"It's my birthday!": Mustachios, Caipirinhas, and 24 Hours of Celebration

Talk about a crazy 24 hours! This was the first year I didn't celebrate my birthday at home with family and the usual friends. The different environment put a strange aura around the day, but from top to bottom, my 23^rd birthday was pretty amazing. I got to celebrate it in a gorgeous British city with amazingly fun and brilliant new friends.

It began at the beginning: midnight that is. I joined a handful of friends post-Newnham Garden Party (details on that later) at the Vaults for a birthday cocktail. At midnight they sang to me and I sweet-talked the bartender into giving me a free Vaultini (thanks, William!).

(PS: Please disregard the insanity that is my hair in the above photos. In typical Cambridge fashion, it was raining when we walked there.)

The morning and afternoon were rainy and quiet. I had a solo lunch at my favorite cafe and worked on my novel. Always a relaxing and invigorating time. I met up with a friend and we did some shopping (no luck there) and she joined me for some sugar-packed cinnamon rolls as a post-lunch dessert.

I had a birthday Skype chat with my madre when I got home. It was lovely seeing her face and getting birthday wishes, even if we're thousands of miles away. Huzzah for technology! Then I got ready for my birthday dinner extravaganza.

We went to a nearby restaurant called Las Iguanas, a chain that does nice Latin American-esque food. Quite a few people were able to come out to celebrate, despite other May Week obligations (“I didn't know you had so many friends!” one friend exclaimed. Thanks. Thanks a lot. :) ).

 The atmosphere was perfect. Bright colors, lively food, right on the river. But that was only part of the fun. The best part? One of my friends decided to make this a costume party. As a present to me, she bought all sorts of different props, including fake mustaches. I got the birthday crown and the rest of my obliging guests donned pirate jewelry, devil horns, animal masks, and, of course, outrageous fake mustaches. 

Some of the guys actually looked really natural in theirs. Me? Not so much. So I gave it to my wine glass instead.

The food was delicious. One food item I sorely miss in the UK is good Mexican or Cuban food. I ordered build-your-own fajitas. Amazing, amazing. For dessert my friend and I shared a peanut and carmel brownie sundae. Happy birthday to me indeed!

Then suddenly the waitress came over with a...birthday cocktail? I was terribly amused by the caipirinha she set down in front of me which sported a lit candle stuck into a lime wedge. You know you're in your 20s when the waitress doesn't bring you birthday cake, but a birthday cocktail.

We moved on to a very massive, very classy (so classy they made me take off my fake tiara before being let in...clearly they don't know the meaning of class!) cocktail bar called Baroosh (not to be mistaken with Ta Bouche next door (this caused confusion for all of us)). I got some very fancy-shmancy cocktails with fancy-shmancy names like “rumberlina” and “the queen of 'b'”.

Afterwards my mean friends convinced me to go to a very grungy bar/club called Wetherspoons. Though I grumbled a bit, I did enjoy bustin' my moves on the dance floor. The end of the night brought me to the Trailer of Life where I ordered my favorite burger in all of Cambridge. Probably a thousand calories per burger, but I didn't care. I just said (as is the catchphrase for all my friends' birthdays in Cambridge) “It's my birthday!” and when you say that, you can get away with anything.

Hey, I know my birthday's over, but it would be a really great present to me if you left a comment below. Who wore the best mustache? What's your best birthday memory? And what have YOU gotten away with just by saying, "It's my birthday!"?

Captains of "The Dauntless"

Hello, dear reader. Today I'm going to tell you about punting. For those of you who don't know, a punt is a flat-bottomed boat that is propelled through (shallow) water by a long pole (boating in a punt is called punting; the person propelling the boat is a punter). Since a really awesome river winds its way through Cambridge, it's not surprising that punting is one of the city's major tourist attractions, and one of the best ways for students to relax on a warm day. I'm fortunate enough to go to a wealthy college, so we have our own fleet of punts with awesome names, like Sulphur. But they day my friends and I decided to go punting, we ended up with The Dauntless. Awesome, right?

Experienced punters (like ourselves) know that to have a proper punting trip, one needs a few things: a.) a boatie hat (see photos), b.) nibbles (we brought cheese, bread, and grapes), and c.) drinks (wine and cider were our choices). We were the envy of many other punts that we passed who watched us lounging in the punt, sipping wine and wished they would have thought to bring something to drink. Tsk, tsk. Amateurs. 

We all took turns punting, and once Mark showed me the proper technique, I really got a hang of it. It's easy once you know what to do and if you have a strong arm and a good sense of balance, you can stand up there for ages (not quite as fun, though, as eating cheese and drinking cider inside the punt...). 

