Deadlines and Dorm Rooms

Monday, July 13, 2015

Wand'ring through Wales

I know this post is a little late, but I was in Wales this weekend, and I wanted to wait so I could show you the pictures! It wasn’t that extensive of a trip – it was less than forty-eight hours, and a lot of that was driving – but I had a fabulous time, and I’ve now been to Wales.

I joined a smaller tour group for the trip; there were only sixteen of us. We had people from the US, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Russia, Israel, and Australia, but the tour was given in Irish-accented English. I left Cambridge at 6:30 Saturday morning to meet up with the rest of the group in London (the company provided transportation), and we headed off to Wales.

On our way, we stopped off in Chester and wandered around for ourselves for a while. I got lunch and then went to see Chester Cathedral. It’s an impressive building. We also took pictures of the Eastgate Clock, which is the most photographed clock in England after Big Ben. At the moment, though, it’s covered in scaffolding.

After this we crossed over into Wales, which is full of misty, mountainous terrain and adorable little villages. We walked around one of these, saw the smallest house in Great Britain, and photographed a couple of castles, although we couldn’t go in anywhere. On Saturday night we stayed in an adorable hostel, where our host informed us that he didn’t go to bed until “all his lambs were back in the fold” (regardless of the fact that some of his ‘lambs’ were older than he was). We appreciated the homey atmosphere.

On Sunday we woke up early for a full Welsh breakfast before driving to our next stop. This was the ‘village with the longest name’, which really consisted of nothing but its name and souvenir shop. Of course, the shop was fairly extensive. We finished off the sightseeing with a steam train ride through Snowdonia* before heading back to London. Everyone had a great time.

Of course, by the time we’d driven back to London, and I’d taken the train back to Cambridge and walked back to my dorm, it was about 11:30 at night. Still, I managed to get unpacked, showered, and into bed before midnight, and then wake up at 7:30 to prepare for a presentation in my 9:00 discussion section (it went well). I’m planning on a nap later today, though.

I’m having fun inside of class as well. I had all three of my discussion sections for class this morning, and they were fun. In “Good Life or Moral Life” we were discussing Plato’s dilemma.* It wasn’t anything like the first time I’d heard it, and I don’t consider it a particularly potent problem, but it made for an interesting conversation all the same.

My mind is kind of in overdrive lately, which is exactly the way I like it. I’ve given up TV and Netflix for a while, and it’s amazing how much I can get done when I don’t waste time – and how much more interesting I find what I’m doing. I always do this during summer study; I get really excited about whatever subject matter I’m focused on. At the moment, that subject matter is philosophy.

It’s been two weeks, and I’m now halfway through with one of my classes and a quarter of the way through my time here at Cambridge. It’s scary how fast things are going, but I’m certainly enjoying every minute of it. And now I have to go get my laundry and awkwardly carry it past all the tourists. Until next week!

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdonia

**Simply put: is it good because God loves it, or does God love it because it is good?

God, as defined by the Judeo-Christian tradition, is a necessary being, and thus his nature could not be otherwise. In this case, moral values are absolute because they are part of God’s absolute nature. It's not a question of God loving the good so much as of God embodying the good.

Pictures:

(Thanks to all my fellow tourists who took pictures of me!)

This is the Chester Cathedral. As I said, impressive.

On my way back to the bus.

One of the castles we passed (I don't remember which one; sorry!)

We got to walk around the city walls.

The smallest house in Great Britain:

Our very quaint hostel (our group were the only ones there).

Fish and chips at the pub on Saturday night (I didn't order them).

Walking on the beach.

A full Welsh breakfast:

I went outside on Sunday morning, and everything looked breathtaking. I got a little excited with the picture taking... I tried to trim it down for this post!

On the road again.

That's the name of the town; it's one Welsh word that means a very long descriptive sentence in English.

Me with the Welsh flag; I really like the design.

