finding JOY overseas: Chris Curtis: The best punter I've ever been punted by.

If I didn’t love BYU so much, I’d be considering an immediate transfer to Cambridge University. Honestly.. one of my favorite days thus far!

We got to the campus at eleven and were released until five to do as we wished. The weather was exactly what it normally is – beyond freezing – but I had so much fun, I didn’t even care! The way Cambridge University is set up, there are tons of different colleges inside of it that you must separately apply to. I compared it to the way BYU has different schools.. like the school of business and music programs. So we went around looking at the different colleges first. They each have entirely separate churches and types of buildings and it’s all right along the beautiful River Cam.

As we kept walking it kinda turned into a little college town with shops and markets and tons of fun stuff! We went into a fun fudge shop for free samples, got lunch at a cute little restaurant (and I got 2 fried eggs on toast – SO GOOD! I’ve been long overdo for some nice eggs!! Mmmm..) with an extremely babe-alicious waiter, and then all bought some Cambridge clothing of some sort. There was a hilarious guy at the fudge shop who was making strawberry fudge right there in front of us, so we stayed in there forever laughing at him. The best part of the day however was the punting!

I had no idea what punting was until today, but it was quite possibly the best 8 pounds I’ve spent. For those of you as ignorant as myself, it’s basically a boat ride/gondolier ride around the river that runs through the campus. There were 10 of us that did it together and at first we were super nervous because it was so STINKING COLD outside we weren’t sure we’d even enjoy it. But guess what?!? They provided beautiful red blankets free of charge. Score. Elise, Me, Liz, and Carly sat in the very front (furthest away from the punter dude – which is important for the success of our trip) and had a perfect view of the river. Now our punters name was Chris and quite frankly… I think a 3 year old girl could’ve pushed us faster and in a straighter line. We were more like drifting than being pushed. Sometimes I had to turn around to see if he was actually pushing us with a stick. Haha so we kept hitting the wall and it took us probably 3 times longer than normal!

The four of us up front were laughing and joking the entire time and had a blast taking pictures of each other and everything though, so we didn’t mind the increase in time. The scenery was beautiful.. as you’ll see from my pictures.. and I was eventually glad that Chris was as bad as he was. It provided some good entertainment.

Other than that… Carly was bitten by a savage duck, Elise made her first joke, and we all bonded as we kept each other warm. Poor Chris had been rowing all day and I’m sure his arms were killing him… so we forgave him in the end and got a picture with him! Truth be told... he was the best punter I’ve ever been punted by.

I forgot to mention this! We stopped at the only American War Memorial in Britain and it was So amazing. I didn't realize how much I missed America until I saw the American flag waving. I had so much pride for my country!