Day 17: Kickin' It in Cambridge!

Today started very, very rushed for me! There absolutely must be some sort of phone monster that turns off my alarm or something! I have never been this bad at waking up to an alarm! Anyways, the plan was to get up at 5:15 and be able to leisurely get ready to leave by 6:15. NOPE! I woke up at 6:14 to Barron pounding on my door :( In my defense, I got ready in literally 5 minutes, so I think that makes up for sleeping in! Maybe it was the exhilaration for the day to come... Barron and I would get to go to Cambridge University! We volunteer at the Glenthorne High School and it's their Challenge Week this week. During Challenge Week, the students have opportunities to see what it's like to go to college or straight into a job. So, the high school organized campus visits for the students to partake in. Lucky for Barron and I, Cambridge was a destination!

We caught the bus in order to get to Barnes station. At Barnes, we took the above-ground train to Clapham Junction, at which we made an impromptu and rushed decision to take a train that we thought would get us to Sutton. Wrong! When we figured out we were on the wrong train, we hopped off at Balham Station to see when the next Sutton train departed. Thank goodness we did, because apparently we were headed into a bad part of London, which I found out later! Unfortunately, the next train left at 7:26, which would arrive at Sutton past 7:45, when the bus to Cambridge University was going to leave. :(

Since it was a few minutes past 7, Barron and I quickly decided to take the Northern Line (an underground train) to Morden, which was getting us closer, but definitely not close enough, to Sutton. Once arriving at Morden, Barron called a taxi at 7:35 (which only cost us 10 pounds), we arrived at Glenthorne High School. Once we got to the high school, we realized we had literally used 4 different types of transportation to get there -- bus, train, tube, and taxi.... Whew!

We met with Mr. Parrish, the equivalent of the Director of the junior/senior years of high school, and got on a coach towards Cambridge. It took about a solid hour to get through London, and then another hour and 15 minutes to get to Cambridge. I definitely conked out in the back seat... It was lovely :) After we arrived in Cambridge, we were lost for about 30 minutes and did a few laps around the main library in order to find the Faculty of Divinity building where we were to meet our guide. He, interestingly enough, is a professor of Ancient Judaism. Over coffee and tea, he had a brief discussion with the high school students and then gave us a tour of some of the colleges at Cambridge University -- we got to see the Law facilities as well as the Ancient Greece and Rome program buildings.

The tour guide and our group

We then went through Queens College, Corpus Christie College, and Kings College. All of us ate lunch at the dining hall in Corpus Christie that looks like the dining hall in the picture below (that one is from Queens College). While I was walking through campus, I was thoroughly impressed! It seemed very regal and proper to me and also had a scholarly and serious tone. It was incredible!


Lunch was really fun because the dining hall was so darn fancy! Afterward, while the students were meeting with a senior member of the admission department, Barron and I went shopping for a few items and walked around the campus. The city of Cambridge itself is so nice too! It was a bustling environment. Also, interestingly enough, the colleges stand alone. They each have their own traditions, but do come together when it's time to collaborate on admissions. Also, the town is dominated by the university... even the shops located around town are owned by the colleges, so the colleges get more money if their shops are more successful. Interesting!


While walking around, we stumbled across this bridge built by Sir Isaac Newton! According to Cambridge tales, the bridge was built to be geometrically-perfect and at first did not require any bolts; however, some staff broke down the bridge to understand the physics behind it and once they rebuilt it, they had to use bolts. Fact or Myth? You decide! There are also people "punting down the river" in the picture. Barron and I were going to do it, but we sadly ran out of time!


Below is where Erasmus (a Dutch humanist and theologian) studied and stayed at Cambridge!


Throughout today, I became aware of a few small, but interesting, differences between the UK and US! When you go down a staircase, as an American you would gravitate towards the right side, but British people gravitate toward the left! I guess that would make sense since they drive on the left side. But it was fun to find out why I've ran into so many people on stairs ;) Also, on the highway (or "motorway"), you stay in the left lane, unless you're passing someone... in which you pass on the right. I think I would be a horrible driver in England! All my instincts would be totally backwards! You wouldn't think about it, but your instincts are totally flip-flopped even when it comes to crossing the street. Depending on which side you are on, you naturally look to a certain side because you have memorized by heart that the cars come on the right side of the street. That is obviously backwards here! Thank goodness they actually tell you on the pavement which way to look when crossing the street... it has probably prevented a lot of accidents that way!


On the way home, Barron and I interviewed a handful of students about what citizenship means to them and their perspective of globalization. After getting back into London, we then took the train home and got back around 6:20 PM or so. It was a long, but great day!

We both had to quickly eat, catch up with how everyone else's days were, and get ready for the Pub Quiz Night (Trivia Night) in Putney. Our whole Fulbright group split up into two teams. With four Fulbrighters, on Roehampton faculty member, and one British student on each team, we tried our best to level the playing field. Basically, there were ten teams participating in the whole pub and everyone is given an answer sheet. There is a "host" of the quiz night (ours was named Casper!) and he has a microphone and asks questions about culture and trivia. Sometimes he would play the introduction of a song and you had to guess it, or he'd give you the tagline of a movie, etc. It was fun but I could hardly contribute!! I think I could answer maybe 3 out of the 60 questions! Surprisingly though, my team placed fourth out of 10 teams, so we were pretty happy with ourselves :)

Before we all called it a night, everyone had group meetings to discuss their video projects. Our ideas are coming together nicely... I'm excited to get started with putting everything together!