Cambridge! Flash mob! Flash mob!

So, I went to Cambridge last Friday with my flatmates, and I must say: this city has restored my belief in England as a country. It's just an hour by train from London, but it's completely different. No people running so fast as if they were trying to go back in time, no six lane streets that are so wide you can't even see the other side and maybe best of all: you can buy both drop and stroopwafels there. Hooray for that.

And as you can see in the picture, the university (Cambridge university, not the other one that is being advertised on the train station, buses and every flat surface area of a certain size) is absolutely amazing. My flatmates took some pictures, so I'll try to post those somewhere next week, when they've uploaded them. The day started out great with sunshine and a temperature which didn't necessitate winter coats any more, so we rented some bikes and biked through Cambridge and some of the surrounding country side (whilst discovering that the lack of exercise in London really has had a negative effect on my ability to ride uphill). Biking on the left side of the road didn't create any problems for me, as opposed to one of my Hungarian flatmates whom we had to keep reminding that right wasn't the right side here.

The reason we went to Cambridge together was because Zsuzsi just finished her exams and was going home for three weeks, to get married to her fiancée. A good reason for celebration I would think. As Zsuzsi is also completely obsessed with anything even mildly related to Jamie Oliver, we decided to go to lunch at his recently opened Italian restaurant: Jamie's Italian (the recipes happened to be a bit more creative than the restaurant's name). The food was absolutely amazing. Only comment: there wasn't an awful lot of choice for vegetarians, and if you're vegan you'd be stuck with truffle chips (which were great by the way) and a side salad. The dessert were, if possible, even more amazing. I had a piece of lemon cheesecake, which was the best cheesecake I ever had: it was soft but filling and the lemon was really distinctive and, lemony. Afterwards, I also finished three plates of leftover tiramisu, as you just can't leave Jamie Oliver desserts to go to waste.

On Saturday, I participated in a flash mob. Ilse was supposed to join me in this organised mayhem, but a slight drizzle of rain (and weekend closures at the tube) got the better of her, so I went by myself. The event was supposed to take place at Trafalgar square, at 1.15pm, somewhere near one of the fountains (there are two ginormous fountains on that particular square). As the square is pretty big, is home to loads of tourists every day and there were serious doubts about the amount of people that were gonna turn up, I wasn't quite sure I'd be able to find the right place in time, especially since there was a guy preaching some bible related stuff in front of the two fountains. Luckily, as I got closer to Mr Bible guy, I suddenly found myself surrounded by indie kids with an above average amount of camcorders in stead of the usual Japanese tourists. The results you can see in the vid below. The thing was started by one guy and his friend re-enacting a scene from spaced, which then resulted in a slow-motion finger gun fight (which was supposed to take about 10 to 15 minutes, but in reality lasted under a minute). Bible guy (in the far left on the vid) didn't even falter, like people start dying in front of him on daily basis. I conveniently 'died' against the fountain, as I the idea of lying on Trafalgar square wasn't that appealing to me. The faces of the people who were standing in the middle of the group but had absolutely no idea what was going on were indescribable and absolutely priceless.