January 29-February 4
I originally was not supposed to go to Cambridge, but you know, life happens! The second teacher I was supposed to observe lives near Cardiff, Wales, but she texted me several weeks ago and told me that she wasn’t going to be able to host me because she had gotten hurt. So I had to make alternative plans. I was supposed to be with her for two weeks. So for one of those weeks, I stayed an extra week with Jane at Hayes, which she graciously allowed me to do. In the second week, I decided to go to Cambridge. It actually worked really well and was actually much easier for my journey going to the next place which would be Norwich. I was a bit nervous to travel from Cardiff all the way to Norwich, because it’s almost the entire width of the UK and it would’ve taken a long time.
(I did not take this route, since my schedule changed.)
But Cambridge to Norwich was quite simple. Only about an hour and a half.
Anyway, Cambridge is just beautiful! Much like Oxford, it’s not one university, it’s a lot of different colleges that are all there. I was excited to be here because I was hoping that this would be a week of reading, writing, thinking and just being a bit more academic, since I didn’t have a school to go to. And that’s exactly what I did! One of my favorite things to do is find cool coffee shops and sit and work in them. So I found multiple of those while I was there. They include The Mill Mediterranean Coffee, Urban Larder, and Hot Numbers Coffee, which has two locations that feel very different though both are super awesome.
I also did a bit of work in my own accommodation room. It was super close to everything and had great windows to look out of. So that was nice.
The other thing I love doing is finding cool pubs to sit at. So in the afternoon/evenings I would go and find a very British-looking pub, and have an British-made beer. Some of my favorites were the Eagle, Cambridge Tap, and the Anchor.
Otherwise, I walked around a lot and took in some views. On the Monday morning when I got there, I did a painting tour which is basically a special kind of boat where the Tour Guide stands up on the end of the boat with a long pole that they push into the bottom of the river to propel it forward. It was on the Cam River. The people who do these are either current students or recent graduates, I think, who can tell you some history about some of the different colleges and buildings around Cambridge. It was a very relaxing tour even though it was quite cold.
I also did a guided walking tour where I learned a bit more about some of the colleges that are not on the river.
Here are just some pics I took while I walked around Cambridge. The architecture is fabulous.
One of the colleges that stood out to me was King’s College. I have heard it mentioned multiple times and it was featured on both of my tours. Jane, the teacher I was shadowing for the first three weeks, went to Cambridge and was in the King’s College Chapel choir. She suggested I should go to an evensong service there. So I did that on Wednesday evening. Evensong is basically a mostly sung church service that lasts about 45 minutes. The music was beautiful and the space of course, was just amazing. I’m so glad I did that. And it happened to be on February 1, which is also known as Candlemas which I had never heard of before.
These are pics of the Cathedral, Evensong, and some buildings around campus as I walked home Wednesday night.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Cambridge! I highly recommend people coming here if they can. It’s about maybe an hour and a half or so ride from London and just a wonderful place to visit.
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