A little hiking in Snowdonia.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Concerning Cambridge

Well, it feels like it’s been a lot longer than a week! I’m planning on posting on Fridays or Saturdays, but I’m not sure how that will work out with various trips I’m planning on taking over various weekends, so the schedule is kind of touch-and-go right now. After settling in and sightseeing, though, I’m finally able to sit back and relax in my room/suite, so I can tell you all about how it’s been!

Cambridge is an adorable city full of winding English roads and beautiful architecture. English cities don’t really follow a grid system, which means that it’s very hard to go straight to anywhere, but if you keep going long enough, you’ll at least get back to where you started. There are lots of parks and cute little shops to go into, and enough beautiful churches and bookstores to sate even my appetite.

One thing Cambridge doesn’t seem to have very many of, though, is regular stores – commercial drugstores, grocery stores, and the like. If you want books or body oils or exotic teas, this is the place. If you want a bottle of shampoo or a box of granola bars, you have to look a little harder. The food at the college is really confusing – they have dining halls, but they provide only about half of your meals, and the rest you have to either buy from them or pay for elsewhere. I’m still figuring that out; I’ll keep you updated.

There is a Baptist church in town which I’ll be attending, though I’m planning on at least touring the others. King’s College, which is the school inside Cambridge University where I’m studying, has a world-renowned Anglican chapel which I managed to visit for evensong a couple of days ago. Their choir sings beautifully, and the church is magnificent, although they don’t allow pictures. The service was interesting; the singing was all taken from scripture, which means it didn’t rhyme and was all in King James English, and we recited the Apostles’ Creed. I had a hard time connecting with it, though; it felt kind of like we the layman/tourists were just watching as the choir and priests did their own thing.

I’ve only had two days of classes so far, but they seem fine. Last week I only attended lectures; on Monday, though, I have all three of my seminars (they’d be called ‘sections’ at Harvard; they’re small-group discussions on the material). Thursday and Friday were visit days for prospective high school students, so they tried to get us off campus and out of the way. On Thursday this mainly included a lot of lectures. On Friday they let us loose in London for most of the day.

Our bus was a little late, so I did a lot of dashing to make it to the National Gallery before their free 11:30 tour started. As it turns out, their tour was a lot more discussing art than it was actually looking at paintings, so I ended up tagging along and then wandering off to look at the rest of the gallery a lot of the time – I only had about an hour, after all. Their collection was fabulous. I then spent a couple of minutes in Trafalger square before heading to Baker Street.

The Sherlock Holmes museum looked cool, but I didn’t have time to stand in line for over an hour, so instead I headed over to get ice cream at Regent's Park. After enjoying a walk by the lake, I headed off to the Tower of London, but due to very cryptic labeling of subway lines, it took me nearly forty-five minutes to get there – which, since I’d skipped one of my planned stops, put me there about when I’d originally planned.

I walked through the Tower of London, saw the Bloody Tower, and stood in line for forever waiting to see the Crown Jewels, which were actually worth the wait. I then rushed to Southwark Cathedral, which was breathtaking, and discovered that I’d gotten there right before evensong (it happens almost every night). The Cathedral was my last stop, so I was able to stay and enjoy the service. It was a calming way to end such a hectic day.

As I was leaving the Cathedral, a timely text from my dad told me that I was only a few streets over from the Clink, an infamous prison where John Greenwood was burned at the stake. I had just enough time to visit the museum before heading back to meet my group. It was a fun combination of museum and haunted house (without things jumping out at you, but with all the theatrics).

Finally, I headed back to join my group at the London Eye, where we watched a short 4D Imax film that was basically a commercial for the London Eye before getting on the wheel itself. Most of that time was spent taking tons of pictures and enjoying the view. After we finished, it was a good half-hour before our buses began to arrive, and it was about midnight by the time I made it to bed, but I had a great time.

So that’s been this week – fairly busy, but not overly academic. Starting Monday, though, work begins. Hope you enjoy the pictures – Happy Independence Day from England!

Pictures:

This is the Cambridge Union Society building, where most of our classes are held.