Gwyn Kelly • England
Regardless of what direction you’re coming from, going to Cambridge is referred to as “coming up” and leaving is known as “going down.” One might say that this is indicative of the overall attitude of the university as seeing itself as the center of all things important. Or one might just say it’s quirky and fun! Either way, today I went down from Cambridge and up to London.
I think the shock of having left will take a few days to set in, so even though today was my last day this isn’t a final post. Plenty of people from my program are still there, stranded by Hurricane Irene, rocking themselves back and forth while mistakenly humming “Come On, Eileen” to themselves. Or maybe not, but this is what I picture. Luckily, I’m flying to Greece tomorrow with my family, where I will be conveniently out of the way of hurricanes and any rocks hurled at me by the people who are stranded at the airport.
The week went by in a blur, like most final weeks do, although the trudge through my final papers and exams seemed quite long enough. I spent last weekend hurriedly taking in the sights in Dublin, an amazing city where, from what I saw during my two days spent there, everyone is friendly and helpful all the time. Seriously, from our taxi driver to waiters at restaurants, people were very warm and polite. Not in an over-the-top way, but sometimes in England service can be rather brusk, and the contrast was evident. However, we did see an incredible amount of dog poop on the sidewalks, which I suppose you could turn into something fun by, like, seeing who can dodge it the best. The number of dogs we saw did not seem to match the amount of excrement. But that’s okay! My personal favorite part of the city was that there is so much live music all over. The streets and pubs were full of people playing traditional music, covers of rock songs and everything in between. The only way I could wrap my mind around having to pay 5.50 Euros for a pint of Guinness in Temple Bar (a really popular area of nightlife where most things are rip-your-eyeballs-out expensive) was to pretend I was also paying a cover for the music. It sort of worked.
Getting back just in time for our Last Week put a lot of pressure on us to make sure the week was great. So of course almost everything we planned to do fell through. Summer finally gave up and Cambridge was freezing and raining, which nixed our plans to punt anywhere, especially to Grantchester. Even though I had been operating under the idea that I was at college-kid summer camp I had to admit to myself that I did actually want to do well on my exams and essays and so spent quality time in the library. So much quality time that I was unable to make it to the Polar Exploration Museum, an omission that already haunts me. Everyone went on spending sprees to try and finish off the money on their meal cards. The final formal hall came and went, followed by the final bop and the entire final night, which was supposed to last forever but mysteriously only lasted as long as any other night.
As I said, I can’t really yet process the fact that I won’t be going back to Cambridge for a while. What I know I already miss (in addition to all the people I met) is the sight of the King’s College Chapel looming over the city center, the way the courtyard and gardens of Pembroke College looked, and all those visual memories that impressed themselves so efficiently on my brain. But I know that most of what I’ll miss (and won’t miss) and learned goes deeper than that, and I know I need some time in order for them to sift themselves out of my current brain-state of general relief at having been able to wrestle all my luggage through the Tube system.
So Cambridge (and Oxford, but we don’t like to talk about them) (well, I do, but I get dirty looks) has a lovely, calm river that begs for people to glide down it in cute little row boats. But that would not be the Cambridge (or Oxford) way. Rowing is nowhere near genteel enough. What, you say, is genteel enough? Punting.
Punting, as it turns out, is actually only genteel if you know what you’re doing. It looks deceptively easy. You recline in a long, narrow, flat boat while someone (the friend who feeling the most daring at the moment you decide to go punting) makes the boat glide down the river by pushing a long pole into the river bed. And it works like a dream! Except when it doesn’t, and you suddenly realize that punts are not exactly the most hydroefficient vessels and that it’s amazing that Britain was such a great naval power.
Okay, actually, if you do it right, it’s fantastic. And I enjoy being the person doing the actual punting, perhaps because sitting in the boat while it rocks back and forth, dipping ever closer to the edge of the water, can be even more terrifying than standing on the back end of the boat and attempting to use a stick to both propel it forward and control its direction (some people use a paddle to help with steering but those people are WEAK) (and also smart).
