It is 1 am in the morning on Saturday and for once, I have the next two days work-free. After a hearty Friday night dinner with my colleagues, I am lying in bed thinking what am I gonna do the next 48 hours. Such days happen to come by quite rarely when you are onsite but when they do, it is absolutely vital that you make the most of them.
I just realize that a friend of mine, Nicky is in London that week. So I randomly text her and enquire about her weekend plans. Since she’s in town for only a fortnight, maybe she would have something on the agenda. And she most certainly did. She had planned to visit Cambridge with some of her colleagues. She cordially invited me to go along and after a couple of minutes of diddle-daddle, I agreed. We were supposed to meet at the Canary Wharf DLR station at 10AM and then take it from there.
With my chai latte in hand I met Nicky and we set off towards King’s Cross station to catch the hour long train to Cambridge. As we were in the tube, I realized, albeit a little late, that none of her colleagues had come along and to speak of colleagues, I hadn’t told mine about my plans either. They were asleep when I made the plan and I had snuck out before they’d woken up.Nicky and I met in high school. She’s a year younger to me, hails from Mohali and currently lives in Gurgaon where she’s working with one of the Big 4 accounting firms. It’s incredible how we live merely 10KM away in Gurgaon but were meeting after almost 1 year, 10 thousand miles away in London.
Soon we were on the Great Northern Rail speeding towards Cambridge. That is when I checked in on Facebook, notifying everyone, including my still asleep colleagues that I was going away for the day.
We disembarked on the platform and before starting our tour of the city, desperately hunted for a good place to eat as both of us hadn’t eaten a thing. We roamed around nomadically for a mile or two, searching for a good restaurant on Zomato and finally ended up at Novi.
An ultra-modern setting fused with an ‘earthy’ furnished look, it seemed like a good place for us to break our fast, plus, our table had a good view of the street so we were sold.
With the hunger pangs out of the way, our exploration commenced, one college, one museum and one avenue at a time.
First up were the Fitzwilliam museum and just across from there, the ‘Judge Business School’, which looked more like an overgrown kids’ play den than an MBA college.
These 2 took most of our afternoon. We were in no mood to eat anything but did fancy some afternoon tea and the best place for that, ‘Fitzbillies’, an iconic century old bakery/café was there for the pickings. With tea and lemon cakes and chocolate éclairs in our bellies, we resumed our tour. We roamed around as the hot afternoon sun alternated with dense clouds and every 15 minutes, a tiny hint of rain.
Our sunglasses were on, jackets ready and umbrellas open as we walked through cobbled streets and reached King’s college. The overarching giant of an estate, its towers were a thing of absolute beauty. The structure was so huge and spread out that wanting to see the whole spectacle we had to go around the whole block, taking us almost an hour to cover.
To rest our legs for a while, we sat down at the side of the river in front of Trinity College and saw people row rafts in the water which the Brits call ‘punting’. We sat there for I don’t remember how long and reminisced about a decade ago when we were still teenagers. If I had a memory pensieve filled up with my most treasured memories, most of them would be from the time when I was in high school and going down that path again, about what we used to do, wear and act like, was really wonderful.
As the sun began to set, we chanced upon Church of St. Mary the Great, a centrally located parish church. It was inside the church that defined the moment of the day for the both of us.
The choir was at a rehearsal session at the head of the Church and even without an instrument, it sounded just what I presume would sound like in heaven, if heaven were to exist at all. Sitting there, frozen into our seats listening to all the notes, the Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass, it was truly mesmerizing.
For some evening nibbles, we retired to La Tasca, a Spanish Tapas restaurant where we could hardly finish one single platter of chicken wings but downed two full pitchers of Sangria. Outside, we also saw the infamous singing binman.
A bit buzzed, we roamed around, soaking in the city as we came across, ‘The Fountain Inn’, a small pub where we picked up two pints of Guinness and walked up a small hill just opposite the pub, to sit and drink s’more.
From the hill, we could see the whole city and in the daylight even at 9PM, we had the full view of what our day had been spent around. Dark beer laden bottles in our hands, we sat down, brooding and reflecting. With a semi-loud clink, we put our bottles together and cheered to I do not remember what. Gulping down the beverage, we stayed there for half an hour looking over the architectural beauty that is Cambridge.
Soon enough we reached the bottom of the bottle and the hill. Picking up a box of nachos, caught the last train towards London (Aboard which, with no regards towards our fellow passengers, gorged on the crisps throughout the ride), fully content and glad we made this plan.
First up were the Fitzwilliam museum and just across from there, the ‘Judge Business School’, which looked more like an overgrown kids’ play den than an MBA college.
These 2 took most of our afternoon. We were in no mood to eat anything but did fancy some afternoon tea and the best place for that, ‘Fitzbillies’, an iconic century old bakery/café was there for the pickings. With tea and lemon cakes and chocolate éclairs in our bellies, we resumed our tour. We roamed around as the hot afternoon sun alternated with dense clouds and every 15 minutes, a tiny hint of rain. 
To rest our legs for a while, we sat down at the side of the river in front of Trinity College and saw people row rafts in the water which the Brits call ‘punting’. We sat there for I don’t remember how long and reminisced about a decade ago when we were still teenagers. If I had a memory pensieve filled up with my most treasured memories, most of them would be from the time when I was in high school and going down that path again, about what we used to do, wear and act like, was really wonderful.
As the sun began to set, we chanced upon Church of St. Mary the Great, a centrally located parish church. It was inside the church that defined the moment of the day for the both of us.The choir was at a rehearsal session at the head of the Church and even without an instrument, it sounded just what I presume would sound like in heaven, if heaven were to exist at all. Sitting there, frozen into our seats listening to all the notes, the Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass, it was truly mesmerizing.
For some evening nibbles, we retired to La Tasca, a Spanish Tapas restaurant where we could hardly finish one single platter of chicken wings but downed two full pitchers of Sangria. Outside, we also saw the infamous singing binman.
A bit buzzed, we roamed around, soaking in the city as we came across, ‘The Fountain Inn’, a small pub where we picked up two pints of Guinness and walked up a small hill just opposite the pub, to sit and drink s’more.
From the hill, we could see the whole city and in the daylight even at 9PM, we had the full view of what our day had been spent around. Dark beer laden bottles in our hands, we sat down, brooding and reflecting. With a semi-loud clink, we put our bottles together and cheered to I do not remember what. Gulping down the beverage, we stayed there for half an hour looking over the architectural beauty that is Cambridge.
Soon enough we reached the bottom of the bottle and the hill. Picking up a box of nachos, caught the last train towards London (Aboard which, with no regards towards our fellow passengers, gorged on the crisps throughout the ride), fully content and glad we made this plan.
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