Ok so I know I still haven't written from Paris... the reason for this is pretty obvious, you saw, the last entry I left blank... not on purpose really, simply because my feelings about my experience are so blurry an intangible, such an indescribable mix, that nothing but a blank screen is what results of my futile attempts to write... it has been a month... a month of exhaustion... in every way.. good and bad, just nothing and everything like I had imagined. Just a sad realization that 3 months is too awkward of a time lapse to stay in a place, anywhere, let alone Paris.
But this entry shall be about Cambridge... why? Well cause I am in it right now, it seems appropriate, and for some reason when I actually travel and not stay long in a place I can better look at it with some sort of perspective.
Why am I here? I mean I can guess what you are thinking, so many amazing , huge cities, so much to see and do in Europe, why the hell Cambridge?
I can start by saying Zhiping. This is a fantastic girl I met in Cannes, she is a 20-year-old Singaporean and just finished her law degree here, in Cambridge. Now she is taking a sabbatical, by doing a masters degree in social anthropology! Not dumb this girl... but the thing is she also seems to share this love of everything that I have for life: this curiosity and need to know things, and to love history and art and music... everything! We are very similar, and that is why with only two weeks of knowing her I still felt comfortable with coming and visiting, after she had invited me of course.
I got here on Halloween but felt so exhausted after the plane, and three-hour bus ride that we simply went to bed. It was yesterday that she took me around this amazing university, and I got a gist of how it works...
You belong to a college, but it had nothing to do with what you are studying. Cambridge is pretty much a huge congregation of 30 colleges, and your admission decision lays in the hands of only that college. There is no applying to one, getting rejected and then trying for another.
We walked along all the most famous colleges, some of them known for their "poshness" like Trinity, others for their leftist ways (like Kings). Well the history if the College you can actually find in Wikipidia, probably with better accuracy than me. So go ahead and do that, while I go back to talking about my trip.
Ok!!! I have to tell you about the lawn!!! Each college is pretty much set-up around a courtyard, with a perfect clean-cut grass that maintains its state of purity by being off limits to students. Only "fellows" (which means professors as far as I understood) can step on this grass and cut diagonally through the college. All the rest are bound to watch them do it, and cry internally.... this is one of the many crazy traditions that in the end make the whole Cambridge experience something taken out of another century.
The formal dinner! Once a week your college will have a formal, in the huge, old dinning hall that all of them have. High ceilings, thick wooden doors, absurdly large tables. These kids dress up (dresses for girls, suits and ties for boys) wear a gown on top, and look fabulous once a week to sit down and have a three course meal. Since Zhipping is a graduate student I got to sit in one of the first two tables, close to the mistress (the dean, sort of) who gives a speech in Latin before a gong sounds and everyone starts to eat. Pretty fantastic.
The Orchard! We walked around 45 minutes through long grass and angry cows to get to this place. It is a sort of teahouse with its many tables all placed outside in an orchard. This is where Rupert Brooke, Virginia Wolf, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes amongst many others sat down to drink tea, converse and write poetry.
Rupert Brooke:
"If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England."
But this entry shall be about Cambridge... why? Well cause I am in it right now, it seems appropriate, and for some reason when I actually travel and not stay long in a place I can better look at it with some sort of perspective.
Why am I here? I mean I can guess what you are thinking, so many amazing , huge cities, so much to see and do in Europe, why the hell Cambridge?
I can start by saying Zhiping. This is a fantastic girl I met in Cannes, she is a 20-year-old Singaporean and just finished her law degree here, in Cambridge. Now she is taking a sabbatical, by doing a masters degree in social anthropology! Not dumb this girl... but the thing is she also seems to share this love of everything that I have for life: this curiosity and need to know things, and to love history and art and music... everything! We are very similar, and that is why with only two weeks of knowing her I still felt comfortable with coming and visiting, after she had invited me of course.
I got here on Halloween but felt so exhausted after the plane, and three-hour bus ride that we simply went to bed. It was yesterday that she took me around this amazing university, and I got a gist of how it works...
You belong to a college, but it had nothing to do with what you are studying. Cambridge is pretty much a huge congregation of 30 colleges, and your admission decision lays in the hands of only that college. There is no applying to one, getting rejected and then trying for another.
We walked along all the most famous colleges, some of them known for their "poshness" like Trinity, others for their leftist ways (like Kings). Well the history if the College you can actually find in Wikipidia, probably with better accuracy than me. So go ahead and do that, while I go back to talking about my trip.
Ok!!! I have to tell you about the lawn!!! Each college is pretty much set-up around a courtyard, with a perfect clean-cut grass that maintains its state of purity by being off limits to students. Only "fellows" (which means professors as far as I understood) can step on this grass and cut diagonally through the college. All the rest are bound to watch them do it, and cry internally.... this is one of the many crazy traditions that in the end make the whole Cambridge experience something taken out of another century.
The formal dinner! Once a week your college will have a formal, in the huge, old dinning hall that all of them have. High ceilings, thick wooden doors, absurdly large tables. These kids dress up (dresses for girls, suits and ties for boys) wear a gown on top, and look fabulous once a week to sit down and have a three course meal. Since Zhipping is a graduate student I got to sit in one of the first two tables, close to the mistress (the dean, sort of) who gives a speech in Latin before a gong sounds and everyone starts to eat. Pretty fantastic.
The Orchard! We walked around 45 minutes through long grass and angry cows to get to this place. It is a sort of teahouse with its many tables all placed outside in an orchard. This is where Rupert Brooke, Virginia Wolf, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes amongst many others sat down to drink tea, converse and write poetry.
Rupert Brooke:
"If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England."
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