Lazy Saturday. Translation: Catch up on Blogging.

Hello lovely followers!

It's a rainy day here in Cambridge, which means I slept in, got some delicious food with Keith, and am ready to blog!

First thing's first: Harry Potter was absolutely phenomenal. I saw it in 3D, and so I was expecting to really dread it, (not the plot, but the 3D) but it was incredible. They didn't try to make every single thing 3D, so it made it so the effects were really cool (my favorite, when Voldemort blew up at the end and Sally and I tried to catch the pieces).

Family photo on quiz night. Left to right: Keith, our squib, Alexa, our slytherin, Myself as Luna Lovegood, Sally as Ginny Weasley, Katie as Hermione, and Emily as I can't remember who!

Also: I am so glad that i found Harry Potter soulmates for this trip. We took the family photo above at quiz night! It's a really cool tradition here in GB. People go to pubs on quiz nights, create teams of 6, and compete for trivia. There's also a competition for the name, which is supposed to be punny and as sexual as possible. An example they gave us was: Quizzedinmypants, which I just thought was hilarious. We decided to make it HP themed though, so we went for "Quizzengamot." And we did excellently! For the most part. They told us it would all be about Harry Potter. And it was, until we got to the "Muggle Studies" category. Now the problem with this was that we were not prepared to answer questions on muggles! And considering we went to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, we didn't get any of the Muggle Studies questions right. So we ended up in 4th place (But we didn't miss a single HP question). So we got ice cream to eat our feelings.

Family photo on the hallowed grass: Sally, Alexa, Emily, Katie, Travis, Me.

On to Friday, another great night. We had our second formal dinner, this time at King's College. The dining hall is phenomenal. So beautiful, in fact, that it was the 1st choice as the Great Hall for HP. Cambridge turned them down, so the Great Hall in the movies is at Oxford. But ours is absolutely beautiful. The dinner was fabulous (my first time I've ever had risotto) and we got to walk on the grass at King's College!!! Now this may not seem like a big deal, but believe me, it is. The only people who get to walk on this grass are fellows of the University (or if you can convince a Fellow to walk with you). But our drinks were served on the grass! This equates to free wine and standing on holy ground. It was awesome.


After that, we went to Cambridge's most famous pub. The great thing about GB is that I can say my trip to a pub last night was educational and historical in nature! The pub was a favorite of European and American soldiers during WWII. The airmen took lighters, and made grafitti on the ceiling! It's still standing today. It's just yet another example of the intrinsic beauty in all of GB.

This leads nicely into my thoughtful points for today's blog: I am in love with Cambridge. I honestly have never felt like I fit in better in my life than here. I truely feel a sense of belonging. Now I know this is cliche, American girl travels and finds herself fitting in on the road and a sense of belonging in different cities across the nations, but it really is true. I like being what I've decided is a citizen of the world. Confining myself to one place would be a shame, simply because of all the cool things there are to learn and see outside of Mid-western Ohio. Just being in Cambridge places me amongst the top academically in the world, and it has been an institution of higher education since 1209. That's over 800 years, and almost 4 times as long as America has been around. Which I have to say is a pretty excellent opportunity. You can walk around town, not experiencing anything. You can go day to day not seeing the beauty and opportunities around you. Or you can take it in. You can open your eyes, ears, and yourself to learn from the environment, and every single person you run into.

"Where your treasure is, there also your heart will be" -JK Rowling.

More later, love for now, Tess