Apparently, that is the cool way to refer to Cambridge (1223 is the area code)... so cool that no one knows about it.  Until now.

We had a whirlwind tour of New England last week, where we tried to get as much done as possible.  There were three or four big tasks we HAD to achieve, and the rest of the time was spent with family and friends.   Somehow, together, this was all very exhausting.  I guess it doesn't help that both Geoff and I were up until all hours doing work in the two or three weeks before we flew out to the States.  To have that amount of time away from the library was strange, and to leave the laptops and books (all right, most of them) behind gave us both pangs of anxiety.  To spend time with our families, however, was worth it. 

We flew into New York from Stansted, which was a first for both of us.  Stansted is less than an hour from Cambridge and the main terminal is about the size of Bradley International Airport.  There are trains that bring passengers to the departure areas, and the general feeling is stress-free, as opposed to the frantic feeling I get when I fly through Heathrow or Gatwick.  Unfortunately, there is only one flight a day to JFK, as airlines flying from Stansted mainly travel to the Continent.  The American Airlines terminal at JFK was also a relatively stress-free zone and so I appreciate that our travel went relatively smoothly.  We had heard murmurings that the AA flight to Stansted had been cancelled the day before, and multiple flights were delayed or cancelled as we waited for our flight.  Since Geoff had to leave for warm weather training the next day, we worried that our flight would be cancelled as well, but, thankfully, it wasn't.

It is difficult to grasp that I've been back for almost a week.  I spent much of the weekend trying to get back on the correct timezone and think I'm finally on British Summer Time. 

There are a few peculiarities about our flat that we have dealt with over the past six months.  When we first moved in, we found it odd that there was no exhaust fan in the kitchen, so we would open the windows every time we cooked anything and wave any smoke frantically away from the heat sensor so as to not set it off.  Two months later, I was cleaning and found a vent above a cupboard over the refrigerator (which made the vent really hard to see, unless you were standing in a specific spot in the kitchen).  I had noticed a switch on the wall opposite the stove, but had thought it didn't go to anything because nothing had happened in the past.  Upon climbing up to the vent and pulling a cord, and then flicking the switch, all of a sudden an exhaust fan was discovered!  Oh happy day.  (I cook a lot, and we were growing tired of living in fear of the heat alarm going off.) 

Today, I was sitting in the front room and for some reason was fiddling with the curtains and found an internet hub in the oddest location.  Mind you, we scoured this room when we first moved in, thinking that it would be odd to not have an internet connection in the room with a desk.  Somehow, we didn't think it would be hidden behind the curtain all the way in the corner.  I wonder what we'll find next week?