I HAVE FOUND MY PUB DRINK – THE LAGER SHANDY

Those of you who know me (which should be about everyone reading this blog!!), probably know that I don’t drink a lot of beer. Following in my mom’s tastebuds, I tend to be more of a Kahlua girl. But I have come to accept that when in Britain, one must drink as the British do. In the months leading up to our arrival here, I had been training myself to drink beer without grimacing, but it was definitely a battle. I must admit that the Canadian gal in me felt ashamed of my progress. By the way, it appears that Canadians have a reputation abroad for being great drinkers; I stopped a couple of Bobbies (the British Police, the ones with the funny hats) the other day to ask directions and the place I wanted happened to be across from a pub. Upon hearing that I was from Canada, they saw fit to joke that they were surprised I didn’t know the location of all the pubs in Cambridge yet. Give me time, dear Bobbies, for I have been in the country but a fortnight and Cambridge probably has over a hundred pubs. But I digress – I started today’s narration with a tale of one particular pub.

After dinner, Ray and I thought we’d head over to the college pub, which is noted to be the best student pub on campus. And you all thought it was a coincidence that we ended up at Darwin College. We thought we’d ask our neighbours, Steve and Geirdre, along and they suggested a pub closer by that they had been to earlier in the week. So, we walked just around the block from our flat and found The Red Bull. The Red Bull is a typical British pub, replete with a low beamed ceiling, smoky interior, and jukebox playing music from the 80s and 90s. We had a nice time chatting about our different areas of research, where we were from, and in general getting to know each other. It’s nice to know people over here and particularly helpful to know people who have lots of extra kitchen and bedding stuff, who have offered to lend it to us if we ever need it!

While chatting, of course, we had to drink something so I ordered my first lager shandy. To you uninitiated, “lager” is what they call beer over here, and a “shandy” is 50/50 beer and lemonade. It sounds nasty but actually tastes quite good – apologies of course to those beer aficionados whose hearts break at the thought of beer being desecrated by lemonade. So it appears that I can drink with my head held high at future pubbings, of which I expect there will be a few in the coming months.