Cambridge and European discount airlines. (Apr. 24|25)

After a delicious proper English breakfast including beans, charred tomatoes, and bacon wrapped sausages we had to figure out what to do. It was raining quite heavily and was supposed to do so all day so Mairi and Rod gave us a whole list of things we could do in the area that would be mostly indoors. We did a little research on the internet (how did people even function before it was invented) and decided we would head into Cambridge to look around and visit the Fitzwilliam museum. We spent a couple hours wandering through the museum followed by a short walk through Cambridge to look at the colleges. Unfortunately, exams were going on so we couldn't do much more than poke our heads into the greens, but the were very impressive.

After we finished wandering around Cambridge, we headed to an eclectic little pub called the Queen's head in a near by town for a pint, some brown soup, and a game of bar skittles.

For our last night Mairi and Rod cooked up a fantastic Thai curry on noodles. We enjoyed a leisurely supper with plenty of good conversation a few bottles of wine, and an entire bottle of 18 year old port. We made it a reasonably early night in order to get up early to pack before Mairi and Rod gave us a ride to the airport.

Our many thanks to Mairi, Rod, Hollie, and Katie for a fantastic but tragically short visit and for being such wonderful hosts.

Not much to say about transfer flight to Edinburgh. It was about what you would expect for a no frills airline. I must say though, the service was at least as good as Air Canada's, and they were able to file their paperwork... Getting to the hotel was completely painless. A straight bus route from the airport to a stop about 4 blocks from the hotel had us ready to check in under an hour after landing. Oddly, our booking was done in 3 blocks, but shouldn't be any problem other than having to reactivate our keys every couple days. We spent the rest of the day wandering some of the streets around Edinburgh and checked out a couple places for drinks, including the most opulent place I've ever had a pint - the dome. To finish the night we found a near by pub for a pint and some traditional pub fair. Alaina went with a steak and ale pie, and Jeff went for the mash, haggis, and neeps.