I don’t have nearly as much to
report as last week; it hasn’t been that long since my last post. Still, that’s
good; it allows me to talk a little more about life at Cambridge instead of
just listing events. So why don’t I do that for a little while?
The first thing I noticed about
England when I returned from Spain was the weather. Spain was hot and dry;
England is wet and cold, even in summer, and a cold front had come in while I
was away. Still, I’m enjoying Cambridge. The Victorian architecture, the river,
the cobblestone streets, all make for lovely scenery (and pictures).
Classes are in a building about
a fifteen-minute walk away, so I get to go through town and see the shops and
farmers market every day. I have some of my meals in the Union Society
building, where classes are, and some of them in the dining hall at King’s
College. And of course, some of them I buy at the supermarket and fix myself.
We do have several formal
dinners at Cambridge, where everyone dresses up and takes pictures, and you
have a multiple-course meal served to you properly. This event is mainly
exciting because during the cocktail hour, you actually get to walk on the grass
(and take pictures of yourself doing so).
The actual eating consists
mainly of trying to figure out what you have on your plate – the menu provided
lists the fanciest names for all the dishes, which no one’s heard of, so you
just have to take a bite and then conference with the people around you to find
out what’s gone into them. Turns out it’s a good way to meet people.
Another fun fact about
Cambridge, or at least King’s College: there are spiders of every kind
everywhere, dangling from windows, ceilings, closets, appliances, you name it,
waiting to pop out and startle you. I’ve killed quite a few, and knocked down
even more webs, but they just keep coming. Most of them aren’t very big,
although I had a particularly large one lodged on my ceiling the first few days
I was here. It then disappeared, and I nearly forgot about it before almost stepping
on it a few days later (I went and put shoes on and then stepped on it).
The spider situation isn’t
helped by the fact that I’ve been rewatching the Hobbit movies recently. My
attempts to learn German have recently caught their second wind, so I’m watching
a bunch of movies dubbed in German, along with reading a few books. It helps
when you already know what’s going on, but I do think my German’s showing
improvement.
Of course, there’s still work to
be done. I’m still taking two classes; I will turn in my term essay for one of
them tomorrow, and I’m working on my second essay. It’s hard to believe I’m
already over halfway through; time has gone by fast. Between working during the
week and touring on weekends, my days have been very busy.
Speaking of touring, I visited
Bath and Stonehenge yesterday. Now, you might ask what in the world is in Bath.
The answer is, perhaps unsurprisingly, baths. More specifically, Roman Baths,
fairly well-preserved. The site was originally a religious spa – strange combination,
it might seem – and there are still hot springs you can bathe in, for quite a
bit of money. Anyone familiar with Jane Austin might also remember Bath from
her work; she lived there at one time, along with such people as Livingston and
Gainsborough.
We saw all these sites and then
had a little time left over for the Pulteney Bridge and the abbey. I’ve
included pictures of both. We happened to be in the abbey for 2:00 prayer, and
they stopped the tours to pray the Lord’s Prayer and then invite anyone
interested to talk, which I thought was nice. I hadn’t seen that before. There
was also a Gideon’s exhibition going on, with Bibles in multiple foreign
languages, which as you can imagine made me happy.
After Bath we traveled to
Stonehenge, which was everything I’d hoped. There’s a rather solemn atmosphere
about it, even with all the tourists walking around. You can’t go straight up
to the stones, so they stand apart from and above all the people, framed against
a dark, brooding sky and the windswept grass of the hills. There were other
sites as well, but we didn’t have much time to visit them (this was all with a
tour group, by the way).
As you can see, I’ve done a lot
even in just the few days since I last posted. Only a few weeks left – got to
make the most of it!
Pictures: Thank you to everyone who helped me take pictures! Enjoy!
The rolling English countryside:
The Royal Crescent in Bath (the most expensive real estate in town):
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