Cambridge

I got up early this morning, showered, dressed, waited for Aubrey to get back from church and then we headed to Hyde Park… but we did not make it to Hyde Park. Every weekend that we have been here there have been major closures of certain Tube lines and always the Victoria line which is the one we use to get to and from class. In fact, in pretty much runs through the center of town. When this line is closed you have to jump through hoops to get where you need to go in London – at least I do. The Victoria line we were expecting to be closed because it had been closed the last two weekends we have been in London. We were not expecting almost half of the other lines to be closed or have partial closures. What a mess! This made getting to Hyde Park with enough time to go to Speakers’ Corner and get something to eat before meeting everyone at King’s Cross an impossibility. Instead, we got off at Covent Garden and had lunch at a restaurant in the middle of the Sunday market and got to watch a man on a unicycle do a comedy act for a large crowd. This is apparently something else that you need to do on a Sunday, not just Speakers’ Corner. Covent Garden has a big market in the middle of the square and they have just about everything there.

Soon, though, we were fighting the crowds again to get to King’s Cross. We got there in plenty of time but some other people in the group had trouble getting to the station even though they had left with plenty of time. We ran to the train and were barely able to find seats. Not everyone ended up in the compartment. It was ok, though. We made it. The ride to Cambridge was about an hour long so I read the whole way. Cherie, who was sitting behind me, had her ear talked off by this American she was sitting next to on the train. Apparently, he reeked. I couldn’t smell anything but Aubrey had been standing behind them before she got a seat and she said it was pretty bad. I have never seen Cherie without a smile on her face but for half an hour after we got off the train she had the most disgusted look on her face. Maria had some perfume with her so Cherie put some on to get rid of the smell of the guy. By the time we had walked to the middle of town Cherie was doing fine again.

Cambridge is quite an impressive place, aside from the university which I get to in a minute. When we got to where we were going to meet our guide we had about twenty minutes so Maria let us wonder around the Sunday market. If I had had more time I think I would have bought something just because it was such a cool little market. Well, I say little but it was much bigger than Pendleton’s by a lot. There was everything you could imagine. One stall sold rubber stamps, another stuffed animals made from wool, another candles. There were people selling, soaps, glass art, pies, ostrich burgers – yes, ostrich burgers – and veggies, fruits, fish, meat… it was amazing. Aubrey bought an apple pie.

Soon we were back at the meeting spot with our guide Chris. Our guide up until this pint had been Steve but Cambridge and a few other places only allow their own guides to give tours. Just like Steve had a special pendant he wore when giving tours, Chris had one, too, stating that was licensed to give tours in Cambridge. Out first stop was the building that housed the physics laboratory for a hundred years. In that building many wonderful things were discovered. The most important thing was Watson and Crick DNA. After their breakthrough they went down the street and around the corner to a pub called The Eagle and were heard whispering rather loudly that they had discovered “the secret of life.”

Next stop was Pembrook College. Now you might be thinking, “Caitlin, I thought you were going to see Cambridge University. What’s this Pembrook College business?” Well, Pembrook IS Cambridge. Well, a part of Cambridge, anyway. In the States when we divide to university into colleges each college has an overall “theme” you might call it with departments which focus on specific parts of that “theme.” For example, Mom and Dad are in the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences and their department is the Department of Entomology, Soils, and Plant Sciences. However, over here Cambridge is the university and each college is an independent school all its own which led me to wonder what was the point but that’s what they do. Silly English. So each college has an English department, science, department, math department, etc. Each college has a campus and set of dormitories – that’s what they call them over here; it’s apparently taboo to call what students live in dormitories in the States, which I think is silly because that’s their original name – and their own communities and teams yet all are part of Cambridge University. You can either apply to Cambridge itself or apply to a specific college if you are confident in your academic ability.

In the middle of Cambridge there is the Senate House. This is where all grades are posted at the end of every term on big glassed in announcement boards. This means everyone can see your grades. Students have been trying to get this changed for a number of years, but think it’s a great motivator. On the less serious side of things, we also learned about various pranks which have been pulled by students. There have been instances where students will climb to the tops of buildings because the closet mountains are about 200 miles away – hey, the people that built Stonehenge didn’t see this as a problem – so they made do with what they had which were tall buildings. You would know when someone had climbed a building because they would leave things like umbrellas on top of the structure. There is also a challenge to jump from one of the dormitory windows to the top of the Senate House because they are so close together. This has been banned. In fact, the university has put up barriers on some buildings to stop people from climbing them. There is a statue of King Henry VIII over the entrance to one of the courtyards with him holding a golden orb and a scepter. The scepter use to also be golden but it has become a prank to steal it and replace it with a wooded chair leg. When we were there the chair leg was there. Chris told us that at this point they have stopped replacing it because there’s no point.

Next to this building is an apple tree. This is the only monument to Sir Isaac Newton at the university but I think it’s a very fighting one. The tree was grown from seeds that came from the tree of Newton’s parents’ home where Newton first discovered gravity. Darwin was also a student of Cambridge but I never got over to see his grave. It’s on the list of things to do next time I’m here and there will be a next time!

After our tour we went on a punting river cruise. Punting is like the gondolas in Venice, Italy only they don’t sing to you and anyone can do it, even if you have no idea what you’re doing. There are companies that take groups out which we did but anyone can rent a boat and take it out. There were several near misses with people almost falling into the Cam River. For the most part, though it was pretty peaceful. Our punter did tell us another story about one of the chapels. It has two spires in the back and a student climbed one and put a traffic cone on top. Scaffolding was erected to get it down. It took quite a while to put the scaffolding up. The night before they were going to the cone down the student climbed back up and put the cone on the other spire. In all it took them nine to take the scaffold down and rebuild it by the other spire. Classic. One bridge we passed was originally built as an experiment to see if it would stay up itself with nothing but wooden pins to keep it up and some good engineering. Eventually, it was made permanent. Another bridge is the Sigh Bridge. Originally bridges like this were used to link a courthouse to the jail. The prisoner would sigh as he went over the bridge. At Cambridge the bridge links where the students take live to where they take examinations. Mom told me that when she was at Cambridge for the International Conference of Urban Pests (ICUP) she stayed in one of the dormitories close to the bridge and had a paper plane fight in the dining hall. I can’t remember if she said the Brits started it or not…

When our tour of the river was done we had some time to do a little shopping. Some people went to get hoodies but I went to the Cambridge Press bookstore to look around. All the books were pretty expensive but it was cool to see the Entomology books they had there. There was one book about insects and forensics. Soon shopping time was over, though, and we went to The Eagle – where Watson and Crick went – and had dinner. Then we headed back to the train station and from there to King’s Cross.

Even though Aubrey was clearly tired and probably would have preferred going straight back to Wigram she stayed with me and went on my last stop of the day – Platform 9 ¾. There was a crowd of people waiting their turn but eventually I got my change to pretend to push the cart into the wall. Unfortunately, I was wearing Slytherine green and not Hufflepuff yellow but when I come back one day I will do it right with my Hufflepuff scarf.

And that was my day. A very long day but a wonderful one. Tomorrow is Buckingham Palace and “We Will Rock You” the Queen musical. See you then!