I went punting a few times when I lived in Oxford. Once it was great and everybody was happy and the weather was awesome. And one it was terrible, one of the most stressful family outings I have ever participated in. I feel like this pattern is indicative of how punting trips are on the whole, in Cambridge as well. Sometimes, when it’s sunny and there aren’t too many boats on the water, it’s wonderful and peaceful. Other times it starts raining when you are an hour out, you drop your pole, you get stuck under a bridge, or you get rammed by a flotilla of punts carrying a wedding party. That last incident was pretty stressful. We were trying to switch punters (very, very carefully, people fall in all the time and it’s kind of funny but also scary and unhappy) when all of a sudden five giant punts appeared, like the Spanish Armada coming over the horizon, ready to take no prisoners, including our driver-less punt. And then we were the ones who had to feel bad because we were interfering in someone’s wedding day. I tried to wish them congratulations but it may have sounded at bit strained.
In Cambridge the streets are full of college-aged kids whose summer job is to work for the punting companies that offer tours. They approach you as you walk, advertisement outstretched, asking “Care for a bit of punting today?” And if you are a tourist this is probably great! But if you have been in Cambridge for seven weeks and can go punting on your own you just get tired of all these people in their vaguely nautical outfits, bombarding you with tour offers. Also, their tours are full of lies. Lies! I have sat by the river at the back of King’s College (known, imaginatively, as “The Backs”) and listened to poor, unsuspecting families be told things that are completely false. Like, that a certain building was built from the top down. What? This is some sort of Mark Twain nonsense, although it is funny (and not really possible).
So to get our punting kicks on my friends and I take the college’s punts out and have a grand old time, except when the friend who is afraid of birds – birds, I tell you, but she’s great so it’s ok – is punting and a flock of ducks takes off right behind us and then some swans lunge at us with ominous intentions. One of the Things You Have To Do if you are at Cambridge is punt to Grantchester, a nearby village where Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke and other famous Cambridge literary people hung out. Apparently it takes ages. And you have to portage your punt at some point. But we’re going to do it. I have faith in us.
Guys, procrastination is real even during the summer. I haven’t posted in a while. I am sorry. There’s no excuse, except for the fact that my classes have now rotated and I’m taking one on novel writing. So I’m writing a novel. I expect that it will catapult me to fame in no time.
Anyways, you may be aware that there were some, shall we say, disturbances in England this past week. Luckily, Cambridge doesn’t really have a big or angry enough population to fuel a real rio. We did get a news report that “a group of between 30 to 40 youths clashed with police near Midsummer Common. Two police officers were treated for minor injuries. Five men from Cambridge were arrested after violence around the Grafton shopping centre just before midnight.” The Grafton area isn’t in the heart of Cambridge, and while it isn’t exceptionally rough, I had been warned to stay away from it at night as soon as I got here (although that may be because Cambridge has a “sex attacker” or the loose who has groped nine women in the streets at night). What I mean to say is that, from here in my ivory tower in the countryside, the photos of London and other cities burning while masked people smash windows are as distant and confusing for most of you at home. No one seems quite able to believe or understand what has happened and everyone seems happy that things are coming under control. I noticed last night as I walked home with friends that there was an obviously increased police presence in the center of town, the point being to make it obvious that there were police out and about. It’s hard to miss them in their hats and fluorescent vests.
But last weekend when the riots started I was in Brighton, where I saw someone wearing a shirt that said “B Right On” and I thought it was the cleverest thing ever. I had gone down with my Bloomsbury Group class to see Charleston Farmhouse (where the group was centered for some time) and an exhibit at the Brighton Museum. Brighton is an interesting city. In many ways it has the feel of some middle-Atlantic beach towns, full of bright attractions, candy and tacky souvenirs. But Ocean City was never a favored retreat of the Royal Family and even Cape May never really reached the heights of Victorian splendor that parts of Brighton have. Now parts that are elegant and full of bright white seafront hotels mix with more dingy and questionable areas. The Pier, where you can (and should) gorge yourself on “candy floss” (cotton candy), arcade games and rides of uncertain safety, contrasts heavily with The Lanes, an area of pedestrian shopping that has high-end stores and cute vintage and antique shops. My friends and I were too exhausted and intimidated for a night out on the town, which involves and a lot of make up and high heels, regardless of your gender. Brighton is a popular location for Stag and Hen parties, crazy bachelor and bachelorette parties where everyone wears costumes and acts inappropriately in the streets, and is known as the gay capital of Britain. Sadly we missed the Pride festival by a week, but rainbow flags were already plastered over everything.
