Stratford-upon-Avon and China

Last weekend was chill, and fun. Lots of walking, walking walking. Friday, I didn't have class, so thursday night I took the train to Cambridge. Cameron had work during the day, so I stayed at his place watching Grey's Anatomy (anyone who has been keeping up with Season 4, I would be more than happy to share opinions and comments, hehe) and doing laundry. Afterwards, when he got home, we went for a walk around Cambridge. It's such a beautiful town. It doesn't matter how many other towns we visit in England, everytime I walk around city center in Cambrdige, I feel such peace and tranquility. It's a great place, small, manageable, pretty, it has history, it has high and low culture, it has the very convenient chains providing everything, as well as small locas stores. And a marketplace, selling everything from fruit, cheese, clothing, boots, jewelry, fossils and even tailoring and clothing adjustments. 

So we walked around, bought some stinky cheese (anyone who has seen Family Guy will know the quote "that's either bad meat or good cheese" haha), some fruit and continued walking around. Since I mentioned the other day that England gets no sunshine, there has been, of course, only sunshine. It's been great, it's lovely to walk around when the sun's out. 

The following day we went to Stratford-upon-Avon. It's a small, turisty town where Shakespeare was born and grew up. Of course it's turisty, hahaha. They still have the house where he was born, and it's silly and a bit lame, but it's still the original structure which is cool. But the best part is not the Shakespeare part, but rather, the town itself. It's a beautiful town. That's the best part of Europe, the small towns. They're so cute, it makes u want to put them in your pocket. It was a nice drive up, we had lunch there, walked around, saw some interesting shops, took pictures (i'll put them up soon) and then went home. That night, we went to London. 

My roommates were conveniently in Edinburgh that weekend so Cameron and I were able to stay in my tiny bedroom so that Sunday morning we could enjoy a quick day-trip to China , or China-town. As some of you may know, the Chinese new year started last week. The year of the Rat. London has the biggest celebration of Chinese new year outside of China. It was great. There was a parade a few blocks from where I work, in Trafalgar Square, then a celebration, and fireworks in Leicester Square and lots of things going on in Chinatown. We saw the parade. Oh and the British don't know the concept of arriving early for a free, public event that is expecting 300,000 visitors. We got there 40 minutes before the parade was suposed to start, we thought we were late. But no, there was NO ONE, ok, no one, in the streets yet. Actually the police had not even closed or blocked off the streets yet. So of course we had great spots. I took tons of pictures. It was a bit strange, getting all excited about seeing Chinese cultural icons when i'm supposed to be experiencing European culture. But I suppose when Europe's ambition drove the empires to expand so much, the consequences are being expeirenced now: there is no such thing as purely European culture, it now has African, Arabic, Asian and Hispanic influences.  

So we spend the day in China: had Dim Sum for lunch, got tons of free fortune cookies, although instead of telling me my fortune, they informed of curious tidbits of Chinese-related facts, hahaha.  We even got paper-mache little dragons that expand for a pound, hahaha. I had fun. Again, the weather was beautiful, so walking around was very enjoyable. We also left the crowd a bit and I showed Cameron the building where I work, and there is an art exhibition going on so we went in and saw the art work, and the building hehe. We had a pint and tea at a pub that opened in 1400-something. Then Cameron returned to Cambridge and I went home to get ready for the new week. 

This comming weekend, since it's Valentine's day, we are spending saturday and sunday in York (yes, as in where New York gets its name . . . haha). Apparently the Viking Festival is going on this weekend. Not exactly my idea of romantic, but they say York is very pretty. Off we go, we are taking the train to York. I love trains, haha. I'm not sure what to expect of the Viking Festival, so I looked it up online. Here's what it says: 

"The Festival sees hundreds of Vikings descend on the city and demonstrate battle-drills and training routines . . . " 

That scared me a bit: Vikings descend on the city?????? I didn't know Vikings were still around. I thought that was from like back in the day. It would be like saying that hundreds of Aztecs descend on Mexico City, and while there are people who are the descendants of the Aztecs, I didn't know there were Viking descendants . . . plus weren't the Vikings brutal? It shall be interesting. Ok, dinner time.