Cold-chester.

It’s so remarkable how university life is just essentially a few hours of your day, but still manages to be so encompassing in the amount of work needed to get done.

It’s spring break at the moment which means the naked trees have developed some decency and have begun clothing themselves in white, purple and an assortment of pretty colours; which means the sun is out a lot more and the days don’t get dark so quickly; and it means more mini photoshoots by my neighbour’s front door; and it means spontaneous study picnics in the park only to retreat 10 minutes later because it’s still bloody cold, and I guess that it supposedly means more time to travel and blog and study and cook and organise my life, but hours fly by and it’s a marvel to imagine how somewhere, across the world, or maybe even just a few minutes away, someone’s potentially developing the cure for cancer slash working on the next Harry Potter and I’m here rotting away, watching Glee with my housemate having chicken curry we made from a paste in a jar that said it expired in February.

(@tiffanykml)

Aforementioned mini photoshoot!

If you thought summarising a judgement was difficult, try explaining to someone who hasn’t seen Glee that half the characters are gay, a number of them are transgender, and all of them have pretty much dated each other.

But I’m not here to talk about Glee and their horrible Season 6 storyline that I’m only following because I’ve already gone so far, but I’m here to tell you that if anyone asks where they should go for a fun, exciting day trip, the answer would be:

Definitely not Colchester.

To its credit, we headed there on a Sunday, where most shops were closed and we were tired out of our minds after an exhausting reading week, so with all things considered, it was a lovely half-day out. Lovely as it was, to our relief, we managed to board the 5pm bus home, despite planning for a 7pm return.  

Peaceful and… English.

Band of Asians!

Whilst these looked like legitimate tourist shots, it was just a bridge by the side of the road, and we had to wait for random passerbys to help photograph us. Haha, fortunately for us, anything in England’s postcard worthy.

Because.. we’re law students?

Colchester was such a small town with such deceptively promising signs!

Dutch quarter, they advertised.

And so, it was the first thing on our list and after walking and walking around the area but not seeing anything particularly Dutch, we stopped a policeman and found out that the area of houses we’ve been in.. was in fact, the Dutch Quarter.. ???

Yay!

Very Instagram-worthy doors, I must admit.

One of the many ‘Andrea taking pictures’ shot I captured that day.

With a house painted the most gorgeous blue! Can’t quite vouch for its Dutchness, and wasn’t quite sure if it was residential.. but hey, tourists gotta tourist.

Mich Mich.

Wanting to experience the English Sunday in all its glory (empty streets and closed stores), we headed to a pub for lunch because.. we didn’t really have much of a choice (after pathetically waiting outside a Mexican place that said it would open but didn’t, even calling its HQ even more pathetically outside the closed store only to have it go to voicemail, and at one point, pressing our faces against the glass to be absolutely certain that it wasn’t open).

OMG SO EXCITING.

I really enjoyed myself that lunch, which really goes to show it doesn’t quite matter too much where you are as long as you’re with good company. (And good food!)

Vegetarian breakfast!

Can’t ever go wrong with some BBQ Ribs.

And my monstrous mixed grill of beef, pork, chicken, and an assortment of other greasy goodness. (Duh, peas went untouched!)

And a glorious cookie pizza to share.

Wide smiles and full stomachs. Whilst everyone else in the pub yelled at the broadcasted football match.

And Andrea’s at it again.  

Colchester was somewhat of a tourist friendly town, I suppose with a small castle opposite their Natural History Museum (which was a total of.. one room) and a gigantic park.

Fabulous friends.

With less fabulous prep.

Plenty of opportunity to play with squirrels..

THEY WERE EVERYWHERE!!!

Gigantic dogs as well!

But yeah.. Still not too high on the recommend list.  .___.

We spent the rest of our day having fun at the best playground I’ve been to in my entire life, with adult-sized swings and mini ziplines, finding ourselves lining up behind five year olds to use the park trampoline and spin on the spinny things, and it really was no wonder that by the time we were done, we were completely and utterly spent. Shattered. Knackered. *insert any other English slang for tired*

Maybe it takes going somewhere with not much to do, to really find ways to have fun. And it was.. Ahh, literally cold Colchester. Who knew a quiet town like you would help make such good memories? I can imagine just years from now, one of us saying to the other, “Remember the time we went to Colchester and did absolutely nothing but play in the playground? Ahh, the good old days.”  

I’ll hopefully be back here with another post soon because I’m off to Edinburgh in a couple of days, and am itching to blog about my visit to Stratford, so don’t give up on me yet, okay?

I’ve always been a blogger and I intend to keep at it for as long as I can, even with Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter taking over, it isn’t quite the same as this! If anyone’s been looking for a hobby, I challenge you to blog!  

Till next time!