In which Helen visits Cambridge

My friend Stacey and I went on a field trip with a former prof of ours who was taking his students to Cambridge. Got up at 7:15, was at the school with Stacey by 8:55, and went off for the two hour drive. We stopped first at a cathedral outside of the city. The professor is an architecture professor and the class had something to do with that. Actually, I don't even know what the course was, but I know it wasn't the Country Homes and Palaces class I took when I was last there.



We had an older English gentleman give us the tour of the Cathedral. He spent about twenty minutes shuffling us around the place, essentially giving a history lesson about the place with my professor interrupting him along the way to highlight the architectural background. The lecturer was wearing a full vested dark green suit with a poppy in his lapel to celebrate those who have lost their lives in the war. He had several ticks, so that he walked side ways and would shrug his shoulders up and down while talking and occasionally stuttered. Thought for a moment that I was in a Dickens novel.

This cathedral is in a town called Ely (pronounced eelee) and since we were very late on account of traffic and road construction we had lunch there instead of heading right away to Cambridge. Stacey and I found this very quaint (i.e. very small) placed to eat called TEA FOR TWO. So small that people who wanted to come in to have lunch in the three tabled sitting room upstairs had to wait until we walked out the door. We had just then been paying for our meal, standing on the stairs as we did so, as on the stairs was the only place to stand downstairs. We both had vegetable soup with a baguette. Very good. Especially as by that point we were both very hungry. (I of course also had a diet coke). We sat by the only window in the room. I watched people walk by, and we decided that we would next run to Oliver Cromwell's house to take a pic before joining up with the group.



Cromwell's house is now a museum/travel question place. I'm sure he would be proud. I took a photo with the amish looking people stationed outside:





Next: short twenty minute drive to Cambridge. My only knowledge of Cambridge comes from the movie The Cambridge Spies, which I think they filmed on site. Whatever, the place looked just as it did in the movie. Ideal. Quaint. Unbelievable. Surreal.

Picture perfect.

The professor did his undergrad at Cambridge so that he knew all the ins and outs and even was able to sneak us into Trinity College by way of a back route where there are no guards. (Only students of the college and professors are allowed in this college).

Without adieu, here are some pictures:

On first walking into the university (which is comprised of a series of colleges, all connected together):










There were more people on bikes in Cambridge than I've ever seen. So many narrow streets. No large streets. So easier to get around on bike. Almost got run over several times on account of the professors notorious fast walking and complete disregard of any moving "modern mechanizations".




The room where the Head Master and professors (up against the back wall) sit for dinner and the students (in the rows on the lower floor). They were setting up for that evening's dinner when we arrived. There are paintings on the walls around, which you may not see. The prof. said that it is a sport during dinner to throw remaining food on them.





A part of the "city":



Where the head master and professors meet for meetings and the students receive their diplomas:



When you are first "inducted" into the university, you have to physically go through three different buildings in the university. A sort of rite of passage. The first signifies humility -- essentially, you are starting your time at the college with the knowledge that you are inferior and do not know as much as your professor. Forgot what the second is. But at the end of your stay there, when you graduate, you go through the Virtue building. Which is this. A very small (picture doesn't do it justice) room where you have to bend to just get in the door. Apparently those who had made it didn't know what the measurements were and made it considerably smaller than it was suppose to be:





Finally we stopped at this place. It is round. Which makes it special.



Left just as it started to get dark. Stuck in traffic the whole way as it was then 5.30. Got back to my old school at 7:15.