My first job in london wasn't in london at all, for about 2 months I was commuting for 45 minutes north east to cambridge. Well the express train was 45 minutes - with all the cycling and connecting trains it was more like 2 hours door to door on a good day!
We had been to Cambridge before, so I knew that it had more of a country attitude to it. For me, it was nice to get away from London every day. I noticed this graffiti from the train on my first trip, setting a nice tone for my interview, and the rest of my contract actually!
My bike was doing well for me. On a good day I would ride from home to kings cross, then from Cambridge station to work, then work to Cambridge station, then I'd usually get a train for the last run home.
Riding in Cambridge was very easy and very nice. Especially coming from Australia where cycling is a generally dangerous activity. Riding in Cambridge is much like our time riding in Kyoto or Amsterdam - only nicer and roomier. On the road, cars actually give way to you and seem genuinely aware of you (holy shit!), and quite often there are very comfortable bike paths.
A river! Sort of. I've cleverly angled the camera to see as much nature as possible on my rather plain suburban biking route.
One of the annoying parts... train delays. Especially annoying when you just raced all the way to make it to the station on time (after checking the website for delays before you left, I'm so organised!) to then find out your train could be more than an hour late, and you'll be having dinner on platform 1 tonight.
Actually after 2 months I was really starting to feel fatigued by the whole thing, maybe it was a touch of crunch time at work, but more so I felt like I was spending my life on a train, and people do this all the time. The fastest train was 45 minutes, but often you're stuck with the 90 minute ones that stops at (what feels like) every town along the way.
But, it was nice enough. At least the train provided 2 time allocations for naps, which I frequently used for just that!