But there definitely is a technique to it. Here's what I've gathered: push the pole all the way down until it touches the riverbed and use that to propel the punt forward (at this point your hands should be at the top of the pole), then pull the pole out a bit, but use it to steer the boat and keep it centered on the river. Sounds easy, right? It is after a little bit. But even if you get the hang of it, there are still accidents. Below Mark demonstrates HOW to punt and Sophie demonstrates how NOT to punt.

I punted us all the way from Darwin College (where Mark hopped off to deliver a letter...we're like a floating mail service!) to Mill Pond and then turned us around (a bit tricky, but I managed). It was actually miraculously warm outside when this was going on (you can clearly see I'm not dressed for rain and wind) we got to soak up some sun (or get terrible sunburn, if you're me). 

Really, though, punting is one of the best and most unique ways to see a different part of Cambridge. We got to past by the backs of a lot of colleges, we got to see a lot of the major college bridges that pass over the Cam, we even got to see the newly hatched John's cygnets (they're actually nesting between Magdalene and John's, so I guess they're shared cygnets).

If any of my dear (non-Cambridge) readers come to to visit me, we will definitely have to go punting, now that I'm an expert at it. And by expert I mean I haven't fallen in yet.

PS: I would like to thank Sophie for some of these lovely pictures. I also want to point out that Sophie is a magnificent punter and the above photograph of Sophie vs. Weeping Willow does not do her punting skills justice. :)

The Other Place

Remember way back in the day when I mentioned that we had a swap with our rival college, Trinity? (At least, I think I wrote about that. Well, whatever). Turns out we have an even bigger rival: Oxford, also (affectionately) known as "The Other Place" (fun fact: they also refer to us by that nickname). Though Oxford makes up half of the Oxbridge name, Cambridge has always been considered (by Cambridge folk and The Guardian!) the better of the two universities. Still, as they say, don't knock it till you try it. So in mid-May we finally got around to completing our Balliol-John's swap (Balliol College, you will remember, is St. John's sister college at Oxford). And though I'm still a big fan of ol' Cam, I must admit that Oxford was awfully nice.

After a treacherously long bus ride (through Milton Keyes no less!), we arrived in Oxford and went on a mini-tour. I got to see the beautiful Bodleian Library, which I must say is nicer and less imposing than ours. 

We wandered around Balliol College, where my good friend went as an undergrad. The college was beautiful and had a lot more greenery than John's does. I even got to walk on the grass! Believe me, that's a treat. 

The best part of our mini-tour was visiting the covered market and getting cookies from Ben's Cookies. Oh. Mah. Gawd. It was half-baked and super gooey and greasy and everything I could ever want from a cookie. It was amazing.

All right. Enough of that. I'm making myself hungry.

After touring a bit, we went back to Holywell, the housing for Balliol. We got all dolled up and indulged in some pre-dinner cocktails at the famous Duke of Cambridge (I know, a bar with Cambridge in the name, located in Oxford?) and then pre-dinner champagne at Hollywell.

Dinner was held at the college in their gorgeous Hall. Balliol is arguably the oldest college in Oxford, and the Hall was incredibly impressive. Dinner was delicious from start to finish. Starter of asparagus, tomato, greens, and balsamic. Main of pork, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. Dessert of rhubarb and custard. Mmmm....

Sheesh. I'm making myself hungry again.

In typical English fashion, it began to rain as soon as we left Hall. We faced the turbulent weather and went back to the Holywell bar before trekking out again to go dancing. At the club I got the bartender to make me a never-before-seen drink I named the “Dean”. Don't know what was in it but it was pink and sweet and had practically a whole fruit salad on top of it.

The night ended with cheesy chips from a street vendor, some singing in the streets, and lots of puddle splashing. Ah, English rain.

We were up surprisingly early the next morning, but it was probably because we were anticipating the Balliol brunch in the MCR. I filled up on bagels and bananas and tea. We talked about Renaissance Fairs and hillbillies and man-eating catfish. It was entertaining. Then a group of us went to do some more touristy stuff. We started off at Magdalen College, which supposedly has a deer park. I didn't see any deer when I was there so I'm convinced they just tell tourists that so they'll visit. 

Next we snuck into Christ Church College (it was officially closed to tourists because of a wedding), pretending to be students of the college. Christ Church is famous for having the Hall used in Harry Potter. Sadly, because of the wedding, the Hall was closed off. 

After evading suspicious porters for a while, we went to Worcester College, home to Emma Watson (Hermione Granger). Again, missed out, and didn't get to see her, but did enjoy the absolute gorgeousness of the college.

And that, my friends, is Oxford. The city is like a mini-London, much bigger than Cambridge, has better cookies and more Harry Potter stuff going on. I would love to go visit again (if I didn't have to take the X5 to get there) and know I probably will eventually. In the meantime, I am going to greatly enjoy my home, the (I believe) better half of Oxbridge. :)