ketchup: Cambridge

WHERE: Cambridge

WHEN: 20 February 2010

WHAT: University of Cambridge, smart people everywhere

Ugh, I’m sorry this is so late. But it’s here now and there’s no time to waste so let’s go!

The River Cam and punting boats

A church and Corpus Christi College, but not Corpus Christi like Selena. Cambridge is made up of 31 individual colleges; you apply to a specific one and are more allegiant to that college than you are to Cambridge as a whole, living and studying and eating with the 500 or so students in your specific college.

The Mathematical Bridge, which was rumored to be constructed without any nuts or bolts (which someone has been kind enough to remind us of and dash all our nerdy dreams). At one point, a Cambridge senior prank involved the students taking apart the bridge and leaving all the parts on either bank of the Cam River.

And so begins the sky pictures. Actually, they really begin about 2 pictures in, but I’m editing down the stack of TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN, for your sake. I put you through a lot (literally) here at this blog, but I am not a sadist.

St. Catherine’s College, another of Cambridge’s 31. The tour guide told us that Gandalf went here and it took me about 30 seconds to realize she meant Ian McKellan and not actual Gandalf. There are reasons I did not apply to schools like Cambridge and Oxford, y’all.

A sunny gorgeous day in Cambridge! And so many bikes everywhere.

This picture doesn’t do this thing justice. It’s called the Corpus Clock, and each of the three rings of slits tell the hour, minute, and second (so the blue light in the outermost one is going around super fast). And yes, that is a grasshopper on the top, and its legs and arms move and kind of “pull” the thing around. It’s incredible and creepy and awesome.  I’m doing a terrible job explaining this, so here’s a video with the designer, John C. Taylor, explaining it; it’s a long video but watch at least the first 30seconds to see it in action!

Cavendish Laboratory, where 29 researchers have won Nobel Prizes. No big. They did a lot of atom bomb research here, leaving it (rumor has it) radioactive. Oh yeah, and Watson and Crick discovered DNA here. NO BIG DEAL.

The Eagle Pub, where Watson and Crick got a little sauced and let it slip that they had discovered the double-helix. How classy is that. Not “got sauced and let it slip they hooked up with each other’s girlfriends one time”, although I guess if you are the discovered of DNA then you probably don’t have a girlfriend. I am mean. But I am an accounting major so I can make nerd jokes.

The Eagle Pub, where I ordered fish and chips and a pint and was totally off-beat and unexpected.

The Eagle Pub, where I made a victim of fish and chips and a pint and did my duty as President of the Clean Plate Society. I did not get so drunk that I let it slip that I know every secret about life. I don’t give my goodies away that easy.

Royal Air Force and American fighters in Cambridge during World War II would burn important numbers (phone, social security) and names (theirs, lovers’) into the ceiling of The Eagle.

Sky, again, don’t hate. But the window on the right is open (not sure if you can tell or not), because The Eagle burnt down at one point and a few childrens were lost, because they were in the room (with the window closed) and no one could hear them. Sad. But they get their revenge by wailing and stuff in the window ever gets closed, which it doesn’t, for that reason.

King’s college, with the chapel to the right and some ugly scaffolding between.

Chapel, with the exterior view of what ends up being a beautiful stained glass – keep goin’!

Down a street, just so English looking and… the sky. Don’t act so surprised.

The building on the left is the Senate House, the left is Gonville and Caius College, where Stephen Hawking is a fellow. I don’t know why but I love him. Also, Cambridge students jump this gap as part of the Night Jumpers group, and also stuck a car on top of Senate House as a senior prank. Silly kids.

The Gate of Honour, which is one of three gates in Cambridge; students can only walk through this one on their day of graduation. Also, I didn’t know this tidbit until just now (not even Wikipedia!) but this sucker was built in 1575. This country does not stop being old.

SUN! King’s College Chapel, here we come!

But before we get there. I try to maintain a modicum of professionalism on this blog, and keep my child-stalking pictures solely to the Facebook albums, but this one comes with a story, which is how I’m justifying having it here. This kid all of a sudden started trying to escape his backpack and was tearing at the straps crying that there was “a RAT! There’s a RAT, Mummy!” and I died and saved him from rats and took him home with me.

Upon first entry. Breathtaking.

The ceiling, the organ, the windows, all of it. No words, just beauty. The sunlight poured through the windows and it was out of control. Every so often the sun would come out from behind clouds and rock my world all over again.

Here is the back end of the chapel, from the screen designed for/commissioned by Henry VIII that breaks up the chapel into two parts and houses the organ.

On the other side of the screen, where the students would sit (at one point in the college’s history, the students would come to the chapel 5 times a day!) and a glimpse of the epic stained glass. At this point, the organist had randomly started a little diddy for us. In-credible. Unbelievable. Like, tears. Seriously.

Farther into this end of the chapel, looking back at the organ

I love how the wall is painted by the light coming through the stained glass across the chapel. I sometimes think stained glass is a little much, but seeing this redeemed stained glass forever, past, present, and future, for me. You can literally see the whole scene on the wall!

The big one! It tells the story of both Testaments. And that is a real live Rubens altarpiece below. Crazy.

One last one. Bear with me.

So much green grass! But only professors are allowed to walk on it, bigtime consequences for everyone else.

Trinity College, another of the 31. That’s an Edward up there.

This tree is a direct descendant of the one that dropped an apple on Isaac Newton’s noggin. So much of this stuff, my only possible response is a brutally sarcastic “no big deal”.

We found a market that reminded me of Union Square, with cheeses galore…

And a candy stand that had homemade chocolate-covered honeycomb! Which I had randomly been craving literally the day before, so I obviously bought some because I knew God wanted me to have it.

And as if that wasn’t enough sugar, we found Mr. Simms, which was basically Willy Wonka, only real life.

And then it was back onto the bus and back to London. As always, thank you thank you thank you for reading!