After seeing King George IV’s Royal Pavilion, an incredible building that looks like something out of Aladdin from the outside and has the most decadent chinoiserie decor inside, we spent Sunday wandering around and looking at shops. The most exciting thing, however, occurred on our train into London that night. Two young men came on and sat across the aisle from us. At first they just seemed loud. This was fine with us, we had Ipods, no big deal. But then I noticed that they had pint glasses of beer with then that they had walked off from a pub with. Within minutes they had spilled their Chinese take-out all over their tray table and made no attempt to clean it up. They sat sprawled with their legs all over the entire four-person seating area they were in, the most aggressive method of sitting I have ever seen. When they got bored of arguing with each other they started just yelling inflammatory things (“Gay! Gay!” “Paki! Paki!”) in the hope of getting a rise out of someone seated nearby. They started miming ejaculation. I studiously ignored them. My Ipod is obviously just really, really fascinating.
This week, back in a Cambridge nicely devoid of any train-riding hooligans, I settled into my new class schedule and fretted about how much money I have spent on this trip so far. And it’s not even over yet! Buying drinks at Starbucks is going to seem so cheap when I get back! Our activities tonight are free, though, as the Perseid Meteor Shower should be nicely visible from one of Cambridge’s many greens.
Yes, Bordeaux. Because instead of jetting off for a weekend in Ibiza or Malta, as some partying youngsters are wont to do, my friends and I decided to head to Bordeaux for a weekend of culture. Also, it actually was the cheapest flight we could find.
Our journey began Saturday morning at 4 am when a taxi picked us up to take us to the airport (sounds luxurious, but also was the cheapest mode of transport we could find). Actually, I should back up and point out that we had all been at a “Bop,” a costume party, to celebrate the end of our first set of exams, until 1 am. The bop was great! But we therefore had very little sleep. So the taxi ride and subsequent airplane ride is all a bit of a blur. Luckily we landed rejuvenated in Bordeaux, where we all noticed immediately that it was warm and sunny. We knew this going in but, much like how in May in Chicago you know that a warm summer is out there somewhere but can’t quite remember what it feels like, we have been deadened by an English summer in which it is 60 degrees and cloudy every day.
One of our friends rented a car, which I will admit to having been skeptical about at first. I am a person who firmly believes in public transit. Plus, said friend had only just learned how to drive manual and I (who took her drivers test in a manual car) was not about to toodle around France in a rental car under someone else’s name. But said friend turned out to be an excellent driver, and being able to drive was a highlight of our trip.
From the airport we went immediately to Saint Emilion, a town in the middle of a wine-making region whose first vines were planted by Romans. We had a brief highway detour as we tried to figure out the French highway system and got our window washed against our will by a woman who laughed at our inability to make her go away but then cursed us when the only coins we had were English currency. Apologies, lady. Eventually we realized that the best way to get anywhere was just to follow the signs to certain places, as opposed to looking for certain exit numbers or road names, which sometimes changed spontaneously or were just absent.
We made in to Saint Emilion in time to have a tour of the Chateau Beau-Sejour Becot winery. I’m not very interested in wine but I appreciated how it has been made in this region for basically two thousand years. This particular vineyard sits on top of a series of limestone caves made in previous centuries by people quarrying for stone for the town. Now they use to caves to age the wine. Our guide was very nonchalant about some bones lying around that had been disinterred from the cemetery above by the digging. He also seemed to think we were not above the legal drinking age but let us to the tasting anyways as a favor, which was strange because I can’t imagine someone under age deciding to go to a vineyard in order to get their under age drinking kicks on. Also, you don’t always drink during a wine tasting, you politely spit what you taste out in a large spittoon. Also times 2, I don’t think we look that young. But also there was somewhat of a language barrier so he might have been trying to joke.
