Cambridge was neat... and cold... and when I started feeling super sick.
BUT
it was fun. Really fun.
We went on Friday the 28th of January.
Again our group left early to go on the coach. Cambridge isn't that far away from London mile wise (or kilometers) but it's about an hour and a half drive. Basically our professor gave us 20 pounds and then set us free for about 6 hours to do what we wanted. We just had to make sure and visit some of the colleges. Cambridge is full of separate colleges, and we learned that you have to be accepted into Cambridge itself and then you apply to a specific college and have to be accepted there, too. So, it's a lot different than how universities are in the states.
I visited King's College. Well, kinda. The college part was closed since it's the winter time and it's not open very often. So instead we went to the King's College chapel. It was very beautiful and a student I think was playing the organ when we first got in. The music they were playing was very eerie, which I thought fit the setting quite well. It looked like the inside of a cathedral basically, so it had the gothic feel. The inside was decorated with lots of gryffons and greyhounds. Pretty interesting. I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked because I was feeling terrible. But from what I saw and heard it was very beautiful.
Anyway, the first thing that I actually did was go on a punt ride. Punting is a boat ride basically. It's a flat bottomed boat and you have a guide/punter on the end pushing you along the river with a very long stick. In my case our guide/punter was a college student that is actually learning to be a cook. Pretty cool. He, or Chris, was really funny and had a lot of funny jokes. I'm pretty sure he thought we were all crazy, but it was a lot of fun. It was funny how we ended up on the punt ride. Basically we were trying to figure out what to do in front of King's College since it was closed and these guys came up to us and offered to take us on a punting trip. They even offered us a deal 10 pounds a person instead of 14. So, we took it and then paid up and followed a man to the Cam river. It felt kinda sketchy as 13 of us girls were just following this guy in small and narrow alley ways. But, do not fret, they were the 'real deal'... if there is such a thing. Haha. Anyway, all of us were having a great time and just being loud and laughing quite a bit. Acting like loud Americans, actually. Haha. One of the funniest parts was when he was telling us the history of one of the colleges and these ducks came up to our boat. So, someone got out a piece of bread and threw it in the water. Bad idea. The ducks (2 of them) started freaking out and followed us down the river for probably about 5 minutes and even tried climbing into our boat! haha. Everyone was screaming as he was explaining something. It was great. Chris just laughed at us basically. He kept on using random British swear words that made us laugh... oh good times.
After our punting adventure we went to find something to warm us up, since I couldn't even feel my toes. Seriously so cold! We stopped at a starbucks near by and got some yummy, super hot, hot chocolate. Then we went out to a marketplace where I got some postcards and a sweet longsleeve Cambridge shirt. So now I'm basically the real deal.
And that's about when I felt like I was dying. Haha. Oh the Coats family and their cursed backs! haha. Good times, that's for sure.
By the time we left for home I was ready since my back was killing me.
One of the funniest stories of our bus trips also happened on the way home. One of the girls had to go to the bathroom so bad and we were stuck in traffic. It was so funny. She was freaking out. We basically just pulled over and dropped her off in the middle of London somewhere for her to find a bathroom. Hahaha. She wrote a blog post about it that seriously made me laugh so hard I cried. Here's the link to the post if you want a little laugh: http://jamienickell.blogspot.com/2011/01/never-had-to-pee-so-bad-in-my-life.html
Anyway, Cambridge was great... except for getting sick.
Also, I apologize. My camera's memory card did not work so I didn't get any pictures. I might be able to steal some though. We'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment