October 30, 2011 - Trip to Ely with Lorna!

Although today was an amazing day in Ely, I'll try to keep it brief for those of you who enjoy skimming my blog (you know who you are). Anyways, I slept super late, but ended up having a very productive day since I woke up early to go to Ely with Lorna (Columbia Exchange student). Had she not been coming with me, I would have totally used that extra hour (since we had daylight savings) to sleep a LOT more...

Anyways, train services weren't running, which I didn't realize, so we got to take a gorgeous 45 minute bus ride (and we were sitting in the very front with the giant bus driver window in front of us). We only spent 3 hours there, but that was more than enough time to see this beautiful and quaint town.

Ely is most famous for Ely's Cathedral (slightly obvious), which we posed in front of at many different angles since they all looked so different...it's easy to forget that it's actually the same building...

We actually went inside as well, which was free since it is a Sunday. Its just as grand and majestic on the inside as it was on the outside. Kind of amazing that this was all built by 1375! I love Gothic architecture, so I guess I chose to study abroad in the right place...

And another picture of me posing. I look super awkward sitting there. This is probably one of my most unnatural pictures...

We also felt obligated to check out Oliver Cromwell's House since its the only other major attraction in Ely. It didn't look quite as appealing so we didn't actually go inside..

This was just a chocolate shop that we ran into on our way to the river. They all look so delicious!

The plan was to eat at a restaurant along the river, but we didn't find any good ones so we just took pictures and played with some dogs instead. We ended up going to Pizza Express for lunch, which is apparently an Italian chain here, and it is SO good. I have to go to the one in Cambridge once more before I leave.

We walked through this trail that gave us some more gorgeous views of the cathedral. I love the colors that the leaves add to an otherwise monotonous cathedral.

It was hard to get a picture without also getting trees in the picture... I really wanted to go climb a hill that was only half a mile away and get more pictures, but we also wanted to get back in time to get some amount of work done so we decided not too. It only took us 20 minutes to get back to St. John's since the trains were running by this point. I have said this many times, but the country side is SO beautiful here. Anyways, I got back and watched the women's open USA ultimate nationals (with Radka, for bits) which was pretty awesome. I managed to stupidly miss my Innoworks HQ skype call because I forgot to account for daylight savings in the time difference. GAH I was even sitting at my computer and I didn't think about it!! And now I'm doing my laundry and studying...

a word to describe my day: productive :)