Three Months in Albion

21.06.12 (20 June recap, Cambridge, UK) - The coach driver from Heathrow to Cambridge chats me up on the four-plus-hour ride and I get to know quite a bit more about coach drivers than I probably needed to. That said, he is a friendly fellow with a good sense of humor, and I feel like he enjoyed showing me the various sites along the route. We get a long discussion about the Champion's League and he begrudgingly concludes that Germany or Portugal will probably take it, but not before England gives Italy a good reaming.


I arrive in Cambridge via coach and begin the walk from Parker's Piece to Chestnut Grove. Old terraced buildings abut the green, and the streets are narrow with a distinctively English flavor as small business buildings appear alongside the residential. The Google Maps route takes me through a festival on Midsummer Common, replete hit the bull's-eye games and jump-bungeeing and rides churning its riders in tight, tight circles. I cross the River Cam (the rowers at the Boathouse Court prepare to cast off) at Victoria Avenue and continue north along Chesterton Road. (The Common festival, I later learn, is probably attached to the ongoing Maypole celebration.) After a navigation error of walking down the wrong street, I finally arrive at my host family's door. I knock and the door opens and I'm welcomed in with a warm smile.

After a much needed shower

My host family are the Barlas's, Bayram (father), Nurten (mother), and Berfin (daughter). [Pictures will be forthcoming.] I'm greeted warmly  by Nurten (pronounced like Newton) and Berfin, who is busy up the stairs on the computer, offered a pair of slippers, and shown to the room and finally where I can shower. The sound of a shower is too appealing, and I put off blogging and emailing for the time. A shower is what I needed. A nine hour flight and a four-and-a-half drive made me unpleasant to the olfactory senses.

The Barlas's live in a three-bedroom, two-storied house with a modest garden (they say garden instead of 'back yard'), a roomy kitchen and cozy living room area. At the top of the stairway they have set up a computer and next to that are the three bedrooms (one where I am currently residing). The toilet is in a room downstairs adjacent to the kitchen but accessible through the yard (here is also the shower).

After I freshen up, Nurten offers me food. I scarf down flank steak, onion potato mash, and green beans (really, really good mashed potatoes), and wash that down with apple juice. I take about half of the food (more than sizable portion) and she says that I should have as much as I want:  I get the feeling she wants me to eat it all! I realize that I am really, really hungry and go for the rest of it, just leaving a few green peas. I thank her and head upstairs to finish unpacking.

My bed, with bag unpacked and a towel

My desk

I feel as though there's so much that the family and I talked about that night that I'm probably going to be at a loss to repeat it all here. I won't do that. Suffice it to say that I talked about Seattle and my family, we compared cities we knew, we talked about novels (the Barlas's are fans of Orhan Pamuk and I'd read The Black Book some time ago, and of course there were copies of the Twilight series in Turkish on their bookshelf). Besides this, we watched a show on television called "Come Dine With Me" and that Gypsy Wedding show (of the US). I feel right at home; I'm going to enjoy it here.