June 20th
I woke up early after the Coheed show. I left for Cambridge around 8 or so. It was a short walk to the south eastern station where I went to Kings Cross to take the Great Northern line to Cambridge. Apparently, it is not covered under the Oyster card but I didn't find that out until later.
It's about an hour and a half to Cambridge from London on this train. It was strange to me how quickly London turns into country. 30 minutes in and it's farmland. The views were nice. nothing spectacular, but still good. The whole trip was about an hour and a half on the way there.
Cambridge Station is built outside Cambridge. This was because they didn't want young men at the college to be tempted by those who come in on trains. Or something.
Anyway, Cambridge was not set up like I expected. It has a lot of shops between the train station and the University. Mostly food and clothing stores. I suppose maybe it's like how Oxford, Ohio. It's a college town after all. But it feels nothing like Boston feels. It's kinda far from London.
I had time to kill so I bought breakfast at a coffeeshop. I then walked to the visitor centre where our tour was going to start. Unfortunately, it was May Balls, which are giant parties for the different colleges and graduation, which meant that there were not very many students and that there was a lot of preparation going on.
The tour was mostly of King's College and we went to King's Chapel which was amazing. The pictures don't do it justice. Our tour guide was really knowledgable and fun. There were mostly older adults, who probably wanted to send their kids thee. But there was one girl a bit younger than me from Malaysia. The guide talked about the coffee shops that Watson and Crick worked at and about Stephen Hawking.
The most interesting thing though, to me, was the Corpus Clock. I had no idea this was even a thing and I find it fascinating. It's in front of Corpus Christi college. A grass hopper sits at the top of the circular clock and faces left while the clock rotates clockwise. I mean it's just fantastic. Here is the wikipedia article on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Clock
After the tour was over, I went on a punting tour. A punt boat has a person standing to propel it by sticking a pole into the water and pushing against the bottom. Our tour guide was starting Cambridge in the fall to study history. It was short, but really fun. It was such a peaceful day and it was nice and sunny.
After the punting tour, I went to a few of the parks within the campus and then checked out Emmanuel college and then headed back to London. The train back had several stops, unlike the train on the way which just had one. I had to work on my final paper for a class on the train, so it was probably better it was longer.
When I got to the King's Cross station, it was about 6pm. King's Cross is near the British Library and the British Museum Center. I decided to check out the library. There was a free exhibit, which I assume is permanent, which just has a bunch of old stuff in it. The Magna Carta is displayed there, along with an old copy of the Illiad, diaries of Jane Austen, and old Bibles. After that, I went to the Russian Revolution exhibit, which was a pay for one. It was alright.
After that, I went to see if I could get access to the Reading Rooms. They asked me why I needed one. I said to look around. They asked for what and then asked if I was in research. I told them i worked for a university and was a graduate student. They had me write some stuff down I wanted to look at and then called me back. They asked for my address, passport, etc. I gave them my .edu address. And then they took my picture and I am a proud owner of a British Library Reading Room card.
Let's hope I can go back there to use it.
After that, I ate at some pizza place and that some really delicious cidre. I am going to look for some to bring back home. I then had to stay up to finish my paper.