We went back to the town itself and walked around all afternoon. The town is on a hill and full of amazingly steep and winding roads with incredible vistas. At one point we thought our driving joy was going to come to an end as we almost got stuck in a very narrow space between two stone walls, but we managed to eke our way through unscathed and park so that we could go explore. We took a tour of the largest monolithic church in Europe. Incredibly, it is all carved out of the limestone that forms the basis of the land in Bordeaux. Inside it looks like a mix between Tatooine and the Mines of Moria. After stopping for the best sorbet (blueberry flavor) I have had in my life we headed to the city itself to find our hotel.
We headed out on foot to find dinner and see the city by night. After unwittingly walking down a street populated by people of questionable morals we found the main shopping street, a strait pedestrian zone that goes on for blocks and blocks. We had a delicious meal and then walked towards the river, stepping out into a little square with a fountain. All along the river the buildings were illuminated, as were the bridges across the river. Everything glowed and people were out everywhere enjoying the night.
The next morning we walked to a nearby market to get breakfast and lunch for later in the day. I wanted to get a bunch of grapes but ended up getting a whole kilo of them. It was a lot of grapes, but we managed to eat them all. They were almost black in color and incredibly tasty. We set off in the direction of the beach, about an hour’s drive outside the city, but were confronted with an embouteillage, a traffic jam. Apparently everyone else wanted to go to the beach too. So we went off the main highway and wound our way to the coast.
We passed from lush, green vineyards to huge fields of corn and flowers to sandy soil and groups of skinny, towering pine trees. The coastal region looked a lot like coastal North Carolina or other parts of the East Coast. We headed for the Dune of Pyla, the tallest sand dune in Europe, which lives up to its reputation. It is gigantic, looming into your vision as you wind around the highways as you approach it. Eventually we got beyond it, parked, and walked down to beach called Le Petit Nice. Like everything in our trip it was breathtaking. There were lots of boats just off the shore and people swimming. The water was brisk but inviting. We had a swim, had lunch, and I promptly fell asleep (without reapplying sunscreen) and toasted to the color of a lobster. Obviously in years of going to the beach I have not yet learned my lesson. We left the beach after a few hours with some reluctance to go back to the city.
Back in Bordeaux we explored some more, walking around the Monument aux Girondins, the public gardens and a huge church. Sadly, I had to be back at the airport at 8 for my flight home (everyone else stayed on another night because they didn’t have 9 am class the next day like I did). After going to the wrong terminal I found my way to my plane and landed at about 10:30 in London. However, after trudging through passport control it was late enough that I had missed the last train to London that would allow me to catch the last train to Cambridge. I had 20 panicked minutes to buy a ticket for and find the last coach to Cambridge, which turned out to be an overnight bus to Norwich that stopped at three of the London airports and Cambridge on the way. When I stepped off the bus in Cambridge at 3:30 am I realized that it had been almost 48 hours exactly since I had started my trip.
England is a country that is very fond of signs. Signs that tell you what to do and where to go. More commonly, signs that tell you what not to do and where not to go. America has lots of signs too, of course, but I’ve pretty much got the “living in American” thing down, so I’m not worried that I’m going to accidentally break some law or do something terribly wrong. I’m very conscious of what I do here just because being abroad is sort of like playing a game you don’t yet know all the rules to. So I like the signs in Cambridge. They are amusingly earnest and to the point. Plus, they use turns of phrase and vocabulary that you would never find on similar signs in America.
“Keep off the Grass” is a sign that is everywhere in the colleges. Grass is very special here. It’s incredibly lush grass, fed by regular rain and a climate that doesn’t get too extreme in any season. In other words, it’s very inviting grass. Perhaps not all of us have that sheep dog instinct to run across any wide expanse of field we see, but I do. Alas, the grass is off limits unless I start now and direct all my energy to becoming a senior fellow with grass-walking privileges. The “Keep off the Grass” signs are especially impressive to me because they aren’t an empty warning. Porters, who are a mix between security guards, managers and everything in between, keep an eagle eye watch on the lawns lest a wayward tourist attempt to set foot on the grass. I now feel a sense of pride in the grass and want to protect it as well. I am personally offended when someone inches onto it in an attempt to take a better picture of something.
