There was still some direct sunlight when I arrived on Day 6 at the HI hostel in Cambridge, so I thought I'd go out and see something, but I bumped into a great fellow from Oxford who has the very mundane and boring job of sequencing DNA (!!!). So I nagged him for hours, discussing politics, technology, culture and more politics.
In the morning I met this indian guy who worked for Xerox and Microsoft and now for Symbian, and I started wondering what the hell is wrong (or actually, so right) with Cambridge. So I looked it up on the Wikipedia and discovered Sillicon Fen. Wow.
On that very morning I also discovered the Bloody British Weather,
getting well acquainted with the Bloody British Rain throughout the day.
I was roaming the streets aimlessly, in a singularly dreary, dark and gloomy house-of-usher mood, when I walked into the market square, where -holy sheep!- a second-hand book stall stood.
I had the most fun that can ever be had in the street under the rain, browsing through a nice collection of literary goodness, starting at 50p. I couldn't help it, and after some careful weighing, I took Bill Bryson's "Down Under" and the first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic. It was difficult restraining from buying loads of them (most of Terry Pratchett's books, Discworlds included, in very good condition at £1.50 each!), but just like Great A'Tuin, I had to think of the Weight. No sense in carrying more elephants on my back all the way through Scotland and Ireland.
The thing is, Cambridge is loaded with second-hand bookshops, which I just love. On the architectural hand, I took a long look around (mostly in the company of a great lass I met in The Backs) and there's not an awful lot to see, apart from the Colleges.
Entering any of them and taking a look will leave you several pounds farther away from a fortune, so the thought never crossed my mind.
"Onwards!, to glory!", said I, and hopped on a train to Nottingham.
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