California Justice

I spent more time outside of Germany last week than I did inside. After being home from Paris for two days, I had to go to the U.K. for work starting Wednesday. I stayed the weekend and visited my good friend Gil, whom I hadn't seen since he left for the UK a year and a half ago.

Gil showed me around his hood in Bury (pronounced Berry) St. Edmunds. We had lunch at one of his favorite pubs, then took me around to the sites. Our first stop was the Greene King brewery (Oh come on, haven't you all learned by now?). They make Old Speckled Hen and one that I tried later and really like called Abbot Ale. Unfortunately, the last tour had started 10 minutes before that and the next one wasn't until Saturday, so we perused the gift shop then on to the old British stuff we went.

My Mecca

We visited St. Mary's church where Mary Tudor, Queen of France, was buried. We also visited the Bury St. Edmunds cathedral and the grounds where the former abbey stood. It was enormous and now is pretty much a park with some parts of the abbey still around the gardens. There are even houses that were made from portions of the old abbey, which apparently go for more that 1 million Great British pounds.

The houses, which used to be part of the Abbey.

Saturday we had breakfast at this restaurant called California kitchen or something like that. I was excited because we could order an American breakfast, which I miss. I had the waffle and it was delicious. Gil had an enormous layered something or other of eggs, cheese, meats, and to make it healthy, tomato. After that, we boarded the train and headed for Cambridge.

Cambridge is a university town (kinda like Yale or Harvard) with an absurd number of tourists on a Saturday. We found our way from the train station and then went to the chapel and the grounds of King's College.

King's College Cathedral and grounds

There are canals that surround Cambridge and you can either be guided on a punt (the boat) or you can rent the boat yourself. They're similar to the gondolas in Venice as there are no paddles, just a huge pole you propel the boat with by putting it against the bed of the canal and pushing off, all while in a standing position. We stood and watched these people try to to do it themselves and I think if we had stood there all day, I'm certain we would have seen someone fall in. We did hear a woman utter, "tell me when we're going to crash," since she clearly couldn't steer the boat very well.


After doing some more wandering, we decided to hit The Eagle Pub and forgo dealing with the crowds. It has a ton of Air Force patches, stickers, and graffiti from WWII, as it's an "RAF pub." There are bunch of AF personnel, both from the USAF and from the Royal AF, who frequent the pub. They had good food and I tried Abbot Ale there. We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon and rainy evening catching up, eating, drinking, and of course making fun of people.

It was a great visit. You can see all of my photos, including some of the funniest pictures I've taken to date for my funny file. I'll host next time, Mr. La Fleur de LEAF!