Cleverly Concealed Colchester

Who’s heard of Colchester? I happen to know from my very handy Great Britain Travel Guide that it’s the oldest recorded town in Britain! The first Roman colony was established there! It has a castle! I think it’s remarkable. This could be because it’s the first off-campus place I’ve been other than Cambridge and it’s all still new to me. Still, I think it’s a nice place to go, especially when the sun is shining. (! Yes, the sun was actually shining today!)

In Colchester we went wandering, shopping, and eating. Is there anything better? We ate at Nandos, which is apparently a chain, though I’ve never heard of it. It could be the wave of the future in the states. When I saw the chefs’ shirts I knew that I was destined to eat there and enjoy the food immensely. Why, you might ask? Check out this picture, and please forgive the horrible quality. I took it without flash to be as inconspicuous as possible.

See, this poor man is wearing a shirt that says “Grillers in the Mist”. Coincidence? I think not! I mean, the title of this blog just happens to be a play on a movie title, and their shirts also happen to use the same movie title(which is not too well known) to make a funny play on words? This cannot be a coincidence.

You might be wondering why I referred to the man in the picture as a “poor man.” This is because I realized as soon as I saw the shirts that I had to take a picture to prove that they really existed. So I blushingly asked him if I could take a picture of the shirt. He awkwardly started to smile as I turned on the camera, looking like he was afraid of me.

I tried to make him realize that I was not some sort of stalker and so explained “I don’t need to see your face, so don’t worry about smiling... I just want a picture of the shirt.” But by the time I finished what I was saying I was mumbling because I realized that I was making things worse. The mumbling, of course, made things more awkward still. (I don’t need to see your face, mumble-mumble-mumble) By the time I took the picture I was blushing profusely and couldn’t really look at him. Then, of course, the receipt took forever to print and we sort of stared off to the side the whole time. Needless to say, it was a harrowing experience. The grillers can be almost as scary as the gorillas. Right. So, want to hear some more about Nandos?

It’s Portuguese, and is actually really spicy! I got medium (the second hottest, so don’t make too much fun of me.) It’s that interesting sort of spicy where I think as I’m eating it “oh this is good... ah my lips are burning off... I want to slam my head against the table... why did I order this?! Yum! Will people think I’m weird if I start screaming and clawing at my mouth? This is so good!” Who said England has nothing spicy to offer?

Interestingly, the other people I ate with did not seem to have the same reaction to the food. There was therefore sparkling conversation wheeling about, which I contributed to with a few grunts and nods.

One of my favorite parts of the conversation: everyone was discussing shows from their youth (e.g. All That, The Magic School Bus, etc.) and the Bulgarian said she didn’t know any. When questioned further about shows she replied “we were communist 20 years ago! Why would we have these shows?” Everyone laughed.

After lunch most of the people left, except for five of us who went shopping. Score! I got a dress and above-the-knee socks for a total of 9 pounds! (13.5ish USD) We also just looked around, which was nice. My trip was quite pleasant and I would therefore recommend Colchester if one wants a relaxed day of strolling through a nice old British town.