Cambridge, Mamma Mia, and...Industrial Action??

What do Isaac Newton, Prince Charles, Eddie Redmayne, Stephen Hawking, and Sacha Baron Cohen have in common...WITH ME?!  Well, THEY all went *and graduated* from Cambridge.  I was only there for one day.  But my gosh, it was cool. 

Cambridge the town and Cambridge the University (which consists of 31 individual colleges) are combined into one compact and quaint center that features high Gothic-style academic buildings, centuries-old pubs, and A LOT of libraries (114 libraries, to be exact -- housing some 15 million books).  Our school group arrived in the late morning and took a 2-hour walking tour before exploring the town on our own!

One of our first stops was King's College and the King's College Chapel.  The Chapel, which was completed in the 1530s, features the world's largest fan vault ceiling and the largest amount of Renaissance stained glass in one place, anywhere in the world!  The wooden choir screen in the middle of the church was commissioned by Henry VIII for Anne Bolelyn, his second wife.  She was beheaded before the screen was completed, but it still bears the letters R.A. for Regina Anne -- Queen Anne.

Standing just outside the entrance to King's College

King's College Chapel viewed from the inner courtyard

The interior of King's College Chapel

After visiting King's, and being extra careful not to walk on the perfectly manicured lawns, we trekked over to Trinity College -- the largest and most prestigious of Cambridge's colleges, which was founded by King Henry VIII.  The largest number of Cambridge's 83 Nobel Prize winners graduated from this college.  The picture below was taken outside the gates of Trinity and depicts a direct descendant of the apple tree that Isaac Newton was (allegedly) sitting underneath when he discovered gravity.

Descendant of Newton's apple tree on the front lawn of Trinity College

After the completion of our walking tour, I joined a group of fellow University of Sussex students for lunch at "The Eagle" -- one of Cambridge's oldest pubs -- before climbing to the top of St. Mary's Church to get a good view of the city.  Climbing to the top of the church tower was an experience in and of itself.  We had to squeeze up a very steep and narrow spiral staircase as other visitors were trying to come down from above.  However, the sounds of a full orchestra rehearsing a number by Bach in the church nave provided us with some nice musical accompaniment on our climb.

View of Cambridge from the top of St. Mary's

Our last stop of the afternoon was on the River Cam -- a slow-moving waterway that winds around the back of the main colleges -- for a punting boat tour.  My favorite part of this boat ride was getting to see a bridge that was used in the filming of Harry Potter! 

King's College viewed from the River Cam

View of the bridge that was used in the filming of Harry Potter from our punting river tour

The coolest part about visiting Cambridge for me was occupying the same space as all of the great minds who studied there.  Cambridge graduates and professors have shaped the way that we understand our world.  It was a little bit overwhelming to be told things like, "Oh by the way, that building over there is where the electron was discovered...and that other one is where Radium was discovered!"  Very, very cool.

As far as the rest of my week -- it's been busy!  I got quite a bit of research done -- found some really cool old maps of Brighton at the archive (some dating back to the 1770s) and tried to catalog the development of tenement housing in different parts of the city.  I also started writing my first mid-term essay (and I have three more to write in the next few weeks!)  Unfortunately, starting on Thursday of this week many of the professors at Sussex (and at 60 other UK Universities) went on strike over a dispute about their pension plans.  The strike is affecting three out of my five classes, and could last up to three more weeks.

In the mean time, the professors have organized us into study groups.  It's actually been fun to get to know some of my classmates in a more casual setting and discuss our readings over coffee and tea.  I sure do hope that the labor dispute is settled soon though, because our class time is already very limited here!

In other news, I saw Mamma Mia this week at the Novello Theatre in London!  This was easily the best live show I've ever seen.  The singing and live music was fantastic and the show as a whole was hilarious!  I hadn't seen the movie in its entirety, but I absolutely LOVED the live show.

The Novello Theatre in the West End, London

This February has certainly flown by, but it has also been jam packed with great sights, sounds, and memories!  I can't wait to see what March will bring!  Thank you very much for reading along.

Cheers,

BD