night in which LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" became THE song of the final week. I'm still trying to learn how to do "the shuffle" properly, but a few of the guys I know have it down pat.
Tuesday night, I went on my first ever pub crawl. We made it to nine different bars and pubs around Cambridge over the course of five hours: King's College Bar, Pembroke College Bar, The Anchor, The Regal, Revolution, The Bathhouse, The Cow, The Vaults, and Ta Bouche.
Some people were playing a game called Pub Golf, in which people team up into pairs and everyone is given a score card. Each bar or pub is one "hole" and is assigned a set of drinks and a par; for example, the round might be one pint of lager and one shot of rum, and the par is 3. Each pair has to split the round up in whatever way they see fit (maybe one person will drink the whole beer and the other will take the shot) and they have to try to do it in fewer than three gulps. Points are awarded for the number of gulps under par (exactly like golf), and the pair with the lowest score at the end wins. It usually also involves some golf-type (or atleast preppy) clothing, and so I spent most of the evening surrounded by high socks and argyle sweaters. Note Moses's spiffy visor and polo shirt:
I personally opted not to play Golf (any game that dictates what I have to drink and how much and how quickly just seems like a recipe for disaster), but I tagged along for the evening and ordered a drink at two or three of the bars we stopped into. Despite the excessive consumption of alcohol on a few people's parts, it was a really fun evening and a great way to hang out with friends and visit a few places I've never been to before!
Wednesday night was notably quieter, both because of the previous night's shenanigans and because people were studying for their final exams the next day. However, one of my friends, Liz, was having to leave the program early due to some issues with her landlord (she needed to move into her apartment earlier than expected), so Wednesday was her last night in Cambridge. We decided to go out for dinner at a tapas restaurant on Bridge Street, and I had some really good tiger prawns! It was nice to go out and spend time with everyone, but unfortunately the evening ended pretty quickly, as most of us needed to study and Liz needed to pack.
Thursday afternoon was final exams (mine went quite well), and then it was time for the final Formal Hall and the end of term Bop!!! Both the dinner and the afterparty were fancy dress (American translation: costume party) and the theme was "A Night at the Movies." As you all know, I love dressing up, and my costume turned out wonderfully:
If you can't tell, I was Holly Golightly from "Breakfast at Tiffany's"! It was a really fun costume to wear, with my tiara and pearls and long gloves and red lipstick... I was feeling quite glamourous all evening. Weirdly, all of my friends and I ended up wearing shades of black and white:
Not everyone dressed up, but the four of us in the middle are Holly Golightly, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and Zoro. Leah was really excited to wear her Zoro moustache.... she's so strange! But see what I mean about the colors?!
Dinner was delicious and spirits were high as we all shared one last dinner together. My friend Daniel took this picture of me right before dinner started; it's supposed to look like one fo the more famous pictures of Audrey Hepburn as Holly, but due to the darkness of the room, my hair, gloves, and cigarette holder all disappear a little:
Still a great picture.... And after dinner, it was BOP TIME! A dance was held in the King's College bar, and we danced the night away. The program-sponsored dance ended at midnight, though, so we had to relocate to Lola Lo's, which is a Hawaiian themed dance club in the city centre. However, this was not before the infamous "streak on the quad."
Here in King's College, students are strictly forbidden from walking on the grass in the college courtyard, which is a big square grassy area just inside the gatehouse. So naturally, all the boys I know have been itching to walk on it from day one. After much careful planning, they decided that they would run across the grass on the final night of the program, just so they could say they did. And they did!!! A la "Chariots of Fire," they waited until the King's College bells rang midnight, took off all their clothes (luckily they decided to keep their boxers on!!), and ran across the grass as fast as they could! None of them got caught or yelled at, so I would say it was a success....
I ended up staying at Lola Lo's until about three a.m., at which point I made my way back to King's to hang out with Blake for a bit before he had to leave. He planned to head to the train station super early in the morning and wasn't going to go to bed, but I was so exhausted that I had to say goodnight and goodbye around 5:30 am. It was almost a tearful goodbye on my part; I held it together, but I'm going to miss him terribly! He was my costume buddy, my travelling companion, my cheesy chips partner on late night Trailer of Life runs (I could never eat a whole order by myself, especially late at night, so we would always share), and just a really great friend, and saying goodbye was tough.
By the time I finally went to bed, the sun was already rising (ack!!) but I managed to sleep in until about 10:30 before giving up on hope of more sleep. Today was an odd day- quite gloomy and rainy, and we spent most of it just sitting in the college coffee shop, talking and drinking coffee and enjoying the company for the last time. I had a great last lunch in England- a very traditional plate of fish and chips with peas- and then began my packing. I hate it; it's so depressing!
Now, I've just come back from dinner with my friends (England had such good Indian food!) and I'm now avoiding going to bed because that'll mean it's over!!! I have to get up early to finish packing and say goodbye to my friends before heading to the train station.... so sad! I'm going to miss everyone so much, and Cambridge, too! This city has been such a wonderful place to spend my summer and my first long-term trip abroad, and I am so glad to have been able to experience it the way I have.
Alas, it truly is time for bed; I don't want to be miserably tired for my journey tomorrow. It's a long one, too: taxi to train to tube to plane to car to home!! I'll let you know when I make it back to Cali..... Cambridge, it's been real. Thank you for providing me with such wonderful friends and experiences. Cheers!!!
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