Cambridge is awash with centuries-old traditions and legends. I doubt whether any one person could possibly participate in them all, or even be aware of them all. At a certain point, traditions solidify into THE WAY THINGS ARE DONE HERE. My favorite so far has been that of Formal Hall, where everyone gets dressed up, wears their robes (unless you’re in King’s College, those cuh-razy liberals don’t have robes, poor them), and drinks endlessly flowing amounts of wine while waiting ages for food to be served. As you might have guessed from their name, “Formal Halls” tend to be both formal and held in halls. Not, alas, for us currently residing in Pembroke College. The hall here is being renovated this summer, which is somewhat reasonable because it was first built in the 1870s, but also somewhat weak because the roof is from the 1920s. It’s still a young whipper snapper in Cambridge terms! But they’re allowed to renovate, I guess.
In the mean time, they’ve put up a lovely marquee tent in one of the quads where we now take all our meals, including our Formal Halls. The tent is a very nice tent: large, water-tight, and they’ve even brought in the wooden tables from the real Hall to give it that “Hall” feeling that you can’t exactly capture with just a marquee tent. Even so it feels a bit like I’m eating every meal at a wedding or graduation or high school reunion.
Competition between colleges for who has the best food is fierce. Having just come from two years of eating at Northwestern dining halls, my stomach has adjusted itself such that even the food at Pembroke, which is getting a less-than-stellar rep this summer, is fine, if not spectacular. They seem very fond of beans. But they also have fish as an option at every regular meal. And has a Northwestern dining hall ever served duck EVER? Duck and beans was the main course at the Formal Hall I went to on Tuesday. It followed pre-dinner wine, bread, and a salad featuring candied walnuts and stilton cheese (so English!), and was itself followed by a dessert of passion-fruit sorbet, pistachio cake AND a creme brulee. The dessert was so excellent. There’s a joke amongst the King’s students here that the chef at King’s puts something gelatinous on every dessert plate. I am grateful that there is no similar reputation at Pembroke.
Before the meal even starts (but after everyone is a bit less than perfectly sober because they have been drinking wine on an empty stomach while trying to numb the hunger gnawing at their insides) a gong is…gonged. Everyone gets sheepish and stops talking and looks towards the front. Then a latin grace is read – for our halls they have given a paddle with the grace written on it to a classics major to read (and it was lovely). Everyone sits at long wooden tables. You must position yourself carefully so that you can sit by people you know and/or like, because once you sit down you cannot escape for the duration of the meal. Well, you could get up to go the bathroom, but there is no running around and chatting to people sitting further down the table. During the year they also have fellows sit at a High Table, which is where the High Tables at Northwestern Residential Colleges come from. In the Hall the “High Table” is literally higher than everyone else, as it sits on a raised platform. No such luck in the tent, where the special-ness of the High Table is merely emphasized by its being oriented a different direction than all the other tables. Apart from getting to sit at a special table, the fellows get food first. Everybody else isn’t allowed to use a camera while the fellows are sitting at their table. Fellows also, outside of Formal Hall, get to walk on the grass. This is a big deal. Being a fellow is, apparently, awesome. There were no fellows at the Formal I was at this week, probably because it’s summer and being held in a tent. Before the end of the summer I get to go to a Formal Hall at King’s College, which is a proper, indoor, could-have-been-in-Harry-Potter-but-turned-them-down (so they say) type of Hall. It’ll probably be better than the one at Pembroke (and the one at Queen’s College I went to, where the Hall is from 1979 and so modern) but the tent is slowly growing on me.
