), but I've flown over the channel to London twice within a month and had such wicked time over there!
So, London calling! Or more importantly, my best friend Maren and I were invited to Christa and Jay's wedding in Hunstanton, a little village by the coast 1.5 hours north of London. Given that we have met Christa in New Zealand 5 years ago and seen each other for the last time 4 years ago, Maro and I felt very honoured to be invited. We eventually decided to also see a bit of London (been there only once about 9 years ago when I was 13, haha!). Seriously, I had not much memory or expectations left whatsoever and sometimes I think that's the best reason to return to a place. And somehow it was. I still would never want to live in London, it's grey, rainy and way too busy, but we had the chance to couchsurf with three really nice Argentinians in a pretty neigborhood and more importantly I got to see my old flatmate from Madrid, Nuria, again.
She has just recently moved to the U.K., and it was absolutely wonderful to catch up with her. We haven't had much contact since I left Spain at the start of 2006, but with some people you just have this eternal bond and once you meet again it's right back.
And Nuri is definitely one of these people! Yay for international friendships that survive long distance and little contact.
Enough being sentimental, of course Maro and I also did a bit of sightseeing, wedding present shopping and meeting up with more of my lovely friends. My dear Miles came down all the way from Nottingham to hang out for one afternoon, before we had to head north for the wedding celebrations. It was really great to see him, too!Finally, we managed to get to King's Lynn standing up for 1.5 hours on a busy commuters train (have I mentioned yet that public transport in and around London is expensive and really crap?!?) and upon arrival we were picked up by one of Christa's sisters to give us a lift to their house.
And from that minute on we experienced what British hospitality means (I mean the Argentinian definitely wasn't bad either,
) but at Heacham Hall (where the wedding was) everyone was so super nice and relaxed (we're talking the night before the big day...)The wedding was a blast, a perfect mixture between formal and down to earth and it was so good to catch up with Christa and obviously meet her lovely husband Jay.
He's a musician and for that reason there was a couple of cool bands playing after the reception and what Maren and I noticed was that everyone really let their hair down and danced the night away!! We even ended up having a jam session with one of the bands (beatroots - check out their myspace), followed by a game of pool and a competition of table tennis at 4.30 am. Please do not ask for details, but yes there was some alcohol and lots of fun involved!Suprisingly the hangover on the next day wasn't too bad and further cured with fish & chips from the local pub, before Maren and I were off to visit my friend Gillian in Cambridge.
Once again we were overwhelmed by how sweet everyone we met was (Gillian even gave up her bed for us - thanks honey!) and Cambridge is a very cute and nice University town. We even got to do some punting on the river and I especially like the tradition that you have to have strawberry champagne while passing along all the pretty colleges. To be honest, this whole week in the U.K. completely exceeded my expectations and therefore I spontaneously decided to return for another weekend two weeks later, but that is a whole different story....
