England: Cambridge
The two best universites of the UK are called: Oxbridge, the mix of Oxford and Cambridge. Although none of the Harry Potter movies were filmed there, I went to go visit Stephanie — who is studying abroad there — and because the Caltech house system is modeled after Cambridge’s college system.
There are 30 (ish, i think) colleges at Cambridge, and each has its own dining hall, administration, cathedral, and culture. From all, the three most famous colleges are King’s College, St. John’s College, and Trinity College.
First college to visit is my friend’s college: Corpus Christi College. It’s one of the smallest colleges, but corpus christi has a beautiful yard!
Now, onto my tourist time. I visited King’s college. Through this college, you can walk to the back and see their mini herd of cows and a nice park alongside the water.
And here is a view of inside the cathedral:
The next college to visit was Trinity College. The notable part in this college is the library, but it was closed the day I was there ): It’s closed on Sundays!
Here is the view of their cathedral:
Different areas of the college have rooms that are rated at different prices, too.. But everywhere you look, the buildings are all 16th century architecture, and 10/10 would totally live here.
Through the back of King’s college, you can see the Bridge of Sighs. there is a similar one at Oxford that is named Bridge of Sighs as well. I have no idea why, but apparently it’s famous.
The last famous college to visit was St. John’s. It has a huge field and a magnificent atmosphere and I realized I want to live in a castle again when I’m a billionaire.
Around campus, there is a narrow but widely used canal. People practice rowing and students run tours through the canals here.
There really isnt much else to do there, but I did see that people suggested the botanical garden as a place to visit, so I did! I expect it is magnificent during spring, but things were a bit drab when I visited (late october).
But the tropical section in the greenhouses offered some more color!
The day I went was an apple feast, but sadly Steph and I missed it just by an hour. But we did get to see everyone packing up, and one of the stalls was nice enough to show us some things after they had wrapped up their apples. This stall had a display of all sorts of different types of apples. The one in the photo is the one bred from Newton’s tree of gravity. #science.
The food scene here was pretty decent! A lot of students seem to eat in their halls because there are more affordable options, but there are enough restaurants to keep them entertained for the weekends when the halls are closed.
The first thing I ate was crepes from the Cambridge crepe truck. Ranging from 3–6 pounds, there are interesting mixes for savory and dessert crepes, and the truck is usually situated in the main shopping plaza area.
Another place that I was a fan of was the Butcher Annie burger house. Their service is a bit slow, but their popcorn onion appetizer dish is amazing, their burgers are decent, and their food is just overall affordable and good. But one awful thing was this “happy ending” dessert. It looked half eaten. I mean, it tasted good.. but… ya know..
One interesting thing to checkout is the open market. they have a variety of things from olives, chili, bread, porcelain, sheepskin, clothing, to leather goods.
The highlight of my trip was the formal dinner at Corpus Christi college. The students dress up in their academic robes and gather into the hall together. And I had to take a photo because they looked like Hogwarts students:
Prayers are said in latin and after a gong announces the entrance of some important people that sit at the high table, everyone else in the room stands up. It was a level of respect and seriousness that is usually unseen in colleges so that was cool. Dinner was also super fancy with wine glasses and appropriate utensils. I also learned of a tradition from stephanie, which is that when someone throws a penny in your drink, you have to down it. cool, but very unhygenic…