Bangers and mash! Kippers! Marmite! Banoffee! Bubble and squeak! Toad in the Hole! Spotted dick! Perhaps the English have not yet worked out how to make a meal sound appetizing by giving it a nice-sounding name. For a country whose culinary reputation is less than stellar they have an amazing variety of food that sounds slightly off-putting but is, in the end, just some arrangement of animal parts and starch. And boiled vegetables. “Mushy peas” is a legitimate, desired side dish.
One post is not anywhere near enough to talk about all the intricacies of British food, so I’m going to start small, with the Sainsbury’s Meal Deal that I have been feasting on for lunch basically every day. Sainsbury’s is a chain of grocery stores that is, comparably, super-affordable. I choose not to remember that everything I purchase in pounds is essentially twice as expensive as I think it is. Even so, Sainsbury’s rocks my world. They sell cartons of eight plums for 1 pound. Bags of 6 apples for 1.50 pound! Five cups of yogurt for 2 pounds! Very, very questionable looking store-brand beer that’s 1 pound for four pints. Who buys that? I don’t want to know.
But Sainsbury’s is currently good in my book because of their “Meal Deal” offers, where you can get a sandwich, side and drink for 3 pounds. Three pounds! If I acted like a grown up and got, say, the very simple ingredients that went into a sandwich and made them myself it would probably work out to cheaper than that. Except that these sandwiches are amazing. Okay, the sandwiches that I choose are amazing. I am not touching anything with egg salad, sweetcorn, roasted eggplant, or shredded cheese, ingredients that take a starring role in most of the pre-made sandwiches I have seen in UK airports, rest stops and grocery stores. On their own these things would be completely benign, but clearly they are SO GOOD you just can’t pick only one to have in your sandwich, which is why they are frequently combined in delightful pairings such as egg salad and roasted eggplant (sorry, “aubergine” if what eggplants are called in the UK), or sweetcorn with shredded cheese and prawns and mayonnaise. Also, I am baffled by the “shredded” aspect of the cheese. Why would you shred cheese to put in a sandwich? If it is shredded it just falls out of the sides and you look like a mess.
But I digress. When I partake of the Meal Deal I usually go for the lovely, classic, impossible to ruin BLT. The box the sandwich comes in has a handy label that says 15% bacon. At first I was stricken by the thought that the “bacon” was only 15% real. No, no, I soon realized, it’s the sandwich that is 15% bacon. Phew. The sides on offer vary from day to day but usually include single-serving bags of grapes or pineapple, salads, or some sort of cookie. And the drinks are basically any type of juice you could desire. I’m a big fan of the carbonated Elderflower drink, though I am curious who first thought it would be a good idea to make juice out of a flower, especially flowers that are poisonous unless cooked. Still, it’s a good drink that I think pairs excellently with the BLT and side of grapes.
Certain things probably come to mind when you hear the word “Scotland:” Bagpipes. Haggis. Sean Connery. If you, like me, are an American, “deep-fried Mars bars” is probably not going to be on your list of stereotypes of Scotland. Yet when my program leader was briefing us about our trip to Edinburgh, deep-fried Mars bars came up more than once. It appears that the English have this half-jokey idea that deep fried Mars bars are a Scottish food. This wasn’t a stereotype that I’d ever heard in America, and I couldn’t tell if that was because a) we are ignorant Americans and have no idea what sort of foods they sell in Scottish corner shops, b) it is an absurd stereotype with no basis in reality or c) deep-fried anything is clearly an American invention and if they have deep-dried Mars bars in Scotland it’s only because someone Scottish went to an American state fair and was inspired.
I did not see any deep-fried Mars bars during my three-ish days in Scotland, but I did see haggis, bagpipes and Sean Connery! To be fair they were all tourist-friendly versions of themselves: the haggis advertised at a shop on the High Street, a bagpiper busking in front of the old Parliament buildings and Sean Connery on a poster in a pub. But still, I had a great time in Scotland. Perhaps you thought I couldn’t get more enthused than my last gushy post about Cambridge? You were wrong. Scotland is awesome and Edinburgh can pretty much match Cambridge for cool history. Adam Smith AND J.K. Rowling? They have all the bases covered!
