Hi everybody! I’m Nathan Assaf, and back across the pond, I’m a senior CS and English major and creative writing minor. Over here, however, I am your guide to what the students have been up to as we make our way to continental Europe and what we’ve been doing on the side.

Aside from a couple quick lessons in hotel lobbies and the terrible, no-good, very bad exam tomorrow, actual “classroom” time has been kept to a minimum as we move from hotel to hotel. So what have us students been up to in our free time?

Well, it’s been quite a bit of travel, for sure. Tragically, I have very little to report of the ferry ride across the channel because the motion-sickness pills I took on the bus to the pier had the mercy to knock me out well before our little raft had even started moving. And by little raft, I mean essentially a small cruise ship. Easily a 7/10, would sleep there again. I am immensely grateful to the anonymous benefactor who placed four chunks of a Toblerone bar in my hand for me to discover in a brief moment of semi-consciousness. Whoever you are, for your magnanimity, you have my eternal gratitude.

Bayeux, our destination in Normandy, was a quiet little town. There, some of us stopped by to see the Bayeux Tapestry, a historic depiction of the Norman conquest of England. Tragically, pictures of the tapestry itself were forbidden, but let me tell you: comics have come a long way since then. For modern comic recommendations, see Wolfman and Perez’s run of the New Teen Titans and the graphic novel Saga by Vaughan and Staples.

Also in Bayeux, we stopped by several memorials of the D-Day invasion. The British cemetery in particular pulled at our heartstrings, where unlike the perfectly uniform American headstones we saw earlier, here families could engrave a few words on the fallen soldier’s tombs. I was not the only one teary-eyed by the time we solemnly filed out of the cemetery. None of us felt like taking any pictures.

On our trip to Paris, floating across the channel was only half the struggle. After our brief stop in Normandy, we traversed ~220 kilometers of tracks to get to get to the City of Love on a rather cramped train. Once again, I conked out mere seconds after sitting down (thanks again, Dramamine), but according to some of my more alert peers, it was “like playing Tetris” with the luggage and other passengers at every stop. I woke up next to a rather unusual seatmate: our luggage!

From my report, it may sound like all we do is stare out windows (or portholes) all day, but that couldn’t be further from the truth! We went punting (twice!), hunted down reports of Cryptids that may or may not just be DLN in weird poses, and saw a big deal about nothing on stage (and an equally big deal about something else entirely). Back in the UK, those of us with the 5-drinks-a-day subscription to the Pret a Manger coffeeshops spent no small amount of time chasing our quotidian caffeine allotments. Tragically, I haven’t seen that beloved white star or crimson-colored banners in a while, but in Cambridge and in London especially, it was fun to see how many cups you could pick up while walking to class or from a scheduled event. (I had originally planned to devote this whole blog post to the amazing coffeeshop deal, but as I’m technically only supposed to write about what’s happened in the last week, I’ll just say this: stick with the Chai Latte, pass on the Matcha, you can’t go wrong with the Flat White, and the Red-flavoured smoothie is best.)

No, aside from the bit on transportation, this post is dedicated to the hobby that appears to be taking the group by storm. It’s a modern classic: judging by the looks of things, you’d think it were the summer of 2016 all over again! That’s right, Pokémon Go is the group’s latest obsession. Exploring new cities is already fun, so why not take a cute little monster along with you for the ride? That’s what this group decided, caught in celebration after taking down a tough opponent.

To all who may be considering joining the ranks of Pokémon Go players and starting your own journey, be warned. It’s not all fun and games. Stay vigilant! You could wander off, or bump into whatever that thing is. How terrifying!

Anyway, that’s all for this week. We’ve just had our first taste of France, and I’m sure we’ll have more to report about Paris once we get our break next week. Pret subscribers, keep caffeinated. Pokémon players, catch ’em all for me. Good luck on your exam tomorrow! And everyone, at home or abroad, stay safe and have fun this summer!

This is Nathan Assaf, signing out.