7% Cambridge, 93% Norwich

For someone who lives in Cambridge, I haven't really spent much time there since I arrived. In fact, percentage-wise, I have spent 7% of my time in my new house in the most beautiful city in England and 93% of my time at Liam's house in my familiar surroundings of Norwich.

It isn't that I don't want to be in Cambridge - I love the city, what I've seen of it so far. But there is a definite pull here in Norwich. Yes, of course, Liam is a part of it, but Norwich itself has a certain charm...

Norwich was the first city I ever lived in outside of Tucson. It was a surprisingly easy transition to make, but I think it helped that I spent most of my first few weeks exploring the city as a tourist. After that, it was already like an old friend, and getting to know it even further made me feel like there was nowhere else that could compare.

And I know that feeling will change once I truly settle in to Cambridge. Living in new cities is something that gets easier with practice, like making crepes or poached eggs. But certain places and things in Norwich will always hold my heart. I get that fluttery excitement whenever I'm not there and I think about its quirky university campus, its market stalls with their cheesy colours, its overabundance of both pubs and churches, its hidden heaths and fields full of blackberries and punctuated by skate parks, and its beautiful rail station, which has on so many occasions been a gateway to somewhere new and then a welcoming sight as my train clickity-clacks back home to Norwich once more.

[An interesting fact about the Norwich Rail Station, which is a GORGEOUS Victorian building: it is older than the established state of Arizona! When you think about things in terms of how young America is compared to the ancient histories of England, it is bewildering, in such a lovely way...]