I was staying at Pollock Halls, part of the University of Edinburgh’s residences, and had a sink in my room. Don’t underestimate how nice it is to have a sink in your room. I don’t think it’s very common in the US but it’s the norm here in the UK and basically just makes life better. I’m not sure how efficient the plumbing is when you have a sink in every room, though. The trade off seemed to be having only one shower for the entire hallway. But still, having a sink is great. You can brush your teeth whenever you want! At three in the morning! Again at six a.m! Go crazy with your private sink!
The first night I was there I walked all around the center of the city with some friends. Thank to the northern location of Edinburgh the sun didn’t set until much later than I’m used to, meaning I could enjoy seeing the sights after dinner without feeling like soon everything would be cast into darkness and I would be in imminent danger. And man, are there sights to see. Edinburgh is on the Firth of Forth (say that five times fast) and surrounded by the Pentland Hills, meaning the views are incredible. From various places in the city you can see the Salisbury Crags (imposing grass covered cliffs that you can climb), the Castle, the water, the Prince’s Street Gardens, St. Giles Cathedral, or everything all at once.
I took a little trip to Rosslyn Chapel in the morning, where disappointingly I did not find the Holy Grail. The roof of the Chapel is being restored, so it’s covered in scaffolding, which disappointed me at first. However, the most interesting parts are inside, where every nook and cranny is covered with intricate carvings of flowers, stars, faces and animals. In the afternoon I went somewhere completely different – the new Scottish Parliament, whose modern architecture looks like the Galactic Republic shopped for its headquarters at IKEA (do not argue with this simile! It is entirely accurate! And obviously in no way an exaggeration!). One part of the building has a roof made to resemble the bottom of boats’ hulls, the offices of the Members of Scottish Parliament have window seats called “Think Pods,” and the debating chamber walls are covered in what look like cocktail shakers but are really the silhouettes of the Scottish people. The government of Scotland is really interesting – they have domain over certain areas while the UK parliament still control things like foreign affairs, everyone gets two votes and ends up with eight people representing them, and they are very keen on being more effective and cooperative than the MPs in British Parliament.
By the time I got out of Parliament a lot of the attractions were closing, so I didn’t get to go into the National Gallery or any of the other places I wanted to go. Holyrood Palace was closed to visitors because the Queen was there. I mean, no big deal, I guess I wouldn’t want people touring my palace while I was in residence. The palace stands at the bottom of the Royal Mile, which stretches up all the way to the castle (is having a palace and a castle overkill? I think not.). It’s a lovely walk through the heart of the Old Town and when you get to the top you can wind your way down to the New Town, where you can be like me and swing by the National Archives of Scotland (no Holy Grail and then no Declaration of Independence to steal. So disappointing).
After a night that involved going to a Ceilidh, a traditional Celtic dance that’s basically a square dance to Celtic music, I dragged myself out of bed to take a two hour bus ride to get to Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. I hiked/climbed/scrambled up a mountain for a few hours to get a view of lakes and more mountains. It was totally worth the fact that my legs hurt in places I didn’t know could hurt (we have muscles at the sides of our knees? Really?). When we got back to Edinburgh we showered and then strolled around trying to find a pub that wasn’t already packed to the brim with people. It was a great way to end a great weekend.
As soon as you set foot in Cambridge one thing becomes obvious. Every building associated with a college is meant to remind you of the power and greatness of the university. It would be impossible to walk around the city center and absent-mindedly forget that you were in the home of one of the oldest and best universities in the world. Your thought process might go like this: “hmmm, humm, maybe I’ll stop for a coffee OH MY WHAT IS THAT A CATHEDRAL?!” No, no, don’t panic. It’s only a college chapel, albeit one that puts Alice Millar to shame.
