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My 23d birthday was coming up, and I was anxious to travel somewhere alone. The criteria were simple: a town in the UK that has a historic centre which can be easily explored on foot due to its small size, has charming medieval streets and stunning architecture, and which is bustling with people. Bingo, Cambridge it is! When I got off the bus in Cambridge, the weather was rainy, but no surprise there. I opened my umbrella, put my phone –and Google Maps– away, randomly selected a direction, and started to walk. I only had one goal in mind: to get lost in the city centre. There is no better way to get a sense of the overall atmosphere, is there? Sure, I wanted to see the main sights of Cambridge, but I also wanted to notice the small things. Like the little bunny that ran across the park right in front of me, or the fact that the locals didn’t bother using any umbrellas in the rain. I was just wandering around, windowshopping, catching parts of locals’ conversations here and there, seeing the houses people actually live in, and finding little cafés tucked away from the main streets. Eventually, I stumbled upon a shopping centre which was lucky, because as romantic as such a sightseeing sounds, I am human after all, with human needs – I was hungry and I needed to use the bathroom. Inside, I sat down on a bench to rest a bit. After a couple of minutes, I noticed an old man shuffling towards me, with a Costa coffee in hand and glancing hesitantly at the tiny space on the bench next to me. Every other seating area was full. I immediately scooted over to give him room, and he smiled at me with gratitude. He sat down, drinking his coffee, and I watched people pass by. We were sitting there for long minutes, in comfortable silence. I then received a phone call from a Hungarian friend, and I noticed him glancing towards me curiously. When I ended the call, he asked me what language I had spoken. That’s how a very unexpected but equally pleasant conversation started. I was chatting to a local man who has been living in Cambridge pretty much all his life. ‘Don’t you mind how busy it gets with all the tourists?’ I asked. ‘No, it’s not so bad. And the young people studying here, they give the city some life, you know?’ he said, almost proudly. I then asked what he liked most about Cambridge. ‘I spent my entire childhood here’ he replied simply. ‘The sight of the River Cam is home to me.’ We talked for about 20 minutes about all kinds of things. It turned out that he had been a regular at Costa and that he liked rainy, gray weather, especially when the sun peeked through the clouds between showers. He has never been to Hungary, and he thought the language sounded weird. The rest of the day went by really fast. I visited the famous Trinity college, took photos, asked others to take photos of me, ate at McDonalds (don’t judge), and admired the rowers on the River Cam. On the bus back home, I recalled the day’s events in my mind. The flashing images of Cambridge faded next to the image of me and the old man sitting and talking. I now connected Cambridge to a living person. Essentially, nothing major happened that day, but in a sense, it was one of the best little solo-trips of my life. Simply because I made a connection to a local. Because even though I got lost on purpose, I have found exactly what I came for.