The way Cambridge is set up as a university encourages this type of architectural splendor. For one thing, it started way back when everything hip and cool was Gothic and imposing. None of this “lets make our library look like a bookshelf!” nonsense (sorry, Northwestern library. I have nothing but love for you!). College buildings that don’t look at first glance like a cathedral tend to look like a castle to my naive American eyes. The fact that the university is a collection of colleges means there are representations of different architectural styles in every college, every college has its own hall, chapel and rooms, and everyone competed against everyone else, leading to bigger and fancier buildings. The fact that all the colleges are arranged around quads also really affects the way Cambridge looks as a town. Because colleges face in on themselves, streets will be bordered by block-long buildings and appear very dark and cramped, but as soon as you pass a gate you get a glimpse of huge green lawns, statues and stained glass. You’ve also got to be careful not to walk into anything (or anyone, ahem) as you gaze slack-jawed up at the decorated rooftops and spires.
I attended a lecture given by Professor Jonathan Stenberg last night on the topic of “Why Cambridge is Unique.” It was very interesting and left me with the impression that Cambridge is unique because despite its undeniable academic success there aren’t copies of Cambridge popping up all over the place. In other words, Cambridge is so ridiculous that either no one understands it well enough to emulate it, or actively don’t want to emulate it even though it pops out Nobel Prize winners and Prime Ministers like Northwestern pops out Gawker articles (except more). For a long time it had its own jail and the only exams you could sit were in math. Every nook and cranny has an association with someone incredibly famous and important. The Eagle pub, right down the road from where I’m staying, is where Crick and Watson announced their discovery of the double helix of DNA. The Rylands Suite in King’s College where my lectures about the Bloomsbury group meet is where Virginia Woolf attended a lunch that inspired parts of A Room of One’s Own.
So even if I try to just walk to class or the grocery store without remembering that Isaac Newton or John Maynard Keynes or whoever, a plaque on a wall somewhere will remind me that I’m standing in front of the lab where the electron was discovered. It’s cool. It’s very cool. Very, very cool. I can’t stop saying the word cool in my head with every step I take. How could you, when you are walking down the streets that the creators of quantum mechanics and Winnie the Pooh and a thousand other important things walked down?
The title is not a typo. Well, technically it is, but only because “Den Haag” isn’t spelled with six g’s. It certainly is pronounced like it is. I wanted you to feel as if you, too, were in the capital of the Netherlands, home of the World Criminal Court.
When I get on a flight to Amsterdam (which isn’t all that often, I guess, so I shouldn’t complain) I always worry about what people will think. The stately older gentlepeople headed on tours to see tulip fields eye me. They see that I am college-aged. They see my fraying backpack and slightly greasy hair. I know what they are thinking. But guys! I want to say My hair is greasy because I left my packing to the last minute and didn’t have time to shower (sorry, plane ride seat-mate)!! I need you to know the truth, the real reason I am going to the land of legalized pot and prostitution: windmills.
Also, to visit my mother who works as a lawyer in Den Haagggggg. But on this visit I dragged her with me to see the windmills. There are windmills all over the place. You see them even before you leave Schiphol Airport because of all the souvenir shops. So you don’t have to drag someone very far if you want to see windmills. However, having seen your run of the mill (haha) windmills on my last trip to the Netherlands, I decided to up the ante and go to the Kinderdijk, where 19 windmills were built in 1740.
To get there we took a tram to the train station in Den Haag, a train to Rotterdam and a bus to Kinderdijk. The Netherlands has a great “Chipkaart” system where you can load money on one card and use it on trams, trains and busses that go all over the place. Once we got to the Kinderdijk itself we rented bikes (for only 2.50 Euros an hour!) and rode around the windmills. Dutch windmills aren’t the type of mill used to actually mill anything, they were built to help drain the land. Kinderdijk was built where two rivers meet – a lot of water to drain means a lot of windmills. The result is incredibly picturesque and one can see how the Dutch Masters were inspired by the gentle rivers, huge windmills and sleepy cows. It is very pastoral, down to the smell of hay and goose poop.
Obviously there is much more to the Netherlands than windmills, but I only had two jet-lagged days there and I had to pick and choose. Now I’ve made it to England and have already been reminded, by a ride on the airport shuttle, how incredible it is that huge busses manage to drive around teeny tiny roundabouts and not force everyone else off the road. Tomorrow the plan is to take two trains and end up in Cambridge, my base for the rest of the summer.
